The INSANE Importance of POV in fantasy novels and how to choose one for yours

No doubt you’ve heard about the standard choices, first person present or past tense, third person limited, third person omniscient, and all that. So, if you’re a writer, which one do you choose? Do you just go with “well, I’ll just pick this one because it just feels right”. What are we a bunch of hippies? No, if you’re going to pick a POV, you should know what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, and what the tradeoffs are.

If you're new here, welcome to the Imaginarium! I’m Erik Goodwyn, a Jungian scholar and psychiatrist with twenty years of practice, and I’m also a fantasy author. I’ve given over fifty lectures on Jungian psychology, neuroscience and lots of other stuff here in the US and in Europe, and I’ve published over thirty journal articles, non-fiction books, and chapters in addition to my novel, King of the Forgotten Darkness: a Raven's Tale Fantasy. 

Anyway, POV. Like I said, you’ve heard the standard options. But I’m here today to offer you another way to look at it. I’m not saying those classic labels are wrong. I just think about this differently because, well, I’m that way, and so I wanted to share with you the way I look at POV choice. And it’s based on two decisions in storytelling style: scope and narrator presence. These two choices will determine the style you’re writing in, but more importantly, whether you know it or not, they both come with inherent advantages and disadvantages, so you’d better know which is which so you pick the right choice for your story. I’m going to give you specific examples from my favorite genre, fantasy, but this applies in general.

Scope

Let’s start with Scope. Scope is the boundaries around what you will or will not describe as happening in your story, and this applies not only to space but to time. It means, generally, how immediate is the story unfolding? Do you stick tightly only to what the current POV character can see and do in the immediate timeline of the scene only? Or do you add context, narrative summary, or other details outside the POV character’s own experience in the moment? Scope comes, to my mind, in three varieties: limited, expanded, and unlimited. If it is limited, it means that you will NOT describe, or otherwise write about anything that is outside of the POV characters head and their sensory capacities. Sometimes described as “immersive, limited 3rd person), this style forbids you to discuss anything the POV character couldn’t know about. Other characters thoughts, past or future events not immediately available, or links to events or things outside the immediate scene. This is a very popular style right now, and this is probably due to the incredibly HUGE influence TV shows and movies have had on novel writing. So much so that some writers (whom I’ve helped over the years) do not seem to know that there are other options. But more on that later.

That’s limited scope. The next level of scope is expanded scope. This is sort of a middle ground, where you limit what is described or followed in the story mostly to one POV character, but you “fudge” sometimes, and slip into discussing things that the POV character would not necessarily know about like alluding to future events, other events going on outside the immediate area of the current POV character, bigger picture story themes, and (rarely) other characters thoughts. Expanded scope is less restrictive than limited, but nevertheless tends to keep the story events near the confines of the current POV character.

And finally, unlimited scope is when the author places no limits on what they will discuss outside the POV characters ability to know. Unlimited style can head-hop without limit, and incorporate past, present and future events into the narrative to provide context at will. 

Which One to Use?

So here is why your choice of Scope matters. It’s because this choice strongly affects immersion, but I don’t mean that one is immersive and the other isn’t! No, what I mean is that one is immersive in one way, while the other is immersive in another way. Let me explain. Limited scope immerses the reader in the immediate moment as it is being experienced by the POV character. This is the strength of limited scope–it is immediate, right now, and often comes with descriptions of micro-feelings and physical responses to emotional events. By limiting the storytelling to one person (at a time), you lock the reader into the POV character at a specific point in time–the present of the current scene. The disadvantage of this style is that it can be inherently disorienting, because you can’t give the reader the full emotional context they may need to really let the scene hit hardest. It can also wear down the reader because you’re just dropping them into a scene with someone they don’t know, so they may find themselves asking why they should care. It requires patience from the reader, and you have to be skilful in how you introduce new information so you don’t break the illusion of being trapped inside the POV character’s skull. You even have to be careful in how you describe the POV character (which is why beginners often do cliche things like have the character look into a mirror and muse about their appearance–very awkward and clunky). 

Unlimited scope eliminates all of these restrictions. It allows you to provide the necessary (NOT info-dumping) context by simply describing what has been going on up to now with your POV character(s). Think of the opening crawl from the Star Wars movies, or the prologue from David Eddings’ Belgariad, which just straight up tells us what is going on, who’s against who, why and how. Unlimited scope therefore sacrifices immediate minute-by-minute immersion for immediate world-building immersion. That’s the big difference. In a few short paragraphs you can just summarize where we are, what’s going on, and why we should care, without a lot of fuss and bother, making it much easier on the reader to give a crap about the POV character. This is very important in fantasy genres because of the high worldbuilding demand this genre has. You always want immersion. Question is, which kind of immersion is most important to you?

Expanded scope, of course, is a middle-ground, sticking with one or two POV characters per scene and mostly holding to what they could know, see, and feel, but not as tightly as limited, and not slipping into going outside their immediate perspective except when needed. I personally choose this for my own writing most often, even though you sacrifice some of the immediacy of limited scope, you still hang onto some of it, but you don’t have to engage in any sort of writing gymnastics to get outside-the-POV-character info needed to the reader. Be aware, however, that many readers are used to limited scope, and so they may find occasional spilling outside of their immediate awareness in space and time jarring. If so, they are unlikely to know why. That’s why being a skilled writer and knowing this kind of stuff helps. Either way, go lightly when you venture outside of limited scope.

As you can see, unlimited scope sacrifices immediate scene immersion for gains in terms of big-picture. Grand, sweeping passages describing huge swathes of time and history–nothing is off limits here. Head-hopping is allowed even in the same scene, and large jumps back and forth on the timeline are allowed. What you lose in terms of sensory immediacy, you gain in immediate grand scale and epic sweep, which would take 100 times as long if you stuck to limited scope only. One example of this is Dune. The ideas are big, the scale is positively brobdingnagian, and sometimes thousands of years pass. 

Now, do you have to stick to one choice across the entire book? No, naturally not–all rules in art were meant to be broken, after all. But I will say that if you’re going to shift scope, make sure you do it with intent and do it with artistry. You could write an entire 900 page book in limited scope–Erikson does this for Malazan. Herbert, however, does not stick to unlimited scope for the entirety of Dune. He shifts back and forth, depending on what’s going on. It can be a little jarring, so its risky. I’ve even read books where the author wrote half the chapters in limited and half in expanded scope, switching back and forth. Just do it for a reason. Don’t just do it to be clever. It will come across as pretentious. 

As I said, I like expanded scope, and that’s where I usually stay with the Raven’s Tale. If I slip out of this, I try to do it with subtlety and without drawing attention to it, based on what I need for a given scene. Do I want more immediacy in time, emotion, and place? Or do I need to pan out and give the reader some much-needed context and orientation so they don’t feel confused, or, the kiss of death: bored. 

Narrative Presence

The next principle has to do with narrative presence–that is, how visible is the narrator of this story? Is this a story told by a specific person? Or is it told as if it just sort of happened in the void on its own and we simply accept that everyone knows it? Whereas the choice of scope determines whether or not you are focusing on immediate sensory details of one character vs. bigger picture, broad strokes descriptions and motivations, your choice of narrative presence will determine how much reflection, voice, and editorializing will be going on in your story. 

It, too, comes in three varieties in my opinion: named, implied, and invisible. Named narrators are what we normally call “1st person” narratives. The story freely uses “I” as a specific person who is telling this story. We know who it is, and everything that goes with that. This style obviously needs to be very voice heavy and you want a very interesting character to tell the story so that the editorializing, reflecting, and delivery are all entertaining and relevant to the story. 

Implied narrative presence, however, does not name anyone in particular as the narrator, however it maintains the right to reflect, comment, and be voicey. Thus, we will still have these elements, but we have eliminated the idea that the story is being told by a specific character either within the world of the story, or somehow connected to it, say, in the far future or something like that. 

And finally, we have the invisible narrator. This style brings the story to the reader with as little commentary, value-judgment and opinion as possible. Any editorializing is either completely absent or is relegated entirely to subtext. Inner life and commentary are presented as entirely originating in the immediate thoughts of the POV character if at all. Again, because of the power of TV and movies on the popular imagination, this style is very popular because those media do this style well, and attempts to do otherwise often involve awkward voice-over narrations and so forth. In a novel, however, none of these choices are awkward. This is the strength of the novel.

How to Choose One

Like scope, these choices come with advantages and disadvantages. A named narrator brings with it a much sharper focus on character. It draws you into one person’s story, and brings with it an almost face-to-face intimacy of feeling that can’t really be mimicked with the other varieties of narrative presence. As such, whether it is effective depends almost entirely on the narrator as a character. It’s easy to write this way because it feels natural. It’s hard to do it well. The advantage of this style is that it gives you the most free reign to add in commentary, voice, reflection, and inner life to the story as it is unfolding. Think of that one uncle you have who can spin a yarn about something as boring as going to the grocery store and make it sound like the adventure of a lifetime. A named narrator gives you full reign here. Most people say the drawback of this style, however, is that you are forced to stick to one character and that limits scope. But that’s not true. You can set your story in the future and have a first person narrator tell the story using unlimited scope and be fine. The problem with a named narrator, then, is NOT that. It’s that you’re necessarily prioritizing the narrator. As such, it sacrifices the immediate immersion of limited scope stories without named narrators, or the story-world immersion of unlimited scope stories by immersing the reader in the narrator’s head. So, that means you had bloody well better have an amazing narrator to pull this off. Something about them needs to be extremely compelling. The Hunger Games, for example, works pretty well because Katniss is herself at the very center of the fate of the entire world of Panem, and her journey is a major change in character. She herself is flawed and sometimes not likeable, but that’s fine. Her inner journey, saving the world, finding love, and even doing such Herculean things as resolving a love triangle make her a worthy narrator. As such, the named narrator is a good choice to tell this story.

Because, to my mind, story is supreme. The story, it’s structure, and the rich complexity of the meaning it conveys through image and symbol is more important than anything else about the writing process. So if you choose a named narrator, make sure its because this choice maximizes your story.

But if your story is more about the events, the meaning, or the plot, and not quite as much about the inner journey of a single character, you may want to shy away from this style because the narrator will constantly be drawing attention to themselves, and if the narrator isn’t your main focus, it will not be as strong as it could be. This is not to say you can’t have incredibly strong characters outside of named narrators. Obviously not. But none of them will be as emphasized and center stage as if you use a named narrator. And sometimes that is a good thing, because it would only distract from your amazing story as a whole. Imagine Lord of the Rings with Frodo as narrator…and yes, I realize he’s “the narrator” presumably, but the book itself is not told that way. I don’t think it would work nearly as well. Frodo is certainly awesome, but there’s just too much else going on in the story to keep track of it all if you were to make this a named-narrator story with Frodo as your narrator. That said, I’d love to read Aragorn’s journal. No, Galadriel’s. Ok, I’m getting off track here. Obviously Tolkien knew what he was doing in not writing in first person, or, as I am calling it, the named narrator. 

The second type of narrative presence is the implied narrator. This is when you still have editorializing, voicey-ness, and reflection, but it’s not done using first person and doesn’t necessarily point to a specific person, although the effect of first person can be mimicked by doing limited scope scenes with voice and commentary, while implying that all of that is in the immediate thoughts of the current POV character–Abercrombie does this frequently and so do I in the Raven’s Tale, though in my case, I don’t always imply that it’s the POV character that is editorializing. Sometimes the commentary and voice is coming from an unnamed narrator. A good example of commentary from an unnamed narrator is our old friend Lord of the Rings, and I think Tolkien did this because it is also found in lots of ancient stories like Beowulf, or folktales. In LOTR, Tolkien will describe the deeds of Aragorn in unabashedly heroic terms, leaving us with zero doubts about how awesome Aragorn is. The Beowulf poet does the same thing throughout, and with gusto! It begins by telling us all the mighty deeds of Scyld Scefing and ends with “that was a good king!” In case we were in doubt! I actually love this style of narrative presence because it frees us to state plainly and efficiently what’s what in terms of the story value system. The reader is immediately oriented. The drawback is that it can be unsubtle and hamfisted if you’re not careful. The advantage, however, is that is clear, and like expanded or unlimited scope, it gives the author free reign to orient the reader quickly and efficiently in the value system of your story, immersing them not so much into a character or world, but to a mood and culture. When the Beowulf poet says that the hero faced the dragon, stepped not one foot backward from that terrifying beast, and took not the cowards way, it immerses us in the culture of the Geats. It immediately aligns us with what they valued in no uncertain terms. 

The final style of narrative presence is invisible. In this style, the author tries as hard as possible to draw attention away from any narrator at all. All editorializing, reflection, and voice are minimized here, in order to maximize immersion in the scene and story itself. It is a kind of pure storytelling which, again, mimics TV and movies, which simply show stuff happening without comment. The strength of this style is that it pulls the reader into the situation and scene as it unfolds, and because it avoids commentary and value judgment, it invites the reader to do those things for themselves, making them participants in the action. This style pairs quite nicely with limited scope for maximum immersion in the immediate moment. The downside, however, is that since you are avoiding the character immersion you get with named narrative presence, and you avoid the voicey reflection of named and implied narration, this style can come across as cold, bland, or emotionally lukewarm, since all the voice and commentary are relegated to subtext or simply absent. So it comes, like the other styles, with certain risks. 

Another example for illustration: Assassin’s Apprentice by Robin Hobb.

This story is told in an expanded, named narrative presence style. It’s obviously first person, but because it’s not told in present tense, like the Hunger Games, but implied to be from the perspective of an old man reflecting on his life, there is a lot of room for expanded scope, such as when the narrator says things like “I would never forget that day”, or “it would be years before XYZ happened again” and that sort of thing. I think this was a good choice, particularly because the first several chapters the main character is a small kid. We have whole chapters and he’s only six years old. That would be quite difficult to pull off using an invisible narrator or limited scope–who can think like a six year old? Nevertheless, some readers might say it would work better with an implied narrator. I’ll leave that to you. For my part, at least so far, I think it works because the MC is pretty interesting. Nevertheless, the use of expanded scope and named narrator sacrifices some distance from the immediate action of the scene. This gives the story a more contemplative feel, and pulls a little intensity away from the action and tension, but puts it into depth, contemplation, and meaning. It’s a very popular series, so Hobb obviously managed a nice balance here. But that’s because she’s Robin Hobb. The rest of us writers have to find our own way to balance all the stuff I’ve talked about today. 

Conclusions

So, to recap, POV is insanely important to your novel. This is because not only is it important to craft a ripping good yarn, it is equally if not more important to choose the right way to deliver your ripping good yarn. Limiting the scope advantages immediate immersion in the moment. Expanding the scope, however, advantages orientation, context, and worldbuilding. Limited scope is more immediately immersive, but can be demanding on the reader, trying their patience while you more slowly orient them through the limited channels you’ve allowed yourself. Thus, you trade immersion in world for immersion in immediate scene. Choose wisely, and shift gears with care and subtlety if you must shift at all. 

Naming the narrator advantages editorializing, voice, reflection, and draws the reader into the inner life of the character of the narrator as a whole, allowing for more nuanced exploration of story outside of just events, but events as seen through the eyes of a complex and rich mind. The invisible narrator choice, however, advantages immersion of the reader into the experience as if it were happening to them, allowing them to come to their own conclusions and reflections. Like limited scope, however, an invisible narrator can be more demanding on the reader, too, since you can’t immerse the reader in the culture and value-system of your world nearly as easily and efficiently as using the other two methods. Again…choose wisely. 

Steven Erikson wrote all of the Malazan series almost exclusively in limited scope and invisible narration, the two most demanding on the reader because it is so limited in terms of what the author allows himself or herself to flood the reader with. This is not only its immense strength, because it is so powerfully immersive in the immediate moment, but its the most challenging choice for readers who often find it tough sledding. Hopefully, though, with all this in mind, you will know what you want to do with your story, and moreover, know why you’re doing it.

Never stop dreaming,

EG