u/Independent_Wind391

So, last week, someone asked me in one of my posts how writers could choose the “wrong” POV for their story.

That got me thinking, especially about people who are starting their first draft or are still figuring out their story.

There isn't technically a universally “right” or “wrong” POV, so I wanted to put together a table covering a bunch of POVs and narrative approaches you’ll find in fiction, along with their pros, cons, limitations, and the genres they tend to work particularly well in.

The idea is basically to help you understand what each POV allows you to do, what it restricts, and when it might be a good fit for your story.

This took me a lot of time to put together, so hopefully some of you find it useful!

POV	How to write	Pros	Cons	Limits	Common genres	Trending ?/5
First Person	I / me / my	Intimate, personal, strong voice	Limited outside perspective	You can only know what the narrator knows, sees, remembers, experiences, or can reasonably figure out. You can't directly show another character's private thoughts.	Mystery, thriller, romance, YA, literary	5/5
First Person Deep	First person + very close internal experience	Extremely immersive and emotional	Can feel claustrophobic	You have to stay very close to the narrator's immediate experience. You can't suddenly give information, thoughts, or feelings outside their awareness.	Psychological thriller, horror, romance	4.9/5
First Person Multiple POV	Multiple “I” narrators	Different voices and perspectives	Harder to manage distinct voices	Each narrator is limited to their own knowledge and experience. You can't have one narrator know another narrator's private thoughts unless they learned them somehow.	Romance, thriller, fantasy, mystery	4/5
Third Person Limited	He / she / they, follows one character	Flexible, intimate, versatile	Limited character knowledge	You stay with one viewpoint character at a time. You can't directly show what other characters are thinking or what is happening somewhere the viewpoint character can't know about.	Almost every genre	5/5
Third Person Deep	Third person, but extremely close to one character	Near-first-person intimacy	Easy to accidentally break POV	You are tightly tied to the viewpoint character. You can't describe things they couldn't notice, understand, remember, or reasonably infer.	Thriller, romance, fantasy, horror	5/5
Third Person Multiple Limited	Third person, several viewpoint characters	Broad story, varied perspectives	More complex, requires careful switches	Each viewpoint character has their own knowledge and perspective. You can't freely jump between everyone's thoughts within the same scene.	Fantasy, thriller, mystery, sci-fi	4.8/5
Omniscient	Narrator knows more than the characters and can move freely between perspectives	Maximum information, broad scope	Less intimate, harder to execute well	There are few information limits, but the narrator needs to stay consistent. You can't suddenly make the narrator unaware of something it has already established it knows.	Fantasy, historical, literary	2.5/5
Camera POV	Narrator only reports what can be observed	Cinematic, creates mystery	Emotionally distant	You can only show what could actually be observed from the outside. You can't directly state thoughts, feelings, memories, or information that can't be observed.	Mystery, noir, literary, experimental	2/5
Second Person	You / your	Unusual, immersive, direct	Difficult to sustain	The narration addresses the viewpoint as “you.” You can't freely switch into another character's private thoughts without clearly changing the narration.	Literary, horror, experimental	1.5/5
Second Person Limited	“You” follows one character	Intense, immediate experience	Can feel unnatural	The “you” character is still the viewpoint. You can't directly reveal another character's private thoughts or experiences they couldn't know.	Literary, horror, experimental	1.5/5
Epistolary	Letters, messages, diaries, documents, etc.	Authentic, multiple voices, interesting formats	Pacing can be difficult	Everything has to come through the material being presented. You can't include information the person creating that material couldn't have known, recorded, or communicated.	Mystery, horror, historical	3/5
Unreliable Narrator	Any POV where the narrator can't be fully trusted	Great for twists and ambiguity	Hard to execute fairly	The narrator doesn't have to tell the truth, but the story still needs a reason for the reader to understand what was misleading or false. You can't make the narrator randomly wrong about everything with no logic or clues.	Thriller, mystery, horror, literary	4.5/5
“We” POV	We / us / our	Strong group identity, distinctive voice	Individuality can blur	The narration comes from a group perspective. You can't casually switch between individual members' private thoughts without making it clear whose perspective you're using.	Literary, historical, experimental	1.5/5
Frame Narrative	One story is told within another story	Adds mystery, layers, and perspective	Can slow the main story	The inner story has to fit within the framing story. The framing narrator can't know events they had no possible way of learning unless the story gives them a reason to know them.	Literary, historical, fantasy, mystery	2.5/5

I'll go first:

"Smoke lowering down from chimney-pots, making a soft black drizzle, with flakes of soot in it as big as full-grown snow-flakes — gone into mourning, one might imagine, for the death of the sun.”

(Charles Dickens - Bleak House)

1. Not outlining at all.

Even though Pantsers can discover the story they write, having no outline of character arcs, tension beats, and what you want to achieve during a scene can take tons of time and create unnecessary plot holes.

2. Choosing the wrong POV.

Writing in a POV you can't pull off. Choosing the wrong POV can affect the entire story because POV shapes how the reader experiences the characters, their thoughts, and the events around them. You might find yourself struggling to get into a character's voice or tell certain parts of the story naturally, which can eventually mean rewriting the entire novel in a different POV.

3. Not tracking the timeline.

Not keeping track of the dates, months, years, and how much time passes between each scene can lead to timeline inconsistencies, confusion to readers, and plot holes.

4. Not knowing your characters' goals

If you don't know what your characters want or what they're trying to achieve, it can make their actions feel random and make your characters feel aimless or passive.

5. Obsessing over word count

Setting an exact word count and stressing over going above or below it can make drafting unnecessarily stressful. The story should take the length it needs, and you can adjust the word count in later drafts.

6. Having too many characters

Having too many secondary characters, subplots, and side quests can overcrowd the novel and take focus away from the main conflict.

Worldbuilding?

Plot twists?

Planning?

Maintaining prose?

Dialogue?

Endings?

For me, it’s fixing plot holes. They’re like bugs; fix one and somehow three more appear(If you know, you know 💀)

Do you agree with this?

As writers, we often want readers to like our characters, and want readers to invest their time in our characters like rooting for them, supporting them, connecting with them, or feeling sympathy or empathy for them.

However, I strongly agree that if all the stories do the same, it will become boring and not every protagonist of every story has to be likable for the reader to continue reading the story.

When it comes to main characters, specifically the protagonist, do you try to make them likable, or do you simply write them as they are, whether they’re likable or unlikable(They may be rude, blunt, selfish, reckless or cold)?

You can also leave good examples of main characters or protagonists who are unlikable but are written really well!

There are lots of mystery books that are popular on BookTok, but I want to make sure I don't end up reading overhyped books that aren't actually that good.

You can suggest from mystery genre, but I specifically want the crime mystery genre and fantasy. It needs to be good, have an amazing twist if it suits the story, and have great characters with a smart protagonist, M or F, idc. (But I would especially love an F protagonist if she's a hottie LOL.) No romance.

Books I've read and liked: And Then There Were None, The Big Sleep, Sherlock Holmes stories, The Da Vinci Code(Favourite), and The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle.

Books I've read and disliked: The Thursday Murder Club, The Appeal, The Last Thing He Told Me, The Maid, and The Guest List.

I’ll go first: miscommunication between characters. Whether it’s between friends, partners, mentors, etc. If they could spend 10 minutes talking and resolve the entire conflict, it feels like a pretty lazy writing choice to me.

I hardly ever see writers doing this, but I see it a lot in light novels. That's the only thing I like about light novels because they show the characters' visuals.

I want to do the same for my novel. I'm not saying it's impossible to create a clear image through prose. I just personally would like having a visual reference as well, which is why I'm considering this. I want to show the main characters' visuals on the cover. No reader is going to want to read 200 words describing a character in detail, so inserting a visual on the cover or in the early pages of the book would be a good idea.

The art style is going to be anime-inspired. (If you don't know what they look like, you can look up "light novels.")

Was it:

1. Good prose, plot, worldbuilding, or characters?
2. A great-looking book cover? (professional and promising)
3. Marketing?
4. Self-promotion?
5. A strong blurb or book description?
6. A unique idea (mind blowing one)
7. The right audience
8. Something else?

For those of you who had **a genuinely successful first self-published book...**not just a handful of sales!(like 2 or 5)

What do you think made it successful as a first book?

And if you also got good reviews, what do they mostly mention?

I will go first.

“If your book is good enough, readers will find it.”

“Amazon will promote your book for you.”

So, there are several plot structures like Save The Cat, The Hero's Journey, The Plot Embryo/The Tragic Plot Embryo, 7 Point Plot Structure, etc.

Each of them has their own strengths and weaknesses, of course, but especially when it comes to Action and Fantasy genres as well as Supernatural genres, a lot of writers choose The Hero's Journey or Save The Cat. I hardly ever see The Tragic Plot Embryo, lol, but I wouldn't use it either.

I know the Save The Cat structure is regarded as one of the most reliable ones because it has clear beats and strong pacing control. I think it also has the risk of making readers feel the story is too predictable or formulaic if writers follow it too strictly.

Another interesting one is the 7 Point Plot Structure because it’s more about major turning points and gives writers more flexibility in how to build the story between those points. It appears to be more flexible in pacing styles but also offers a solid framework for one.

Some writers who have strong storytelling intuitions or experience make their own plot structures by combining different frameworks or some storytelling elements.

Also, if you are writing in a different genre, you can discuss what structure you are using and why you think it works best for your story.

There are two main ways to publish a book: self-publishing and traditional publishing. I know about Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), as it is a popular choice for self-publishing. However, I would like to learn about the requirements for both methods of publishing.

For self-publishing, I want to know about the requirements for platforms such as Kindle Direct Publishing, including formatting, cover design, file types, copyright, pricing, and other necessary requirements.

For traditional publishing, I want to know how the submission process works, whether I need a literary agent, what publishers look for, and what requirements I need to meet before submitting my manuscript.

Regarding chapters and POV, I would like to know whether it is okay to switch between different characters' points of view by clearly naming the character whose POV is being used. I would also like to know whether switching POVs up to three times in a 13-page chapter is acceptable.

There are two main ways to publish a book: self-publishing and traditional publishing. I know about Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), as it is a popular choice for self-publishing. However, I would like to learn about the requirements for both methods of publishing.

For self-publishing, I want to know about the requirements for platforms such as Kindle Direct Publishing, including formatting, cover design, file types, copyright, pricing, and other necessary requirements.

For traditional publishing, I want to know how the submission process works, whether I need a literary agent, what publishers look for, and what requirements I need to meet before submitting my manuscript.

Regarding chapters and POV, I would like to know whether it is okay to switch between different characters' points of view by clearly naming the character whose POV is being used. I would also like to know whether switching POVs up to three times in a 13-page chapter is acceptable.

There are two main ways to publish a book: self-publishing and traditional publishing. I know about Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), as it is a popular choice for self-publishing. However, I would like to learn about the requirements for both methods of publishing.

For self-publishing, I want to know about the requirements for platforms such as Kindle Direct Publishing, including formatting, cover design, file types, copyright, pricing, and other necessary requirements.

For traditional publishing, I want to know how the submission process works, whether I need a literary agent, what publishers look for, and what requirements I need to meet before submitting my manuscript.

Regarding chapters and POV, I would like to know whether it is okay to switch between different characters' points of view by clearly naming the character whose POV is being used. I would also like to know whether switching POVs up to three times in a 13-page chapter is acceptable.