POV: Who’s Holding the Camera?

By Michelle Barker

So I woke up at 4:45 this morning and suddenly understood the difference between omniscient POV, deep third, and head-hopping. I know: who wakes up thinking about that? Occupational hazard, I guess, but bear with me. This was a huge epiphany that only one person on this earth will appreciate: the one who’s been trying to explain it to me for years. Yes, I’d understood it on an academic level but whenever it came time for me to actually convey it to others, I couldn’t quite do it… which meant I didn’t truly understand it.

But now I do. Which is why I’m here to explain it to you. The difference between these three forms of narration is, fundamentally, an issue of control.

Omniscient Narration

Omniscient narration allows readers an external view of the story world and its inhabitants. If you think of the focal point of the story as a camera, there is someone (the external narrator) holding that camera and intentionally adjusting the focus. They are standing outside of the story with the perspective of already knowing it and accepting the job of imparting or showing it to us.

Sometimes the narrator pans out and gives us this view from on high. Sometimes they zoom in and allow us to see the world through one or another pair of eyes. But always there is someone in charge of the camera directing the view.

This narrator can be prominent, as in The Book Thief, which is narrated by Death, or Middlemarch, which has a vocal narrator. But it can also be quite subtle, as in Everything I Never Told You, where the narrator wielding the camera works mostly behind the scenes. It’s those first two lines that give it away: “Lydia is dead. But they don’t know this yet.”

Even so, a comment like that merely suggests an omniscient narrator; it’s nothing like the directness we get in Middlemarch: “One morning, some weeks after her arrival at Lowick, Dorothea—but why always Dorothea? Was her point of view the only possible one with regard to this marriage? …Mr. Casaubon had an intense consciousness within him, and was spiritually a-hungered like the rest of us.”

Subtle or not, in both cases the reader senses we’re in good hands. The narrator is wielding that camera intentionally and is in firm control of what we see and when. It allows us to feel grounded in the story and creates trust.

Deep Third

Whereas the classics relied quite heavily on omniscient narration, most traditionally published fiction these days is written in deep third POV. In the case where there’s only one narrator, that is the person who wields the camera. Think first-person with the pronouns swapped. The reader experiences the story world through this viewpoint only, without any access to other characters’ thoughts and without the ability to pan out. This means there is no external narrator. We are not standing beside the story watching it unfold. We’re in it.

Rotating Deep Third

Also known as multi-POV, this is essentially a series of deep third POVs, again with no narrator external to the story. The narrators exist within the story and pass the camera to each other at clearly marked times (at the end of a chapter or at a hard scene break). Again, we don’t have the benefit of that bird’s-eye view. Instead, the story moves forward from one voice to another, but there is never any confusion about who’s telling it. Readers are never surprised to discover the camera has been passed without our knowledge.

Being allowed to hold the camera comes with responsibility: that character will also be expected to have an arc. This means the camera won’t get passed to the checkout person at the grocery store, or the mail deliverer, or someone passing by—unless they’re key to the story.

One masterful example of this type of storytelling is George R. R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones, where he juggles scores of different points of view one chapter at a time and manages to make all of them convincingly different.

Head-Hopping

And then comes head-hopping, where there is no external narrator but also no warning about when that camera will be passed, or to whom. Indeed, passed is the wrong word; tossed is more like it. Or dropped.

In this case, we just might hear from the checkout person—and the mailman. They probably won’t get arcs. The camera will get tossed whenever it suits the author to do so—but not necessarily with good reason. It’s usually more an issue of convenience and a reliance on (sorry) sloppy storytelling.

Why do authors do this? Because it’s hard to restrict oneself to a single pair of eyes in a scene. It means having to read other people (or characters) by what they say and how they move. But in fact, this kind of interpretation gives the reader a much more authentic experience of the story world. We do not have the ability to read minds in real life, so we practice this extrapolation all the time—trying to guess what another person is thinking or feeling and more often than not being wrong.

Why head-hopping makes many readers uncomfortable, while omniscient narration and deep or rotating third do not, comes down to that issue of control. The existence of an external narrator who’s in charge of the story directing the camera with intention makes all the difference. It allows us to trust the author, trust that we’re in capable hands. Narrators can also be internal to the story if they fulfill their obligations: the author has chosen them with care; we don’t hear from them until it’s their turn; and the author is mindful of not causing confusion.

However, that jittery camera hopping all over the place without warning makes us feel like no one is in control. Anytime the camera shifts, it feels more haphazard than intentional and has the potential to create havoc.

Make Your Novel Hospitable

In the end, that’s really your job as an author: to make your novel an easy place to enter and a hospitable place to stay. Not necessarily comfortable: more like immersive. John Gardner’s fictional dream is a powerful analogy. You want your readers to be so engrossed in the story that we feel like we’re living it.

Part of the job of creating immersion involves not causing confusion. Another part is convincing your readers that we’re in the hands of a storyteller who knows what they’re doing. Intention is key to both. In fact, intentionality is how you earn readers’ trust. You want us to have faith that you have thought through this story and chosen every word with care. That if something stands out or seems odd, there’s a reason for it, and we’ll discover that reason in due course.

As soon as that trust is broken, the reader will put the book down, and it’s almost impossible to convince us to give it a second chance. What that means for authors is to handle that camera with care. Think about who’s holding it and why—and don’t drop it!

Michelle Barker is an award-winning author and poet. She is the co-author of two craft books: Immersion and Emotion: The Two Pillars of Storytelling and Story Skeleton: The Classics. Her fiction, non-fiction, and poetry have appeared in literary reviews worldwide. She has published three YA novels (one fantasy and two historical fiction), a historical picture book, and a chapbook of poetry. Michelle holds a BA in English literature (UBC) and an MFA in creative writing (UBC). Many of the writers she’s worked with have gone on to win publishing contracts and honours for their work. Michelle lives and writes in Vancouver, Canada.