Go Deep! Deeper! YES! Deep POV Rules in Fiction.

I'm in the final stages of preparing my next manuscript, Rebel Obsession, to be released on January 15th. I've edited, given the book to my beta readers, edited, edited some more, and now I'm proofreading.

So, what's wrong? Nothing really, except that I went and read a new writing book called "Rivet Your Readers With Deep Point of View," by Jill Elizabeth Nelson. Excuse me while I hang my head and plant my palm over my face.

Why, why oh why did I go and read a writing book at this stage of finishing my manuscript? I'll admit that I was researching POV for a series of blog posts I want to write, but don't I know myself well enough by now to know that I'd be so motivated and inspired by the words of wisdom in this book, especially, that I'd want to go back to my manuscript and tear it to pieces as I thought of new and better ways to convey the scenes in the story? Apparently not, because silly me, I read said book, and now I'm in a mad dash to liven up areas of my manuscript using the new arsenal of knowledge this book taught me.

Not that the manuscript was flat. My beta readers loved it, and my editor said that Rebel Obsession is her favorite story in the series so far, but now that my mind has been stretched with this new knowledge of Deep POV, I can see where my story can be even better. Granted, I do have a tendency to write in Deep POV anyway, but this book taught me how I can go even deeper. And in this case, deeper is definitely better.

This small book—a handbook really, at the length of only sixty pages—teaches you all you need to know about this somewhat-elusive POV and writing skill. And, yes, most definitely, writing in Deep POV takes skill. I thought I was doing well before, but even I'm struggling to fully grasp how to change my shallow POV areas to deeper ones.

Okay, so what's the big deal about Deep POV and why should every fiction writer know about it and strive to utilize it in their manuscripts?


Here are the highlights:

By its very nature, Deep POV takes your narrative to "showing" rather than "telling," and as writers we all should know how important showing the story over telling it is.

Deep POV is more respectful of your readers' intelligence than Omniscient POV, where every little thing is explained to the reader from a distance, and which by its nature is "telling" rather than "showing."

Deep POV creates first-person intimacy when writing in the third-person, so hooray hurrah!

"Author intrusion," where the author consciously or unconsciously inserts an invisible narrator between the character and the readers, is removed by use of Deep POV.

What is Deep POV?

As quoted on page 17 of the handbook, this is one way to look at Deep POV: "The narrative should read like the thoughts going through the character's mind but without the need to italicize as in direct thought quotations."

Sounds simple enough, right? That's what I thought. I was wrong. There is an art to writing Deep POV, as I've found, and the skill has to be acquired through lots and lots of practice, as I'm also finding.

Another way to think of Deep POV is that it keeps the story/character/reader firmly rooted in the now. It's great for high action scenes and for taking a trip into a character's psyche during a contemplative moment; however, Deep POV is not where a character goes on "nattering" to himself endlessly about things that don't propel the story forward or that have nothing to do with the action taking place.

Okay, let's get to the nitty gritty. Maybe the following four sections will break Deep POV down in a more understandable way.

Phrases and Words that Scream "Shallow POV" as Opposed To Deep

Following is a list of phrases and words to avoid and/or rewrite if you want to pursue Deep POV. These words create narrative distance, putting a reader at arm's length as opposed to planting them squarely inside the character's head. Reader at arm's length = bad. Inside the character's head = good.

He/She thought...
He/She felt...
He/She knew...
...wondered...
...realized...
...speculated...
...decided...
...wished...
...etc.

In all the above examples, as Nelson points out in the book, a narrator is required in order to say that a character knew/felt/thought/wondered/etc. something. In our own minds, we don't think like that. We don't say to ourselves, "I think the wall looks dirty." We think, "The wall is covered with dirt. Who did that?"

More examples, borrowed from the book:

Shallow: "She wondered how she would get through the next day."
Deep: "How could she possibly survive the next day?"

Shallow: "I wished I hadn't said that."
Deep: "If only I hadn't said that."

Shallow: "He thought a good bath wouldn't hurt the dog."
Deep: "Whew! A good bath would do this dog a world of good."

See how we transport more fully into the character's head with the deep examples? Don't you feel more involved? Maybe even more emotionally vested? Because you can identify with the Deep portrayal better than the Shallow one, because Deep is how we, ourselves, think.

I'd like to add a couple of other phrases to the above list:

...in the air
...filled the air
...couldn't help but to...

Shallow: "Noxious fumes filled the air."
Deep: "Was that sulfur? Her nose scrunched and she pinched her nostrils closed with her thumb and index finger as she held her breath." [it's pretty clear the fumes are indeed "in the air." There's no need to tell us that.]

Shallow: "He couldn't help but to wonder how Jessie was coping."
Deep: "How was Jessie coping?" [Notice that "couldn't help but to" naturally wants to precede one of our to-be-avoided terms, such as feel, wonder, think, realize, wish. So, by removing the offending phrase, you also remove teh offending term and make the sentence fall into deep POV. Additionally, the deep example automatically implies that he is wondering and that he couldn't help himself from doing so. There's no need to tell the reader those things.]

When you see these phrases, you're telling, not showing. You can go deep to remove most, if not all, occurrences of these phrases and more effectively engage your reader.

The Five Senses...If You Tell Us the Senses, You're Not Deep Enough

Here's another list of phrases/words to remove from your manuscripts if you want to go deep:

He/She saw
He/She tasted
He/She heard
He/She smelled
He/She could see, taste, hear, smell

These are called sensory tells. Key word: tells. Guess what you're doing when you use them. That's right, you're telling. When you use these in your story, you're inflicting narrative distance again, pushing your reader away from the action and the character. Think of it like this, when you drink spoiled milk, do you think, "I'm tasting spoiled milk."? No, you probably think, "Ew! Yuck! How old is this milk?" That's how you want to think when you're writing Deep POV.

Shallow: "He heard a car pull into the driveway and froze."
Deep: "A car pulled into the driveway. He froze."

You don't need to tell us (tell) that the character tasted the milk or heard the car. Just show us the character tasting the milk and hearing the car. By going into Deep POV, you naturally do this. Does that make sense?

Avoid Naming Feelings and Emotions If You Want to Go Deep

Much like in the phrases above, naming emotions and feelings for your characters also puts readers at a distance and interjects a narrator's voice.

Shallow: "Tony closed his phone, frustration and fury surging through him."
Deep: "Tony slapped the phone shut. If steam could escape his pores, he'd be a toxic cloud."

See the difference? Nelson does a good job showing us in this example from her book exactly how we can portray frustration and fury by taking us inside the character instead of just telling us the character is frustrated and furious. Did you catch that? Telling. A narrator tells us that Tony is frustrated in the shallow example, but Tony himself shows us how he feels, which conveys his frustration naturally, in the deep example.

Another example from the book:

Shallow: "Hot jealousy flashed through me."
Deep: "Heat boiled my insides. If that wimp could win a trophy, where was mine?"
Any and all emotions and feelings can be inserted for "hot jealousy." Joy, happiness, sadness, anger, despair, terror, fear, aggravation, boredom. Happiness flashed through me, sadness flashed through me, terror flashed through me. *YAWN-boring* But when we go deep, each Deep POV, showing method will be unique: "The moment I saw Jeff emerge from the burning house, my body relaxed and I looked to the heavens, tears trailing down my cheeks. He was safe. My husband was safe. Thank God." "The air grew heavy and my body wilted as if the act of staying upright was too much work. Someone was talking, but I couldn't hear them. Jeff? Dead? He hadn't survived? Had I heard the officer correctly?" "My skin prickled and I searched the darkness, my breath locked inside my throat. 'Who's there?' Someone was watching me. Someone evil. I could feel it."

The lesson to be learned here? Remove the name of the feeling or emotion and replace it with a description of how, in your mind, your character would experience that feeling or emotion.

Prepositional Tells - Ditch 'em

A derivative of the previous section is the prepositional tell, where a preposition precedes the naming of an emotion, attitude, or thought. Examples: "...of happiness," "...with excitement," "in need."

As with the previous section, remove the prepositional phrase and replace it with a deeper description from within the character's POV.


Is going deep easy? No, but it's not hard, either, and it gets easier the more you do it. Using Deep POV takes work, and my suggestion is to write your first draft without even thinking about it and go deep in the editing process.

The purpose of the draft stage, where you're writing your manuscript from scratch, is to simply dump the story and scenes from your head onto paper (or computer screen) anyway. Writing takes place in the right brain, so when you're writing, you shouldn't be worrying about editing, which takes place in the left brain. Write first, edit later.

Furthermore, a first draft should never, NEVER, ever be what you publish. In fact, the first draft should only marginally resemble the finished product if you're editing correctly. Unless, of course, you're a professional author who's been writing books for the big leagues for twenty years. But then, if that's the case, this blog isn't for you. :)

Once you've brain-dumped your manuscript in the draft, you're ready to edit. Manipulating and correcting your manuscript is what edits are for. This is where you will go through and find all the offending shallow phrases pointed out in this post and correct them to be deep. As you do this more and more, you'll get better at including Deep POV in the draft stage so that it becomes more of a natural way for you to write. But reaching that stage could take years...although it will be worth it.

Be patient and never stop improving your writing.

Happy Reading and Writing!
-D

Note: Examples and terminology used in whole or part from Jill Elizabeth Nelson's book, Rivet Your Readers With Deep Point of View.

Is Head Hopping in Books the Same as Watching a Movie?

The other day, I posted about head hopping. One of my readers commented that head hopping wasn't all that bad and compared it to watching a TV show or movie, alluding that head hopping goes on all the time in movies and TV shows, so why not in books? I've been thinking about that comment every day since, trying to reconcile head hopping to watching a movie. I've even googled it (I didn't find anything substantial).

Being that I'm interested in all sides and want to look at all angles, I took this reader's comment seriously and have dug into this concept in an effort to either put merit behind it or debunk it, in a manner of speaking.

Before I continue, I will say that after reading other blog posts about this subject, I think a lot of people, authors and readers alike, misunderstand what head hopping really is. Head hopping is not when an author uses a break (either a scene break or a chapter break) to change from one character's point of view to another. That is simply referred to as a POV shift. Head hopping is where an author does NOT use a scene or chapter break and instead jumps from one character's POV into another's without warning the reader, oftentimes mid-sentence or mid-paragraph. Call it whiplash.

[NOTE: For those who try to say they're not head hopping but writing in omniscient, think again by reading this post by Jami Gold.]

I've always been told I think too much, but 1) I can't help it, and 2) how can someone think too much when we only use 10% of our brain power to begin with? and 3) I love thinking and debating sides in my own mind, which is why I'm thankful for the reader's comment on this subject.

I've heard this head-hopping-is-okay-because-they-do-it-in-the-movies argument before, and it has never sat well with me, stewing on my mind as I've tried to figure out what doesn't make sense about it. So, anyhoo, now that I've thought about this and read a bit more on the subject, and tried to give it an objective mind-scouring, here are my thoughts on how head hopping in novels is not the same as watching a movie:

To begin with, when we watch a movie, we are receiving input to one of our senses that doesn't get to partake as deeply when reading a novel, our sense of sight. While reading, we see the words, but that's as far as our sense of sight goes. With movies, our sense of sight is allowed to feast in a way it doesn't get to at many other times.

Following is an example of how powerful visual images in movies are:

A couple of years ago, I caught a scene of the movie, No Country for Old Men, as I was flipping through the channels. I ended up watching for about fifteen minutes, and I think only two lines of dialogue were said. Fifteen minutes of nothing but images on a screen, no dialogue, and no music. However, I knew exactly what was happening. I had never seen the movie before, and have yet to see the whole movie today, but through visual cues alone, I was totally transfixed and was able to figure out what was happening.
Why? Because the medium a film uses to convey the story is mostly visual images. Powerful visual images that show the reader exactly what to think. There is no guesswork. There is no need to ask, "Who's talking?" We see who's talking. We see who's taking off their shirt or loading the gun. We can deduce by the acting and film direction what the story is. But, if you take away the visual images and rely solely on just the dialogue and the sounds of that scene I just mentioned from No Country for Old Men, you'll have no clue what's going on.

With novels, the medium of communication is words, not visual images. Try doing in a novel what No Country for Old Men did in that scene, and take away the primary medium of communication (words). Try using no words whatsoever, only blank pages, to convey to your reader what is happening, and see how successful the book is. As with a movie where the visual images are taken away, readers won't have a clue what's going on if you give them blank pages, or even mostly blank pages with just a couple of lines of dialogue on them.

My point? Simple. My point is that readers read your words and create the pictures in their minds from what you tell them. If you can't paint clear enough word pictures, they will lose interest. We, as authors, must convey through the written word what is happening, because we don't have the luxury of visual images and movies in our books. We must paint that picture in our readers' minds through words alone. Otherwise, readers will not be able to see our stories, and they will not engage. Additionally, if you lose them through poor storytelling or poorly structured scenes, they will not engage, and a disengaged reader is bad, bad, bad, because they're the ones who don't finish your book and may never buy another one. And, like it or not, hopping from POV to POV is disruptive in the written medium, especially if it done poorly (see the link I've included below for more information).

As I was researching this topic for this post, I came upon a blog post written by Jami Gold, and she hit the nail on the head in more ways than one and said it better than I ever could:

Jami Gold - Why Is Head Hopping Bad?

After reading Jami's post, I found myself saying, I agree. Before I learned what head hopping was, I didn't consciously notice it, but I did subconsciously, and I remember being uber-aggravated by it more than once. I remember reading books where I got so lost in who was doing and saying what that I gave up trying to figure it out.

One of Christine Feehan's books did that to me, and I remember going back and re-reading several pages at a time more than once to try to figure out who was talking and doing the action. I never read another Feehan novel after that, because that one frustrated me so badly that I didn't think it was worth the trouble. I'm not even sure I finished that novel, but I do remember being extremely irritated. At the time, I had no idea what head hopping was, but I clearly reacted to it in a negative fashion. So, I agree, a reader doesn't have to know what head hopping is to be frustrated by it.

My other observation about head hopping in movies is that I really can't see how it's possible. We are the fly on the wall watching those characters on the screen as the action unfolds. We aren't inserting ourselves into one character's head and then into another's and another's and back-and-forth we go. We are made aware of only what the director or writer of the film (because, yes, movies start off as written scripts) wants us to know when they want us to know them. We are led by visual storytelling, not word storytelling.

Additionally, movies do have scene breaks. Equate them to chapter or scene breaks in a novel. Both movies and novels flow from one scene to the next and so on. And when those scenes break, oftentimes, a different character's POV becomes more dominant than another's, both in books and in movies. John McClane in Die Hard is likely the dominant POV character in the scenes he appears in, but he still interacts with other characters in those scenes and can deduce by their actions and words what's going on. But that is not the same as head hopping. Dialogue with those characters is not head hopping, nor is watching another character unbutton her blouse or answer a telephone call, which is more a result of POV, not head hopping.

In fact, we lose more POV and inside information in movies than in books, which, if head hopping were taking place, would not be the case. This is one of the biggest complaints of books-turned-into-movies. How many times have you heard someone say, "The book was better."? They say it was better because they were able to see more of what was going on inside the character's or characters' thoughts in the book than in the movie.

So, you can look at this a couple of ways: If you believe head hopping is going on in movies, and yet books are more often than not better-received than the movies they're made into, then obviously head hopping doesn't work very well. Or, head hopping really isn't taking place in movies, and the clearly defined POV shifts in books work better to tell the story.

Let's look at Twilight as another example, because it is both a book and a movie, too, much like No Country for Old Men. The book was written in first person POV, from Bella's perspective. In the movie, we get to see her POV come to life, and we get to see the action, whereas with the book, we could only imagine it.

So, is the movie still in Bella's POV or not? Are we, in fact, head hopping in the movie, whereas in the book we were firmly fixed inside Bella's head?

No, I don't think we are head hopping. What is happening is that we are seeing in the movie what Bella saw in the book. We aren't hopping into Edward's head and changing POV in the movie. We are merely seeing the action how Bella saw it, hearing the conversations with Edward and Jacob and everybody else the way Bella heard them. That is not the same as head hopping, otherwise Edward would give away to the viewers immediately that he is a vampire and we would never get to the big scene in the woods where she finally announces that she knows what he is and he says, "Say it. Out loud." Pause. "Say it!" then goes on to call her his own personal brand of heroin after the cat's out of the bag about his vampirism. If head hopping was going on in the movie, we'd know all about Edward early on, and the climax of the big announcement would be more or less a tiny squeak of insignificance.

There is a scene in the movie where we get to see the trio of bad vampires kill Charlie's friend, but again, that is not the same as head hopping. Bella couldn't see this scene in the book, but she was made aware of what had happened by talking to her father and Edward, so we were able to find out in the book from her POV that this had happened because Edward and her father told her. In the movie, we actually get to see that scene rather than just read about it through conversations with characters who know what's going on.

Christine, by Stephen King, is another book-turned-movie. Written from the first person POV of Dennis, Arnie's best friend, there are certain scenes in the movie that weren't "really" in the book, because Dennis wasn't present during those scenes. But the author's vision can come to life and take a few liberties in film, showing viewers what had actually happened in "real time" through visual images rather than through conversations between characters "after-the-fact," which is how it's usually done in books. However, once again, this is not the same as head hopping.

So, does head hopping really happen in movies or not? I don't think it does, and I don't think using that as support for head hopping in books is a good argument. Furthermore, comparing film techniques to book techniques is like comparing apples to oranges. Both films and books are ways to entertain people, but each goes about creating that entertainment in two very different ways. What works in movies won't work in books and vice versa, because each uses extremely different media to entertain.

In five or ten years, the rules might change and head hopping could be all the rage in fiction, but I'm not betting on it at this point, simply because I firmly believe it takes real talent to pull off the head hop without disrupting the reading experience for the readers. But that's just me. If head hopping becomes the vogue thing to do, I doubt I'll be able to do it. Like readers who love to seep themselves into a good book, I love seeping myself into the POV character I'm writing from. It's fun, and I use POV as my "twelfth man," as I wrote about in my last post, working POV like an extra character to elicit specific reactions from my readers and to reveal things in a logical sequence for the best effect.

Opinions? Thoughts? Can anyone show me an example of head hopping in a movie (I'm an avid movie-goer and can't think of any where actual head hopping occurs)? If anyone has other knowledge that I'm not aware of, I am greatly interested in seeing it. Thank you.

Happy reading and writing.
-D

Point of View - An Author's "Twelfth Man"

In football, the fans in the seats are referred to as the "Twelfth Man." Each team is only allowed eleven players on the field at one time, but the crowd becomes the twelfth. A well-trained crowd, such as the one Peyton Manning trained here in Indianapolis to be quiet when the offense is on the field and to get rowdy when the defense is, can create turnovers, cause penalties, and even help the home team score a touchdown. They are a critical factor in every game, which is why home field advantage is so coveted. The home team feeds off the energy of the crowd, and the visiting team has to overcome the noise of the crowd to prevent turnovers and penalties. You football fans out there know what I'm talking about.

Much like the twelfth man in football, point of view serves as the "twelfth man" in your book. Point of view, when used skillfully, can become a character in and of itself, and it can bring the entire story to life. Point of view is what allows your readers to immerse themselves into the story. It allows readers to feel what the characters are feeling, to see what they're seeing. Point of view (POV) is what brings tears to your readers' eyes, makes their hearts race, and makes them curse the bad guy. It is a living, breathing entity that acts as an extra character to make things happen that otherwise wouldn't without it.

In short, POV is a vital weapon in your writing toolbox.

In my last blog post, I talked about head hopping, which is directly linked to POV. If you didn't read that post, you might want to take a moment to do so. Head hopping involves jumping from one POV to another to another without showing the readers where that shift in POV is occurring. You show this POV shift through the use of blank lines, asterisks, chapter breaks, or some other "marker" that serves to inform your readers that a change in POV is taking place, but without that "marker," the reader doesn't know the POV is shifting, thus a head hop.

The problem is that I think there are some major misconceptions and misunderstandings about what, exactly, POV is. For example, as I stated yesterday, I used to be a head hopper. And I used to be the worst kind, because I didn't even know I was doing it. I didn't understand what point of view was or how to write using clear POV. I didn't understand the concept of head hopping, and I had even taken some pretty hefty writing courses. How did I not fully understand POV and head hopping with all the training I'd had? I "sort of" grasped the concepts, but I was more or less throwing darts in a dimly lit room, hoping I was hitting the target. But I didn't give up, and I continued to read and study until finally POOF! I got it.

Was point of view and head hopping simply my kryptonite? My nemesis? Every writer has at least one area they really have to work on, so is POV mine? Or, is the concept of POV simply that confusing and hard to understand? In my post yesterday, I mentioned that I have talked to other authors who seem to hold the same confusion over POV that I used to have. They have been told so much about the different types of POVs they can write in that they're a mental mess over whether they're writing first person, third person, omniscient, close third person, limited omniscient, and so on.

So, here goes. I'm going to make this super simple for those of you who struggle with POV and how to use it:

There are three main types of POV in writing, and only two that dominate in fiction:

1. First Person (I need to go there. I saw him pull a gun. When he yelled, I trembled and ducked my head.)
2. Second Person (This is not a POV used in fiction. It's used primarily in nonfiction, where the author is addressing "you," the reader, so you can scratch this from your fiction arsenal.)
3. Third Person (Trace tried not to grin when Micah opened the box and pulled out a revolver. He knew how Micah felt about guns, preferring his blades to a bullet any day. And if Micah did use a gun, he preferred his semi-auto with the wide grip. But the way Micah's lip curled and his nose crinkled broke Trace's resolve, and he threw his head back, laughing loudly. Trace felt for Adam the next time Micah saw him. He really did.) [Note that every character was referred to as "he" or by name. Even the POV character, Trace, is referred to in that way.]

Screw omniscient and close third person and whatever other fancy POV names you've heard. First person and third person. That's all you need to know right now. Those two POVs will suffice in every story you want to write, and they're the safest place for new authors (and the majority of indie authors) to live.

NOTE: In stories, we refer to character POV, meaning, "What character's point of view are you writing from?" Stephenie Meyer wrote Twilight in first person POV, but her first person POV was Bella's, not Edward's or Jacob's. I write in third person POV in my stories, and I write third person from the points of view of Micah, Samantha, Traceon, Arion, Severin, etc. So, POV is a two-parter: 1) Will you write first person or third person? and 2) Which character will be your narrator, or point-of-view character, for the story or a particular scene?

FIRST PERSON
The benefit of first person POV is that it allows your reader to become deeply ingrained inside the main character's head, which allows readers to see and feel the story more actively. The pitfall of first person is that you are relegated to one character's POV for the whole story. You can't go into another character's thoughts, because then you have broken the first person POV rule: How does character A know what character B is thinking? You would use first person if one character's POV is all you need to tell the story, as well as if you are comfortable writing first person, which some authors (me, for example) are not.

Example:

I held John's hand as we walked slowly back to my dorm. I was nervous. Would he kiss me when we got to my door? Or would he simply walk away?

Suddenly John stopped. Right there in the middle of the sidewalk. When he turned to me, he saw the way my eyes sparkled and stared down at my lip gloss-moistened lips, wondering how they would taste. 

Obviously, we are NOT in John's POV in this excerpt. We are inside the thoughts of whoever he's with. Let's call her Julie. Would Julie know that John was seeing how her eyes sparkled? Would she refer to her own lips as lip gloss-moistened? Would she know that John was wondering how her lips would taste? No. In Julie's POV, she would probably think something like: When he turned to me, the way he stared first at my eyes and then my mouth made me frown. Did I have something on my face? Was there dried mustard on the corner of my mouth from the hot dog he'd bought me earlier at the carnival? Why was he staring so intently at my mouth? Would I taste like dried mustard if he kissed me right now?

See the difference? If we're writing from Julie's POV, all she can do is speculate about what John is looking at and why, as well as what his thoughts are. When you're writing in first person, you can't hop out of Julie's head into John's unless she's psychic or a mind reader.
Think about in real life: When you're standing in line at the grocery store, do you know what the guy in front of you is thinking? No. You can use visual cues to make an educated guess, for example, if he turns and scowls at the twenty items in your basket and then glances up at the sign that says "Express Lane - 12 Items or Less," but you can NOT know exactly what he is thinking. In the first person POV, this might be written as, "As I stood flipping through the latest gossip trash, I glanced up at the man in front of me. He was glaring into my basket, his head bent down in an almost accusing nature. Pointedly, he looked up at the sign over the register. 'Express Lane - 12 Items or Less.' Then he turned back and scowled at me. Apparently, the guy was the Gestapo of express lanes, and I could feel him mentally flogging me for committing a cardinal sin of the express checkouts everywhere. Setting my jaw, I felt like saluting the bastard with my middle finger, but kept my composure as I offered a stiff smile and squared my shoulders, not to be bullied by his passive-aggressive abuse."

I didn't have to fall into the Gestapo's POV to convey his thoughts and feelings. The POV of our first person narrator was able to do that.

NOTE: These examples show you how you can use your "twelfth man," POV, as a tool to create suspense, drama, characterization, and even comedy. I bet you even smiled at Julie's dried mustard musings or our checkout vigilante's middle fingered salute, didn't you? And wasn't Julie's POV so much more interesting than John's because of her mustard obsession, because she has no idea what John is seeing and thinking. That's how POV can become a living, breathing counterpart to your characters.

THIRD PERSON:
In third person, you are now writing a character's POV from a little bit of a distance, but through their eyes. The benefit of third person is that it allows you to step into the minds of multiple characters within one book. The pitfall is that it puts a measure of distance between the reader and the character. If multiple POVs are crucial to your story, this is the choice you must use, whether you'd like to use first person or not.

Example:

Julie's POV
Julie held John's hand as they slowly made their way back to her dorm. She was nervous and wondered if he would kiss her once they reached her door or if he would simply walk away.

Suddenly, John stopped and pulled her to him. His gaze ranged her face, from her eyes to her mouth, and for a moment she wondered if dried mustard was stuck on the corner of her mouth from the hot dog he'd bought her at the carnival. Just her luck if it was. She always had bad luck like that.
God, he was going to kiss her. She could tell. It was in the way his eyelids half-closed and he gazed at her mouth. Please, please, she didn't want to taste like dried mustard.

When his lips pressed against hers, all thought stopped, and it was just the two of them, kissing under the light of the full moon.

John's POV
Julie's hand felt good in his. Small, delicate, even kind. How did a hand feel kind? He didn't know, but hers did. And her palm didn't get all sweaty like other girls' hands did. She was perpetually dry, even though he could sense her nervousness.

He liked that she seemed nervous. It made him feel more chivalrous for some reason, as if she were a shy rabbit ready to skitter away even as he held out a carrot, hoping she would take it and snuggle up against his hand.

More than anything, he wanted to kiss her. He had wanted to kiss her all night, and to hell with caution, he couldn't wait any longer. Stopping in the middle of the sidewalk, he turned toward her and pulled her close, catching the way her eyes sparkled under the nearby streetlamp before letting his gaze drop to her heart-shaped mouth, pink and moist from the lip gloss she had applied earlier. Would she taste like strawberries or watermelons? Perhaps cherries? He needed to find out. Lowering his head, he let his lips embrace hers, drawing in the faint taste of...yes, watermelon.

See how much difference a change in POV makes?

This is where it gets fun. Whose POV do you use? Well, you use the most important one to the scene and/or overall plot. If Julie's neurotic behavior is what is most important, you would use her POV, but sprinkle in bits of John's through dialogue or through Julie's observations of his behavior. On the other hand, if John's romanticism is more important, you would use his POV and may not even need to delve into Julie's.

This is where the work of being an author comes into play, and it's why I get a little frustrated with authors who say, "Both POVs are important, so I'm just going to use omniscient or head hop. Maybe both." Both POVs may be important, but you can convey both POVs without head hopping and by sticking to the "one POV at a time" rule, as I've demonstrated in a couple of these examples. It just takes a little more work, but nobody said writing was easy. You do have to work at it. I've written plenty of scenes where multiple POVs were relevant, but instead of head hopping, I looked at each character's POV in turn, one at a time, without letting the action and chronology of the story suffer, while still conveying everything that needed to be conveyed to the reader and moving the story along. Yes, it required forethought and a little cognitive input from me. Yes, I had to rewrite a few scenes into another character's POV during edits when the original scene didn't work. Yes, I had to work at this. But that's what I have to do to make sure the story is reader-ready. It's what all authors should have to do if they care about their readers.

Furthermore, you don't want to "spill all" immediately and from every character's point of view all at once. You want to draw out the action and keep some suspense. Using POV skillfully helps you to do that. By keeping one character's POV silent, you can use another's to get the reader thinking about what's going on inside that other charcter's head. Is he the killer? Is he a witness? Did he sell the murder weapon to the killer and is afraid to speak up? Does he have a shady past that puts him in jeopardy? If we go into that character's POV, we'll be giving some of that information away, and that could be detrimental to the story. And if you use omniscient POV but keep the murderer's POV silent, readers will see the ploy and get a bit upset about it. I guess Agatha Christie did this, and it didn't go over, so she abandoned her omniscient POV experiment and returned to a more basic method of writing.

So, yes, writing POV is an art, and it can make or break your story.
I want to say to the authors who take the easy way out and head hop instead of utilizing strictly one POV at a time: You are missing a fabulous writing tool by not employing and using POV to help you tell your story. This is your twelfth man, for God's sake! Use him to build suspense, drama, conflict, and to let the reader in on the joke when the punchline is relevant! By skillfully utilizing POV shifts, you can have a powerful influence on your readers' reactions and can create a much more dynamic, multi-dimensional story that pulls your readers along like a current in a river, making them practically salivate to see what's going to happen next.

Most authors just don't know any better, though, like me when I was struggling to grasp the POV concept. They don't understand it, so they don't know how to use it. That's not their fault. They just need more practice and guidance. They get themselves tangled up in all the advanced literary jargon and confuse themselves, which is so easy to do. But this is why I try to post on my blog what I've learned, so that I can help those who want to be better writers achieve their goals.

When it comes to POV, keep it simple: use first person or third person, and stick with one character's POV at a time. See the world and tell the story through one character's eyes until it's time to switch to another character's. Once you master this method, you can experiment with more advanced POV methods...or not. You might find this is sufficient and perfect for your needs. Either way, with practice, you'll get there.

Happy reading and writing!
-D