Point of View: Why Narrative Perspective Can Make or Break Your Story
Written by Leslie WattsEdited by Shawn Coyne
Finding the right point of view is one of the most important—and least understood—challenges writers face.
Point of view extends far beyond the choice of first, second, or third person. POV determines all that a reader knows about the world inside a story. Is the murder told from the criminal’s, the detective’s, or the victim’s vantage point? An awful lot rides on that decision.
In short, a story’s point of view guides the characters, message, and events that matter.
In Point of View: Why Narrative Perspective Can Make or Break Your Story, Story Grid Publishing Editor-in-Chief Leslie Watts provides examples from dozens of masterworks to help writers understand telling and showing points of view and narrative devices. Does a telling narrator live inside or outside the story? Is the focus of a showing POV external or internal? Every choice has an impact.
Watts offers a revolutionary approach to point of view, demonstrating how deep study of narrative perspective can empower and uplift storytellers themselves. When writers truly master point of view they can share the messages they want to share and bring their stories to life.
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Leslie Watts is a certified Story Grid editor, writer, and podcaster. She’s been writing for as long as she can remember: from her sixth-grade magazine about cats to writing practice while drafting opinions for an appellate court judge. When the dust settled after her children were born, she launched Writership.com to help writers unearth the treasure in their manuscripts. She believes writers become better storytellers through practice, and that editors owe a duty of care to help writers with specific and supportive guidance to meet reader expectations and express their unique gifts in the world.
SHAWN COYNE created, developed, and expanded the story analysis and problem-solving methodology The Story Grid throughout his quarter-century-plus book publishing career. A seasoned story editor, book publisher and ghostwriter, Coyne has also co-authored The Ones Who Hit the Hardest: The Steelers, The Cowboys, the '70s and the Fight For America's Soul with Chad Millman and Cognitive Dominance: A Brain Surgeon's Quest to Out-Think Fear with Mark McLaughlin, M.D. With his friend and editorial client Steven Pressfield, Coyne runs Black Irish Entertainment LLC, publisher of the cult classic book The War of Art. With his friend and editorial client Tim Grahl, Coyne oversees the Story Grid Universe, LLC, which includes Story Grid University and Story Grid Publishing.