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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/27907
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/27907
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

I really wish we could get rid of the current terminology for describing point of view. First person and third person are not points of view. They are simply grammatical persons. Point of view is the angle or viewpoint from which a scene is described.

It would be much more helpful if we used terms like involved and detached to describe point of view. A involved point of view in one in which the action is described from the point of view of someone in the middle of that action. A detached point of view is one in which the action is described from the point of view of someone standing aside and watching the action.

Both detached and involved points of view can be written in third person or first person. Even if the first person narrative is written (putatively, of course, not actually) but the person involved in the action, they can still describe the action from a detached point of view.

Often, indeed, after we have been involved in some pieces of action, we step back and try to make sense of it from a detached point of view, because action in the moment is confusing. Our experience and our memories are actually formed more by reflection and reconstruction of the event than by blow by blow recall of the stream of events. So we adopt a more or less detached point of view even in remembering the things we have experienced, let alone in reporting them.

On the other hand, a person observing and narrating a scene from a detached point of view is able to move around and see the scene from different angles. With the privilege of the creator, the narrator has the ability to shift that detached point of view into the head of the character when they want to. Properly understood, this is not a switch to an involved POV, it is a detached observer temporarily adopting a point of view within the skull of the character. This is actually one of the great privileges and glories of the novel form, something neither the stage or the screen can accomplish.

Look at it this way and the difficulty disappears. You are writing from a detached point of view (the person you are writing in is irrelevant) and you are sometimes moving that point of view into the skull of a character and sometimes out of it. This is all completely legitimate and countless examples of it can be found in literature.

Of course, it is still possible to do it badly. But doing badly does not mean that you violated some rule of writing. It just means you did it badly. The cure is to do it well.

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