Customer Reviews

Mastering Point of View

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Point of view seems like it should be so simple. But when you start poking around you find it's so much more complex than you ever imagined--there's unlimited point of view, first-person, inner limited, second-person, outer limited, combo, multiple... and that's just the basics. Scared yet?

Point of view was one of those things that I just kind of closed my eyes and prayed about. I'd write a story and trust PoV to take care of itself. Sure, I had a decent sense for it, so usually things worked out okay. But I'm also sure that if I went back now, after having finished this book, I'd find a whole lot of mistakes that I need to fix. And you want to look like a pro who knows what she's doing when you send that story to an editor, right?

"Mastering Point of View" debunks common myths regarding what you can and can't do with PoV. Topics are divided into short sections that are labeled clearly; this makes it easy for you to find information at a moment's notice. Each chapter begins with the basics of its topic. Then it goes into the advantages and disadvantages to using each form of PoV--both to you and to your readers! You'll see examples, get a simple description of things to consider when choosing a PoV, find out about genres and situations each type of PoV is typically used in, and more.

"Mastering Point of View" is a comprehensive, simple, clear treatise on a murky and painful subject. It gets a little repetitive, but I've seen much worse. Every writer owes it to herself to read it at least once.

 The book, Mastering Point of View by Sherri Szeman, has been very helpful to me. I like the way she address each of the different points of view used in writing novels. She explains each Point of View and then shows excerpts from novels to demonstrates how they are done. I like the Tips she adds through out the chapters. The appendices are historical overviews dwelling on different types of fiction and are made interesting.
As a complete book on the subject of Point of View, rather than the short chapters one reads in other self help for writer's books, it is very well done.

but is so busy endlessly repeating the few nuggets of information she has to offer that she never gets to the interesting parts. As a basic primer the book works, but all the worthwhile information could have been rendered in fifteen pages. The most frustrating part is that she doesn't seem all that well read, so instead of being able to show you how different authors make different POVs work, she repeatedly draws her examples from the same handful of books (including Ulysses--as if aspiring writers are going there). The result is a superficial treatment of something that could have been fascinating. Sorry to be so negative, Sherri, but I was excited when I saw the title and my disappointment is acute.

I felt like the first 100-or-so pages of this book could have been condensed into about 15-20. Sherri Szeman fills an extraordinary number of pages defining what points of view are and what they're not. I do think it's important to define and describe the common (and uncommon) points of view used in fiction writing, for the sake of clarity and internal consistency, but I didn't expect to get such a long basic tutorial on it in a book called "Mastering Point of View".

About three-fifths of the way through the book, it started to get interesting. Szeman addresses a number of topics from the frame of point of view, from "urgency" (which she defines simply as "what keeps the reader reading", and I like her take on this much better than Jack Bickham's "disasters" from Scene & Structure), setting, dialogue, character development and erotic/violent scenes. Unfortunately, these sections were far too short! I felt like these sections should have been the meat of the book; there was some good advice and information, but it was too cursory, and then she was off and running to the next topic.

I appreciated her historical overview of novels, as well her encouragement to writers to experiment. Overall, I liked the tone of the book - Szeman comes across as very personable and friendly - but wish she'd offered more substance.

This guide is so repetitive it reads as if she's been commissioned to write the book and is being paid by the word, caring little about boring the reader. The substance barely goes beyond defining the labels for different points of view (over and over). It was useful to know which POVs were used most often for different genres.

I've mentioned this book at every chance I got. On several occasions I was asked to speak to a class about writing for publication, and I always made it a point to mentioned Ms. Szeman's well thought out book. POV is so very important. The do's and do do not's are extremely helpful.

The term POV is often used interchangeably with perspective, and I was looking for a book to help me with writing from different character perspectives. This book doesn't cover that. So if you are really looking for a book on perspective, this is not the book for you.

However, it does give excellent information on various points of view available to writers and how to use them.