Sarah Duncan's Blog

The usual choice for which character has viewpoint is to choose the person the important stuff is happening to. An external narrator is jus...

I usually advise students to avoid the Omniscient Voice in their prose. This is because the current market prefers the 'up close and pe...

One Day by David Nicholls is a great example of rule breaking.  Two viewpoints throughout, swapping between paragraphs, sometimes her, some...

As I'm typing this I have no idea how I look.  For all I know I might have a funny little smile on my face, or my brow my be furrowed, o...

Yesterday I wrote about being consistent with Point Of View within the overall structure of your writing.  Today I'm writing about being...

Rule 1 about Point Of View is to be consistent.  You'd think that would be quite a simple rule to follow, but when you're starting o...

Generally, the right person to have viewpoint is the person to whom the most exciting stuff is happening, but there are some notable excepti...

P of V, P of V, how I don't love you, P of V. Which is what some people must sing. Point of View has never been something I've str...

Third person is my preferred choice for point of view, but it's not without its problems either. I hate reading what's called cinem...

Jenny's comment yesterday has pointed out one of the big advantages of using first person - the unreliable narrator. As human beings we...

In class on Friday a by-product of the fiendish exercise I'd set was the number of people who ended up writing in a point of view they d...

Yesterday's post made me think about books with huge cast lists and written from many view points. I think we still focus on one main c...

Years ago I went on a safari to Kenya and on the first day out witnessed three lionesses hunting a warthog. It was a thrilling ten minutes:...