Wattpad 101: Your guide to the world of Wattpad

Describing Points of View

Anyway, this all fits in with the tendency to over describe things in first person. In reality, our brains ignore a lot of our surroundings as we go. We don't create eidetic flashes of everything we see and it doesn't make sense to over describe. A few authors go so far as to describe the thoughts of those that aren't the PoV character or to divulge information the PoV character doesn't know, which you can imagine is taking things too far.  

If you are determined to divulge information your character doesn't know, it needs to be reflected in the narration. Here is one way to do this is by combining past or future tense into your PoV. If it's something your character eventually learns, you can refer to it like... 

"At this point, I didn't know Joe was a magical Unicorn, but I'd learn very soon."  

This goes into kind of a grey area in writing. Are you writing your story like the narrator is telling it, or are you writing the story like the narrator is living it? That can lead to many small differences between how you write a story or chapter, and you need to make these decisions before you start writing, or things will just sound bad.  

The next thing you might find yourself worrying about are PoV changes. Perhaps you have seven main characters and you want every one of them to have a point in their PoV. Making that many PoV characters clearly is incredibly hard. I personally don't recommend doing it, if you want that many PoV characters, just settle for third. However, if you insist on it, the only real way to do it is chapters. In other words, limit yourself to one PoV per chapter. If you want multiple PoVs and you want first person, do not do more than 1 PoV per chapter, and do not do the *Jenny's PoV* labeling. I find the *Jenny's PoV* labeling to be very unprofessional and I can't recall a single published book I've read that has done it. That doesn't mean that one (or many) doesn't exist, just that I think it's a sign of shotty writing. Although, if you have >3 PoV characters, I would strongly recommend that the chapter titles be the name of the PoV character, which is a sneakier way to do the same thing but look professional doing it.  

I also urge you to have some kind of order to your PoV characters. Don't just go 20 chapters as one person's PoV, change to another person's for 1 chapter, and then do another 20 with the first person again. I know you really wanted that one sweet scene from your other character's PoV or you really wanted the author to know something and you couldn't figure out how to let you know without the PoV character knowing without making them look like a retard. I get that that happens. However, when you choose to have 20 chapters in someone's PoV followed by a random PoV change for a chapter it feels like shotty planning and weak writing. It's hard to read and 9/10 of your readers will be completely confused by the sudden shift in PoV. Plan better than that and be creative so that that never happens.  

2nd Person:

Not a lot of people do second person. For those of your unfamiliar with the idea, in second person, the writer is basically telling you (the reader) what you are doing. The most common books that show this kind of thing are the choose your own adventure books. You are basically inserting yourself as the protagonist in the story and acting out the adventure the writer prepares for you.  

As a writer, your job becomes to make that flow and allow me (the reader) to become absorbed in the story. The writing is a lot like 1st person, you can't really tell me more than what I would be able to see or know. Therefore, the events the writer writes and describes should be within my (the protagonist's) capacity to identify.  

One of the biggest issues I find with 2nd persons I've read is the level of suspension of disbelief. The writer's job is to limit the level of my suspension of disbelief. As a 2nd person protagonist in your story, I've already assumed the part of your protagonist. In this respect, I've accepted that I cannot choose my own actions. I'm like an actor in a play, and you are the director telling me the role I have to play. In that respect, I'm willing to suspend quite a lot of disbelief, especially if I find myself performing actions I wouldn't in real life.