Writing Stellar Scenes: Part 2—Point of View.

Choosing the right point of view for your scenes is essential and goes way beyond technical decisions about pronouns.

Today, we’ll talk about the crucial choices you’ll need to make for your scenes.

FYI: This post contains affiliate links. If you use these links to buy something we may earn a commission. For more information click here and thanks, as always, for your support!

Welcome back to my series on scene writing!

We started with a discussion of why writing in scene in sooo important (find that post here) for creating engaging stories. Last week, I talked about the eight essential elements of a scene. You can read the whole thing here, but to recap, here are all eight:

1. Character – who will be there? 

2. Setting – where are they?

3. Goal – what do the characters want to accomplish? 

4. Event or Situation – what is happening? 

5. Action – What will each character do or say? 

6. Emotion (Reaction) – How will each character react to what is done/said? Why? 

7. (Incomplete) Resolution – How will the event/situation end? What will make readers want to keep reading onward? 

8. Purpose – How does this scene move the story forward, develop characters, and/or add to the conflict?

Today I’m starting an eight week series all about these essential elements of scene writing.

Let’s dive in!

Essential Scene Element #1: Character

This element seems pretty obvious—we need at least one character on the page to make a scene.

Now, this isn’t a post about writing scenes, not about developing characters. But I will say that writing in scene makes it essential that you know your character’s inside and out. Why? Because scenes are driven by characters acting and reacting to the situations you’ve set up.

If you don’t know your characters well enough, you won’t be able to make crucial decisions about what happens and why. Bottom line: do the deep work to understand who your characters are—then start planning or revising your scenes. [P.S. If you need help with that stage, check out my two favorite books on character development The Craft of Character & Breathing Life into Your Characters.]

So, if I’m not talking about developing characters, what is this post about?

Today, I’m going to focus on the most important character decision you’ll need to make in each scene.

What is it?

Point of view.

First, a quick definition:

Point of view (POV) is the lens you use to access the narrative.

This is the character (or narrator) seeing, hearing, and thinking about the scene.

You can choose to have one character speak to readers as if they are telling the story directly with “I” pronouns (1st-person) or have a narrator who tells the story using he/she/they pronouns (3rd-person). If you choose 3rd person, you can choose a narrator who is in the story or create a narrator that exists apart from the story.

POV Considerations

If you’re writing your entire novel from one point of view, you don’t have to worry about choosing the POV on a scene-by-scene basis. However, you’re not off the hook yet.

You still have to consider what that character can see/hear/sense and know in the scene.

For example, your 1st-person narrator can’t see into other characters’ minds. They can’t know what’s happening two doors down or across town unless they see it on the news. The same goes for a limited 3rd-person narrator. It is sometimes tempting to jump into another person’s head and supply information that your point of view character doesn’t have. Don’t do it!

Even if you think your reader needs that info, resist the temptation. For many writers, that limitation can actually be beneficial because it will keep you away from info-dump territory. Staying firmly rooted in one characters’ mind can ensure that you stay away from historical/worldbuilding tangents by keeping the focus on the present action and the characters’ feelings about what is happening around them.

Choosing Your POV Character

If you’re writing a multiple point of view story, you need to choose a point of view character for each scene.

Sometimes the choice is clear, if only one of your POV characters is present, that’s your answer. When your POV characters are interacting, you have to decide which character will offer a more compelling perspective or better serve your goals for that scene.

The most common advice is to ask which character has the most at stake in any given scene and make them the point of view.

That advice works most of the time. Why? We want to be in the head of the person with the strongest reactions. The character waiting to hear if they’ve won the grand prize at the pageant is probably going to have a more interesting perspective than the lighting guy whose just waiting to get paid at the end of the night.

However the choice isn’t always that clear cut. Here are two other questions to consider:

1) Does the character with the most at stake have a relevant secret?

In other words, does the character have a secret that they would logically think about given the circumstances of the scene? If the answer is yes, then don’t make them the point of view character. Why? Because, if you’re in that character’s head, you can’t hide the secret from readers—it’s a cheap trick and your readers will not appreciate it. Instead, use a different point of view character and keep your characters’ secret safe a little while longer.

2) What do you want readers to see, hear, feel or know?

Keep in mind, point of view is more than a technical choice. Each character has a unique way of seeing the world. That lens will color the way they describe events and other characters. That lens will also determine the information they emphasize or gloss over.

Think about what you want readers to focus on and what you want them to feel after reading the scene. Depending on the situation, changing the point of view can completely altar your readers’ expectations and perceptions of what’s happening. When you’re writing fantasy, one character might have cultural or magical knowledge that provides needed context for another characters’ actions. Depending on who narrates the scene, you can completely altar the readers’ perception of what that character is doing and what it signifies. Narrate it from a character who understands and the action is unremarkable. Narrate the same event from the perspective of a character who doesn’t understand and is in fact offended by that person’s actions—it’s a whole different experience.

You can even play with that technique to create suspense. Let’s go back to the pageant example. A contestant might have more at stake, but the lighting guy is more likely to look up just as a heavy light fixture starts to wobble right when then main character takes her place on stage right underneath it…

3) What do your readers want from the scene?

You can think about this question in terms of genre expectations and what each scene does for the story as a whole.

If you’re writing a romance—think about the way that the relationship is transforming. Who is drawing closer to falling in love or moving farther away from the other person? Do you want readers to misunderstand or misinterpret a characters’ action? Make sure they’re in the head of the person who gets things wrong!

If you’re writing fantasy or science fiction—think about the world building. Who knows what’s going on with the magic or technology or politics? Who might misunderstand a situation and thus misdirect readers to set up a later reveal? Do you want characters in the know or will putting the head of a character who doesn’t understand the magic help orient them in the story?

Still not sure who to put in the driver’s seat of your scene?

Don’t worry about it too much. Sometimes, you’ll need to test out different versions of the same scene before deciding which one to use. And don’t worry that your time will be wasted if you rewrite a scene from multiple perspectives—each version can teach you things about your characters. Even better, you could someday use those deleted scenes as a reader magnet to help you market your book. Win-win!

Final Thoughts

Point of view sets the tone for your entire story. Seriously—it effects everything else in your writing. That’s why it’s so important to make a careful, informed choice. But don’t get me wrong, just because it’s important doesn’t mean there are strict rules you have to follow when making those decisions.

Don’t be afraid to play with point of view in your story and don’t believe all the “rules” out there. Seriously. There are still writing teachers who will tell you that readers hate switching POVs despite all the bestsellers out there with multi-POVs.

There are other myths out there as well—like the idea that you need to give each POV character equal page time (you don’t) or that you should always rotate through point of view characters in the same order (nope, just follow the action).

How do you sort through all the confusing advice?

Read widely in your genre and get inspired by the many different ways that authors are handling point-of-view nowadays. Including some who are going hog-wild and mixing 1st & 3rd person POVs in one book—and guess what, it works! Don’t believe me, check out Lake Silence by Anne Bishop and The Bone Shard Daughter by Andrea Stewart.

I hope this post has helped you think through the first big decision you’ll have to make when writing your scenes.

Next week, we’ll jump into the next element: setting!

Until then, happy writing!

Still not sure how to approach this whole scene writing thing?

Olivia can help!

Learn more about my coaching and my editing services.

FYI: This post contains affiliate links. If you use these links to buy something we may earn a commission. For more information click here and thanks, as always, for your support!