First person vs third person: how to choose your POV

First person puts the reader inside one character’s voice: “I” tells the story, and the reader knows only what that character knows and chooses to say. Third person tells it from outside with “she”, “he” or “they”, either staying close to one character at a time (third person limited, or close third) or moving freely between minds (omniscient). Choose first person when the narrator’s voice is the point; choose third when you need more than one character’s view, or a little distance from the one you’re following.

What’s the difference between first person and third person?

The pronoun is the smallest part of it. The real difference is who tells it, and what they’re allowed to know.

In first person, a character is the narrator. Everything passes through them: what they notice, get wrong, or would rather not mention.

In third person, a narrator who isn’t in the story does the telling. How much that narrator knows depends on which kind of third you choose:

• Third person limited (close third): the narrator stays with one character at a time and knows only what they think and perceive.
• Third person omniscient: the narrator stands above the cast and can go into anyone’s head, or step back and comment on all of them.
• Third person objective: a camera in the room. Only what can be seen and heard; no one’s thoughts at all.

The same scene, three ways

Here is one moment from a story set in a wet October in a harbour city. Lisa has come to meet her brother Tom at Café Mercer. The café is shut, and Tom, who is never late, isn’t there.

First person:

The shutter was down. Closed for a private event, the sign said, in handwriting I didn’t recognise. I checked my phone again, as if Tom might have texted in the four seconds since I last looked. He hadn’t. Tom always texts.

Close third (third person limited):

The shutter was down. Closed for a private event, the sign said, in handwriting Lisa didn’t recognise. She checked her phone again. Nothing. Tom always texted.

Omniscient:

The shutter at Café Mercer had been down since six, and the owner, who had written the sign in a hurry, was already home. Lisa read it twice. Across the city, Tom’s phone lay face down on a bench at the depot, buzzing to no one.

Notice what changes.

The first-person version has a joke (“in the four seconds since I last looked”) that only Lisa could make about herself: worry and self-mockery together, in her words.

The close-third version is a little cooler. “Tom always texted” is still Lisa’s thought, but without “I” the reader gets her worry at a sliver of distance.

The omniscient version knows things Lisa can’t: where the owner went, where Tom’s phone is. That kills the mystery of why Tom hasn’t answered and replaces it with dread. The reader knows something is wrong before she does.

None of the three is right. They are three different scenes.

How do you choose a point of view for your novel?

Work through these in order. Most books answer the question by the third one.

1. Whose story is it? If one person carries the whole book and the reader needs to feel it from inside, first person or close third. If the story belongs to a family, a town or a crew, look at multiple close-third viewpoints or omniscient.
2. Does the voice carry the book? If the way the narrator talks is the pleasure (wry, unreliable, funny, frightened), first person gives you that voice in every line, description included.
3. What does the reader need to know that the main character doesn’t? If the plot depends on the reader seeing the danger coming (the phone on the bench), you need either omniscient or a second viewpoint character. First person can’t show what its narrator never sees.
4. How much distance do you want? First person is the closest. Close third can sit almost as close, then pull back for a wider view of the room when a scene needs it. Omniscient and objective keep their distance.
5. What will you give up? First person loses everything the narrator doesn’t witness. Close third loses other minds until a scene break. Omniscient needs a confident narrating voice of its own.

If you still can’t decide, close third and first person are both safe defaults, and neither is a lesser choice.

Third person limited vs omniscient: which is better?

Neither is better; they do different jobs.

Close third is good for suspense and sympathy: the reader is shut in with one character and finds things out when they do. Books with several viewpoint characters often change viewpoint only at a break: Lisa’s chapter, then Tom’s.

Omniscient is good for scope and irony: a narrator who can say what everyone in the room wants and how none of them will get it. It suits large casts and comic novels. Its risk is that the reader never settles into anyone.

What is head-hopping, and how do you fix it?

Head-hopping is when a scene written in close third slips from one character’s thoughts into another’s without meaning to. It’s easy to miss in your own draft.

Here is Tom and Lisa, finally on the phone:

Lisa could tell from his breathing that he’d been running. Why was she always checking up on him? Tom thought. He was fine. She’d only worry more if he told her about the depot.

The first sentence is Lisa’s view. By the second, we’re in Tom’s head, and the reader has to work out whose scene this is. The fix is to stay with one person and let the other show themselves through what they say and do:

Lisa could tell from his breathing that he’d been running. “I’m fine,” Tom said, too quickly. “Something came up at the depot.”

Now the reader is with Lisa, and Tom’s evasion comes through his words, which is all Lisa has to go on too.

Head-hopping isn’t omniscience. An omniscient narrator moves between minds on purpose, in its own voice; head-hopping is a close viewpoint leaking.

A quick check: for every sentence of thought or feeling, ask whose is this? If the answer changes mid-scene and you didn’t decide it should, you’ve hopped.

Try it in the next ten minutes

Take one page of your draft, ideally with two people in it, and rewrite it in the other point of view: first person to close third, or the reverse.

Then read both and ask:

• What did the voice lose or gain? First person often finds a joke or a confession that third person didn’t have room for.
• What did you have to cut? If a whole paragraph depended on knowing what the other person was thinking, your original may have been head-hopping.
• Which one do you want to keep writing?

The page that’s easier to continue is usually the one whose viewpoint fits the story.

Point of view also shapes what you need to remember about the people on the page. In first person the narrator is on every page without being named, so it’s worth tracking them as carefully as anyone else (there’s a method for that in how to keep track of characters in a novel). And description changes with it: in close third, what a room contains is what the viewpoint character would notice (more on that in how to describe a scene).

Choosing point of view in ProseSpun

ProseSpun is a fiction writing app for people with more story than sentences, and you can see how it works on the ProseSpun homepage. A story’s point of view is set once, on the story’s Details tab, and you can change it there whenever you like.

Narration offers five choices: First person, Second person, Third, close, Third, all-knowing and Third, camera-eye. The one you pick goes into every command that writes prose, so a suggestion for your closed café comes back as “I” or “she” to match the book.

Told by names who is telling it, for first person, second person and close third: you pick one of the story’s characters. In first person that answers the question a model can’t always settle from a page: which of the people in this scene is “I”? Leave it as The narrator and the model works it out from the prose. All-knowing and camera-eye have no Told by, because they have no single viewpoint to name.

A scene can be told by someone else. For a book that alternates viewpoints, Lisa’s chapter and then Tom’s, each scene has a Told by line under its title. It shows the story’s narrator by default, and a pick there applies to that scene only.

In first person, the narrator’s card comes along with every request in the scenes they tell, though the prose only ever says “I”. So a suggestion knows Lisa is always early, in a scene that never names her. (How ProseSpun decides what goes into each request is in A novel is bigger than any model’s memory.)

Whatever comes back is a proposal, with the changes marked, waiting for you.

Related reading: Past tense vs present tense in fiction and How to write dialogue.

Frequently asked questions

Is first person or third person better for a first novel?

First person is often quicker to find a voice in, because you’re writing as someone. Close third gives you more room to show other characters and to change viewpoint between chapters. Write a page in each and keep the one you want to continue.

Can you mix first person and third person in one novel?

Yes. Some novels give one character first-person chapters and tell the rest in third. It works best when the switch follows a clear pattern, such as by chapter or by character, so the reader always knows who is speaking.

What is close third person?

Close third is third person limited held very near one character’s thoughts. It uses “she” or “he”, but the narration takes on that character’s words and judgments, so it can feel nearly as intimate as first person while keeping the option to pull back.

Can you change point of view in the middle of a chapter?

You can, but do it at a visible scene break, a blank line or a section mark, and stay with the new character until the next break. A change in the middle of a scene without a break is what readers experience as head-hopping.

Pick a page tonight, tell it from the other side, and keep the version that wants to go on.