Writer's tutorial entry; The power of the POVs

You and your POVs
POVs are very important in creative writing, if you are already a creative writer you will be quite familiar with them. POVs are our point of views, as we all know, we have three point of view and this include the first POV, the Second POV and the third POV. Sometimes our choice of POV can actually influence the mood of any creative prose. Even sometimes multiple POV’s are essential to some pieces, essentially the longer creative proses like novels and novella. Of course multiple POVs is a rare occurrence in short stories and novelette. This is because, the primary essence of multiple POVs is mostly not available in this shorter pieces. I know you will begin to wonder why such essence is missing in such pieces. The reason behind this is the fact that most of the shorter pieces lack the complexities of multiple plots and subplots. When there exists multiple plots we often discover that multiple POVs might be needed especially because our POVs identity might seem human. In other to avoid complexity I need to break down this piece into three parts. The first part would involve weighing the strength and weaknesses of individual POVs and stressing how they impact the mood of your piece. The second part would be on the Identity of our POVs and how they differ across the three POVs. The third part would be about how we can maximize the potential of these POVs in our creative pieces especially longer pieces that needed multiple POVs. It would also further describe how the POVs can create special effects in our creative pieces.
The first POV: this POV is the perspective of the writer in the first person pronoun, it is denoted with the usage of the “I” pronoun. This POV is having the special ability of creating a sense of adventure and immediacy in such piece it is used in. This POV is often used when a dominant protagonists is used in the piece. The protagonist would be the one telling us this story in his own point of view. This POV has the special strength of pin point emotional effect in pieces. A first POV creates this impression based on the fact that no one knows about ones feeling better than oneself. As such the emotional stability and status of the protagonist as relating to the plot is extensively delved into by the first POV. Hence certain story plots that involves emotional conflicts would have been narrated quite more impressively with the first POV than with the others. Also the first POV brings the reader much more closely to the story and gives them a sense of following the event than the full sense of distance- like a form of reportage- that the third POV gives. However the weakness of the first POV is the limitation of thoughts and ideas, especially since the readers are restricted to just the perspective of the writer. A first person POV creates a sensation which is oriented towards the narrator’s only and since there is just his thoughts, his believes and the immediacy in his narration, his judgement could sometimes be wrong, or he could be selfish in other ways. Hence he could absolutely not be trusted and hence be found wanting in some ways.
The second POV is quite similar to the first as it even bring the reader much more closely to the story. However it is quite unrealistic to use this perspective throughout a story. The reason for this is the fact that guessing reader’s thoughts, opinions and feelings about key subjects would be of essential virtue in this POV and is a difficult task. Even if you’d be willing to gamble with them, you will easily lose the interests of the reader so far they start realising unrealistic sense of judgements attributed to them from your part. The second POV uses more of the ‘you’ pronoun. However I pronoun is often used too, but in combination with we and the ‘you’ pronoun too. The highlight of the second POV is the creation of a special effect which makes you feel like you are addressing the reader’s directly. Take the following excerpt for example.
“I had already passed through the cave towards the light that shone from the eastern part, do you really think I am saved? Do you believe it is my way out? I believe we should go for it then, when I am saved we shall hold a party back at my house.”
The second POV weakness is its vague sensation of prediction and lack of precision as you can’t strike precision with guessing readers perception on your story.
The third POV is the easiest POV as it is a natural form of reportage as it gives room for a proper review of details before the story telling. Hence it is often written in past tense and with a third person pronoun like he or she. The third POV is easy to use and it often creates a sovereign identity. I will talk more about identity in POV in the next instalment. The third POV will essentially give a natural story telling flow and ability but would distant the readers from the story.
Next I will be talking about identity in POV. Thanks for reading.
Abd-afeez Abd-hamid