It all depends on your point of view, they say. You can look at a glass and see if it’s half empty or half full or the wrong size container for the amount of liquid - as an engineer might say. The team that wins a game will be elated. The team that loses will be depressed.

In writing fiction, the point of view is a powerful tool that allows the writer to take the reader inside a character’s head, to see the scene through that character’s eyes and thoughts. Some authors are skilled at taking the reader in and out of different character’s minds, so much so that the reader barely notices and just goes along for the ride. Sometimes, if it is not skillfully done, the switching of points of view can make the reader nauseous like a childish videographer who pans rapidly around a scene.

A careful manipulation of points of view can allow the reader to see the same event from different points of view. In a crime novel that can be particularly telling as the scheme unravels before the readers eyes. The scene can even be seen through the eyes of the killer. Strict first person narration restricts the telling of the tale to the point of view of the narrator alone because, as much as we might like to, we really can’t go inside other people’s heads and know what they are thinking

In the book that I am working on now, I mapped out which characters I was going to use for the points of view before I began. Then I can write a scene in that character’s voice and thoughts and reactions. At the same time I am keeping the time line continuous so I won’t go back and describe what else might have been happening at the same time from a different character’s point of view. It’s the manipulation of all these writing tools that make the process enjoyable for both the writer and the reader.