This is Why Your Novel Feels Flat

How to choose the right POV and narrative perspective for your book

Often I read a manuscript where the pitch sounds excellent and the synopsis promises all the right plot elements – and yet the novel somehow falls flat. The twists and turns lack impact, and as a reader I just don’t feel invested in the story. This generally suggests a issue with the way the story is told, that somewhere along the line the mechanics of things aren’t working. Sometimes this might be stylistic – the prose isn’t technically strong enough – but more often than not it’s simply that the author has chosen the wrong POV for their novel.

First, let’s be clear about what we’re talking about. The POV, or point of view, of a novel is the voice in which it’s written – which may be a character’s voice, or may be that of an unnamed narrator. The decision of which POV to use makes a huge difference to your story, for reasons which will (I hope!) be obvious by the time you’ve finished reading this post. Choosing the right one can make the difference between a novel that feels flat, and one which is punchy, impactful, and stays with readers long after they finish reading.

Photo by Etienne Girardet on Unsplash

Let’s start by looking at our POV options, and their pros and cons:

First Person

A particular character is telling the story in their own voice and words. E.g. I opened the door and saw my mother standing there.

Pros: Intimate, voice-driven

Cons: Limits your ability to show context – we only know what the narrator does, because we are in their head

Second Person

The story is told as if the reader is part of it. E.g. You opened the door and saw your mother standing there.

Pros: Deeply immersive

Cons: Hard to maintain (but can be v effective in shorter passages)

Third Person Omniscient

An unnamed narrator is telling the story – e.g. He opened the door and saw his mother standing there – and they know everything.

Pros: Allows insight into multiple characters

Cons: Can feel dated; limits intimacy

Third Person Close or Intimate

A particular character is telling the story – e.g. He opened the door and saw his mother standing there – and we are limited to what he or she knows/sees/understands.

Pros: Balances intimacy and ability to hide character’s thoughts

Cons: Easy to headhop which betrays a lack of control

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Your POV is tied into your chosen narrative perspective too (i.e. the character from whose perspective we see the story unfold). If you do not choose an omniscient narrator, then by default you tell the story through one (or a limited number of) character(s). If Harry Potter is telling the story, then we can never know exactly what Voldemort is thinking, only what Harry understands of what Voldemort is thinking.

Of course you can have more than one narrative perspective within a book – Nick and Amy in Gone Girl for example, or the love interests in dual-voice romance. These can be in the same POV, or different ones – often you see detective novels where the detective’s narrative is in third person and the killer’s is in first. There is lots of flexibility here! But if you are going to mix narrative voices within a book you need to make sure they all feel distinct – each should feel as if it fits the character it comes from, rather than all of them sounding exactly the same. I wrote a post on making characters feel distinct a few weeks back, which has some tips on dialogue that would help here too:

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So if there are multiple POVs to choose between, and you can even combine them – how do you decide what is right for your book?