I'm a Head Hunter

Have you ever wrote something and felt like something was wrong? One problem might be a POV problem. People have a tendency to jump from one character's point of view to the other with no warning.

I used to tell the reader exactly what all the characters in a room were thinking. That's head-hopping. It's breaking the rules of POV.



Most books are written in third-person these days, so stick with one person's view point.

A few things are easy to trip up on. For instance, if the character has his back turned to someone, the main character can't see the other's face.

You can't get inside a character's thoughts other than the POV character.

Only call your POV character by his name or his appropriate pronoun. A lot of times, new writers will write things like, "The big man walked over to the cab." If the action is from "the big man's" POV, will he call himself that? Do you describe yourself like? You probably just use your name.

Writing credibly with POV takes a lot of discipline on the writer's part. There are a lot of sublties in POV, but mastering the basics will put you ahead of the crowd.