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Ah, Point of View. An essential part of any story that can change everything and also disappear if done well.

POV dictates the lens through which readers experience the story, understand the characters, and enjoy the plot. There are 3 main types, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, and each one has benefits and drawbacks. Knowing which type to use depends on how you want the audience to perceive the narrative you’re telling.

1st: “I,” “me,” and “we” pronouns. This is typically limited to a single character’s emotions, thoughts, experiences, etc., though there are often dual/multi-POV books where the character speaking changes between chapters/scenes.

2nd: “You” pronouns are used in order to break the fourth wall. This is less common and difficult to do well, but can make an intriguing story. Again, it’s limited to a singular character’s thoughts.

3rd: “He,” “she,” and “they” pronouns. This can be limited, meaning the reader experiences everything through one character’s perspective at a time, or omniscient, in which the narrator of the story can flit between characters so the reader gets to be in several minds at once.

Once a POV is chosen, it’s exceedingly rare for this to change. If a story is being told through the lens of a single character’s experiences, then the reader can’t know anything that this specific character wouldn’t already know. Otherwise, the narrator is intruding into the story (in a negative way, not like when it’s intentionally done in stories such as A Series of Unfortunate Events when the narrator personally addresses the reader). 

As both an author and a reader, I enjoy all POVs, though I lean towards limited 3rd person and 1st person, depending on the story and the genre. For fantasy and sci-fi, I tend to prefer 3rd, and for romance or suspense, I lean toward 1st.

1st person POV creates an almost instant connection between the main character and the reader, so it tends to hook the reader emotionally more. You only see from behind the character’s eyes and live in their mind.

3rd person POV allows for a more impartial narrator that creates a bit more distance between reader and character but is often better for world immersion and plot immersion. You’re still in that character’s head, but you get a more neutral, all-encompassing perspective.

Simply put, 1st feels more character-driven, and 3rd feels more plot-driven, in my opinion. My instinct when writing is to go for 3rd person, which I did with both The Registration and The Registration Rewritten. Since there are more POVs in Rewritten, 3rd limited worked even better because it was easier to slip between characters with each chapter.

However, when I sat down to write the bonus chapter included with the special edition of The Registration, I knew I needed to write in 1st person. The chapter is about Zach, a character you get to know throughout The Registration, 5 years before the events of the book. I wanted to get inside his head and explore what his life was truly like.

In other words, I wanted this story to be all about the character, his feelings, experiences, and emotions. I wanted the reader to have no barrier between the words and Zach’s life. Take this part at the beginning of the bonus chapter, for example: 

I’ve always known my psyche was a little off. But it’s never more evident than when I’m standing in front of an unconscious man, his blood all over my hands and shirt, and my only thought is that this is a better birthday than last year.

This is Zach’s voice. His thoughts. You see the scene as Zach does, not as it is. He doesn’t notice the blood and what happened first. He thinks first about his own mind and how his life has screwed him up because he’s not thinking about the blood first.

What a character does and doesn’t notice can tell the reader a lot about who they are and what’s important to them. The lack of focus on the violence in the room speaks strongly to Zach’s state of mind.

At the beginning of The Registration, after Lynell hears herself being registered, her focus is much more scattered as her mind is lost to panic. 

The phrase repeats itself over and over in her mind. Screaming, whispering, echoing. Promising death. Making use of the gift of the Registration. The gift that doesn’t feel like a gift when you’re on the other side.

As she runs, she dimly notices different sensations, and the scene is flushed out to include small aspects of the world and the Registration that might not be mentioned if the story was told in first person. 

Then she stumbles over the legs of a homeless woman and lands hard on her elbows. Pain shoots up her arms, and the world returns to focus, filled with color that she didn’t know had drained away. She blinks. Her ears ring and her mind seems to shake, unable to grasp the enormity of the situation she finds herself in. She smells trash and body odor. The homeless woman next to her is ranting about the Registration taking everything from her after her husband had been Registered, and that the rebels are right and the Elysians are tyrants.

Meanwhile, in the bonus chapter, while Zach is having his own moment of anxiety, about to face something he’s spent years thinking about, his thoughts never touch on his surroundings. He’s spiraling in his head, sucked into his thoughts rather than desperately clinging onto anything else he can see, hear, or smell.

I think about the Registration and how it saved our country and built my family. It’s the foundation of life as I know it. It works, and I believe in it. I have to. Because if I can’t believe in the very thing our family stands for, then how can I know who I am? How can I reconcile the lives lost by my hands? If I can’t believe in the Registration, I can’t believe in my father. And I have to believe in my father. He’s all I have.

Zach and Lynell are incredibly different characters, so they’ll naturally experience things differently. However, the way in which the story is written changes the narrative for the readers as well.

The POV can enhance the story or be a detriment. Ideally, the focus will be on the content and the characters more than the point of view type.

When I decided to write a bonus chapter to include in the special edition, I knew I wanted it to be about Zach. Writing it in a completely different POV than the rest of the book might’ve been risky, but I knew there was no way to honestly tell Zach’s story without getting fully into his head.

It’s a fucked up psyche, but it’s also one of my favorites.

I hope you like it too.