Way Forward
Choosing a point of view
All of us like writing in the most natural way possible. It becomes the duty of a writer to let the readers think carefully about the point of view. Many writers often rewrite their stories if they feel that the point of view doesn’t seem right.
- First person point of view: The reader can be fooled to trust the narrator despite the narrator not being a reliable reporter. (mysteries, recounted tales, fictional confessions)
- Second person point of view: It works well in good, simple storytelling. (recipes, assembly instructions, children )
- Third person point of view: It creates the most distance between a reader & the events. Its always seen as the most reliable, neutral point of view. Through this, the author can select the point of view of a single character or be omniscient (all-knowing, all present) & move in & out of the minds of all the characters.
Point of view is not just limited to writing in stories or academic writing, nut it is being used a lot in social media as well, videos, TikTok, memes, captions, etc. to make the content more interesting for the viewers.
What does POV mean?
Meaning of POV: Point of View means what the narrator is trying to communicate to his/ her audience through the story. With the help of the author’s viewpoint, we get to know which person or character is experiencing the event happening in the story. It determines how much the reader should know at one given point in time. Essentially, point of view refers to the “eyes” of the narrative voice that tell us the author’s vision from which the story is being presented.
Example: In the movie Maleficent, we get to know how the story unfolds from the negative or the gray character in the story portrayed by Maleficent instead of Aurora, the other main female protagonist. We get to know how even an evil character can have some good traits.
Through this, we understand how the story can be seen from a different angle & how it also leads to the audience getting to know the other point of view. This other point of view also enables the viewer to be much more engaged in the story & gives us unseen information & opinions.