Thanks for joining me for another instalment of my First Draft series. This instalment is all about point of view (POV) and tense.
What is POV?
The point of view refers to the narrator. Who is telling the story?
3 Types of POV
First person: The narrator is telling you their own story. ‘The room was just how I had left it.’
Second person: The narrator is telling the story to another character or the reader using the word ‘you’. ‘You enter the room and see nothing has changed.’
Third person: The narrator tells the story of another, as an outsider. ‘The room was just how he had left it.’
I like to write in first person. All my books are in qfirst person. In Thrown to The Blue, I have 2 POVs, both in first person. That was a lot of fun to write.
What is tense?
Narrative tense is when your story is happening/ or has happened. Past or present.
Types of Tense
Past tense: You are telling the story as if it has already happened. ‘I jumped in the car and sped off.’
Present tense: You are telling the story as if it is happening right now. ‘I jump in the car and speed off.’
You will find that there are preferred POVs in regards to tenses. Third person past tense is preferred by many writers. I write in first person present tense. I find the intimacy of first person blends with the immediacy of present tense, the same way the unlimited view point of third person works well with the flexibility of past tense.
There is no right or wrong when choosing POV and tense, as long as you are consistent in your choice throughout.
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