Whose Head Are You In?

By Lois Winston

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I cut my writing chops in the romance industry, first publishing in 2006. During the years leading up to my first sale, I was a member of Romance Writers of America, an organization with both online and local chapters. RWA National and many of its chapters ran writing contests for unpublished authors, and I entered quite a few. The upside was that finalists in these contests were judged by agents and editors, which could lead to representation or a book deal.

The downside, unbeknownst to me at the time, was that the first-round judges were often unpublished authors with questionable knowledge or expertise. Case in point: I once had a contest judge write on my scoresheet, “I don’t really get Point of View, but I took off for your use of it because I don’t think you understand it either.” (There was nothing wrong with the point of view in my entry.)

Another time, a friend had a contest judge tell her that she’d gone into the dog’s Point of View. (She hadn’t.)

Point of View (also known as Viewpoint or POV) is often a very difficult concept for beginners to grasp. But if you don’t understand something, how do you know if you’re handling it correctly?

Simply stated, Point of View is the character chosen to be the camera lens for your story, the person from whose eyes the reader sees the action unfolding. It’s the telling of the story or part of the story from that person’s perspective.

Viewpoint is usually either First Person or Third Person. First Person stories are told by a single protagonist. They’re the “I” stories and can be written either in present tense or past tense.

First Person Present Tense POV: I sit by the window and stare out at the crowd in the street.

Example of First Person Past Tense POV: I sat by the window and stared out at the crowd in the street.

Third Person POV are the “he/she” stories. They can be written entirely in the viewpoint of one character or in multiple viewpoints. Third Person POV is almost exclusively used in past tense. Although there are probably some novels written in Third Person Present Tense, it’s not very common. The only place I routinely see it is in stage direction in play scripts and screenplays.

Example of Third Person Past Tense POV: Emma sat by the window and stared out at the crowd in the street.

Example of Third Person Present Tense POV: Emma sits by the window and stares out at the crowd in the street.

Omniscient Viewpoint is a story told through the eyes of a disembodied narrator who is privy to the thoughts of all the characters in the novel, even the most insignificant bystander on the street. It’s often referred to as God’s POV. Omniscient POV is considered archaic and is generally not used in any genre of modern commercial fiction because it distances the reader from the story. However, it does occasionally turn up in some literary novels.

Years ago, nearly all romances were told strictly through the eyes or Point of View of the heroine. Today, most romance novels employ the POV of both the hero and heroine and sometimes at least one secondary character. 

Most mysteries were told only through the eyes of the sleuth. Now, depending on the sub-genre, a mystery might also contain multiple POVs (even the dog or cat’s POV in some paranormal cozy mysteries). Suspense and thrillers often incorporate the POV of the antagonist. Multiple points of view allow an author to tell a bigger story because she can enter the thoughts of more than one or two characters. 

If a story is told in multiple points of view, the writer must decide which character should be the point of view character for each scene. Scenes will have the most impact if the chosen POV character is the one who has the most to lose at that moment. This makes for greater tension and emotional impact within the scene. It’s also the reason that omniscient POV, or choosing a disinterested bystander as a POV character, has come to be associated with archaic writing styles. 

There is no rule that states each chapter must be in one character’s POV or even that each scene must only be in one character’s POV. Some authors switch POV within a scene. However, the author should not be moving the point of view back and forth between characters throughout the scene. POV shifts should be logical and smooth, not jarring. If readers find themselves rereading a paragraph or a page because they’re confused as to whose thoughts they’re reading, the author hasn’t handled the shift well. Point of view that ping pongs all over the place will give readers a reason to toss a book aside.

It’s also important to remember that while you’re writing in a particular character’s POV, that character can’t be telling the reader what another character is seeing, thinking, feeling, or hearing. For instance, if a character is sitting in the living room on the first floor, she can’t be thinking about what another character is seeing as he looks out a window one flight up. She has no way of even knowing he’s in that room, let alone that he’s standing at a window. If she can’t see him, she has no way of knowing what he’s doing. 

If a book is written in first person, there probably won’t be any POV shifts, but there’s no rule that says there can’t be. For every rule there are exceptions and writers who have broken them. Many books are written in First Person from the point of view of two characters, including the first book I ever sold. Talk Gertie to Me, is written in First Person from the viewpoints of a young woman and her mother. The POV shifts in alternating chapters. There are also books written where First Person is used for one character, and the author shifts into Third Person for the other POV characters.

Fiction isn’t static; it’s always changing. Writers experiment and take chances all the time. Sometimes those chances pay off in successful novels. Editors and agents want well-written stories. It doesn’t matter whether you write in First Person or Third Person, Present Tense or Past Tense. What matters is an author’s voice and the story she tells. Most anything can work if done well. But to do something well, you first need a firm understanding of what it is and how to use it. That’s definitely the case with POV.

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USA Today and Amazon bestselling and award-winning author Lois Winston writes mystery, romance, romantic suspense, chick lit, women’s fiction, children’s chapter books, and nonfiction. Kirkus Reviews dubbed her critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series, “North Jersey’s more mature answer to Stephanie Plum.” In addition, Lois is a former literary agent and an award-winning craft and needlework designer who often draws much of her source material for both her characters and plots from her experiences in the crafts industry. A Crafty Collage of Crime, the twelfth book in her series, was the recipient of the 2024 Killer Nashville Silver Falchion Award for Best Comedy. Seams Like the Perfect Crime, the fourteenth book in the series, is her latest release. Learn more about Lois and her books at www.loiswinston.com where you can also sign up for her newsletter to receive an Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mini-Mystery.

The Myth of the Five Senses

By Lois Winston

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The other day, I read a statement that blew my mind—and not in a good way. Someone had written, “Some writing coaches advise that each page should include a reference to the five senses: see, hear, touch, smell, and taste.”

No! No! No! Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!

The Internet is filled with bogus information and/or people who claim to be experts in fields where they have no expertise. I don’t know where this person got her information, but it’s certainly not from a credible source.

Writing Rule Number One 

All dialogue and narrative in a novel must do one of two things: either advance the plot or tell the reader something she needs to know at that moment about the point of view character. If it does neither, it’s filler and doesn’t belong in your novel.

Writing Rule Number Two

Only describe that which is pertinent to the scene and/or character. If it’s not pertinent, it’s filler.

Writing Rule Number Three

Filler is bad! Always. No exceptions. It kills your pacing and bores the reader.

The five senses can either be a writer’s best friend or worst enemy. When used judicially, they can grab readers and pluck them down in the middle of the book’s action. When overdone, they make readers’ eyes glaze over. And any writer who makes a point of cramming the five senses onto each page, will not only have her readers’ eyes glazing over, but she’ll have them tossing the book across the room. 

5 senses x 300-400 pages = 1500-2000 reasons to stop reading (and probably never pick up another book by that author.)

So, when should you insert the five senses? Refer to Writing Rule Number Two. Need some examples? Keep reading.

Your character is a New York City commuter, standing on the platform of the #7 subway during a hazy, hot, and humid typical August in the city. She doesn’t notice the trash spilling from the garbage cans or the graffiti-covered walls. She’s become inured to the heat and the stench. Not that they don’t bother her, but she’s too used to them to take note. 

As a former commuter, I can tell you the best way to cope with the subway in summer is not set foot in it, but if you must, you learn to close your mind (and your nose) to your surroundings. Which is what our fictional character would do. 

Instead of focusing on the heat and stench and how uncomfortable she is, our stalwart protagonist is most likely scrolling through her Instagram or TikTok feed as she awaits the train. She’d only take note of the sights, sounds, and smells if there’s a good reason for her to do so. I could offer examples, but I’ll spare you the gory details because some of you may be reading this while eating lunch.

Now imagine your character is a twelfth century Scottish nobleman. He wakes up one morning to find himself magically transported to that same subway platform, he’s bombarded with all those sensory images and more. Everything he sees and hears is foreign and frightening to him. The one exception? The stench. Since twelfth century Scots bathed as infrequently as once a year or at most, once a month, most of the offensive odors are normal smells to him. Anything unusual would likely be masked by the smells he’d ignore. In such a scenario, have fun describing every detail of the assault to this very confused poor guy’s senses.

In Stitch, Bake, Die!, the tenth book in my Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series, Anastasia enters the victim’s kitchen to find the following:

Someone had ransacked the kitchen. Cabinets lay bare, their contents scattered across the floor in a haphazard array of pots, pans, and broken glassware and dishes. Drawers had been yanked out and tossed aside, appliances swept from the counters. Not a single package of food remained on the pantry shelves or in the refrigerator. Whoever had trashed Marlene’s kitchen had taken the time to open boxes, bags, and canisters and dump all the food. Everything from raisin bran to frozen broccoli florets to dried pasta peppered the room. A dusting of flour and sugar lay over everything like newly fallen snow.

Note, I wrote a short paragraph describing only what Anastasia sees. I don’t mention any lingering food smells or the sound of rain beating on the windowpanes. I don’t have her biting down on the inside of her cheek and tasting the coppery tang of blood or feeling her heart pounding in her chest. I don’t have her going weak in the knees and grabbing the door jamb to steady herself. All that is important to this scene is what she sees when she arrives in the kitchen. Given the plot and what happens next, further description would be filler.

The takeaway here? Describe what needs describing, then get on with your story.

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USA Today and Amazon bestselling and award-winning author Lois Winston writes mystery, romance, romantic suspense, chick lit, women’s fiction, children’s chapter books, and nonfiction. Kirkus Reviews dubbed her critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series, “North Jersey’s more mature answer to Stephanie Plum.” In addition, Lois is a former literary agent and an award-winning craft and needlework designer who often draws much of her source material for both her characters and plots from her experiences in the crafts industry. Her most recent release is Sorry, Knot Sorry, the thirteenth book in her Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Series. Learn more about Lois and her books at www.loiswinston.com where you can also sign up for her newsletter and follow her on various social media sites.