When considering or reconsidering POV, you must address two separate issues.

Vantage Point

One issue is the vantage point of the story: Is this character the right lens or filter for this story? Or should the story be told from a different character's point-of-view? Is this still the right consciousness for your story?

In other words, will this character's POV be interesting or compelling? Is this the right mode?

Put your current POV under a microscope. Would it be better to choose a different character as the vantage point? Touching back upon author Jack Smith's suggested bullet points to consider:

• Whose perspective would give us a better understanding of the human condition, the human experience, human nature, human psychology?

• Whose perspective would tell us the most about the nature of human relationships? Of some social or cultural practice?

If you pursue the revision of vantage point, keep in mind that you might be filtering your story through the mind of a character with a different personality, a different take on the world, and a different set of expectations.

Whichever vantage point you switch to, you could run into one or more of the following issues:

• Character's experience of the world.
• Maturity of thinking.
• Gender attitudes.
• Class consciousness or bias.

The story material itself would surely change, probably substantially, as you recase the POV with a different character.

If you're questioning your narrative perspective—or perhaps you're considering two narrative perspectives instead of one—you should decide on the best possible vantage point, or vantage points, from which to tell your story.

Besides the general character issues I named above, plus more—personality, traits, sensibility, and so forth—you will have to consider the following character-specific issues related to your new character or characters:

• Stake in the matter at hand: Will it be the same as your present character's? What gives this character a stake in the matter?

• Knowledge of certain characters, actions, and conflicts: Will this character be as likely to know as much about these matters as your present character? Is this character an insider or an outsider?

• Ability to change: What will it take to make this character change? Does this character have as much potential to change, or less, than your current POV character?

• Issues of sympathy/empathy: Will this character elicit a strong emotional response from the reader? Why? What will make us care about this character?

It is possible that in redoing the vantage point from which your story is told, you'll end up working with a character who has a lot more going for her. She may have a greater stake in the action, she may be more likely to change, and she may elicit more sympathy from the reader.

Be open to overhauling your story in this way if you think your current POV character isn't strong enough.

Narrative POV

The second issue has to do with narrative mode. Whichever POV you chose in writing your first draft is probably done so instinctively. It sounded right to say "I" or "he" or "she." How did you decide what sounded right? It may have been an entirely emotive reaction and hard to account for. You might not intend to change the POV, but maybe you can do something to handle it better than it is presently handled.

Should your story be told in first-, second-, or third-person POV? To rethink your POV, you must also consider what each narrative POV can deliver.

Remember, first-person gives immediacy and intimacy, especially with I-narrators who are particularly self-reflexive.

The third-person limited establishes more narrative distance from the character, and the third-person omniscient establishes even more distance.

Deciding on the right vantage point and the right narrative mode is important to any substantive revision. Even if you feel pretty confident about POV, you should reconsider both aspects as you set out to revise your novel.

If you decide to revise POV, you will certainly have some work ahead of you, especially with a novel. It's not merely a matter of changing "I" to "he" or "she."

If you move from an I-narrator to a third-person limited POV, you now have much more narrative distance in your story. The intimate "I" is no longer speaking directly to us. Instead, the story has an authorial voice: a persona created by you, the author. Such a revision means rethinking the emotional feel of the character. It can be very transformative and can give the story a completely different sound.

If you have more than one protagonist and you shift from multiple first-person narrators to omniscient, or from omniscient to multiple first-person narrators, the revision will likely be even more extensive—and again, the sound of the work will undoubtedly change.

Changing Narrative POV

Before you consider what is involved in transforming a work from one narrative POV to another, decide first the overall feel you want for the work.

Do you want it to be upbeat, impassioned, or meditative? Do you want an edgy sense of calamity in the making? Do you want irony? Of course, any of the narrative modes might work well with any of these desired tones.

If you shift from third-person to first-person POV:

• There will be less distance and more immediacy. For example, you've tried to write something impassioned and semi-tragic in third-person, but it somehow didn't achieve the right emotional engagement you were looking for. First-person might seem better, but while your prose style seemed right in the third-person, it seems way off in the first. You may need to go for a different style—perhaps less formal, perhaps a different pacing or tempo. Style may not always be an issue when you shift from third to first, but it could be.

• You will potentially lose authorial material. This applies more to omniscience more so than limited, though limited still applies. If you switch your story from the omniscient POV to two or more first-person narrators, certain authorial statements about characters might no longer be useful. These might include descriptions of characters' physical appearances, observations about characters' traits, quirks, attitudes, and the like, as well as authorial privileged knowledge of setting.

It's a matter of judgment as to how authorially intrusive any of this material might be—even for an omniscient narrator—but the central question for now is: How much of this material will you be able to use? Can all of this material be woven seamlessly into the revised first-person work—for instance, certain larger contexts such as setting and historical background? Choosing the omniscient POV gives you some freedom to comment, as long as authorial commentary doesn't become intrusive—it's a difficult balancing act.

Choosing the first-person means leaving story materials entirely in the hands of the characters—what is suited to them in all of their particularity: what they can know and be likely to take note of and care about or internalize. If you switch to the first, you may lose some material that worked well in the third but doesn't seem to anymore.

• The author's omniscient knowledge of the future would be lost. An omniscient author can look ahead in a character's life and say how this character will view a particular matter years hence. If you shift from omniscient to multiple I-narrators, this will mean the loss of such omniscience. This means finding ways other than an omniscient author to bring out such future developments. Your other option is to change your story.

If you shift from first-person to third-person POV:

• You will lose immediacy and gain distance. Will this story work with greater distance? Or is this story meant to be more imitate? Will the narrative distance you achieve somehow keep you from getting close enough to your character's consciousness even if you erase the narrator as much as possible?

• You will now be open to authorial material. This may work well for you if you have more than one protagonist and you want to go with an omniscient narrator. You may want to depict a character in ways that are not as available to you in the first-person. Perhaps you want to put this character in a certain context, using metaphors or similes that would not have worked in the first person. You may want to bring in setting material or historical background outside of the character's knowing. Avoid intrusive authorial commentary.

If you do change your POV, it's best to apply the new POV to several pages, as many as fifteen or twenty in a novel, to be sure it will work. You may even decide that changing the POV from third-person limited to omniscient, or vice versa, is the best decision for your story. Whatever you do, it's best to read good fiction for models of each POV.

Consistency of POV

Have you gotten out of the voice of your character—or have you inserted yourself into the character's voice? Would your character be likely to know X, Y, or Z, or is this something the author knows instead? With a third-person omniscient POV, the author might step outside the protagonist's consciousness on occasion, as long as most of the drama is left in the hands of the protagonist.

With the third-person limited POV, it's more of a risk, but generally speaking, if you step outside your character's knowing, in the third-person limited especially, your POV isn't consistent.

This can happen even in a first-person narrative if the I-narrator seems to move out of his voice and into an authorial voice, saying and thinking things he clearly would not say or think—or know.

When a story is written in multiple POV, if the POV shifts again and again in a particular scene, this may seem cluttered, confusing, or both. Not that you can't shift POV in a scene, but be sure it's purposeful and clear to the reader. Perhaps one perspective provides a context for another. Or perhaps several perspectives are important at this time, place, or set of circumstances.

If, for instance, it's a gathering of people—party, wedding, funeral—hopping around from one perspective to another might work quite well. Ask yourself, then, if this is the scene where different perspectives are important to represent.

In some cases, POV has been consistently in one character's vantage point, or perhaps two, but then the POV shifts to a third consciousness. A cameo shot. This is certainly doable, but you must make it clear why this third consciousness is vital to the story for one short spell. Perhaps it is used to call into question, or to reaffirm, the thinking of the key character(s), or to provide a contrastive or comparative way of thinking. Be sure you have a good reason to shift POV to a minor character.

Still Rethinking POV?

Ask yourself this:

1. Is your POV character the right choice for this story? Why or why not? Do you plan to change your POV character? If so, what change will you make? How will the new POV character work better than your present one? Will this change provide a more interesting perspective? Or is there a different reason for the change?

2. Do you have a second POV character? Answer the questions from the first question.

3. If you have two POV characters, whose story is more important? Or, are their stories equally important? If so, how?

4. Which narrative mode (first, second, third) are you using? What is accomplished by this mode? What changes, if any, do you plan to make to the narrative mode? Why?

5. Do you see places where you could handle POV better? For instance, if you're using the third-person omniscient POV, do you see places where you need to be less intrusive?

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