Let’s imagine, for a moment, that we’re meeting at an icecream shop. And let’s say I ask you, “What’s your favorite ice cream flavor?”
Whether you’re consciously aware of it or not, your answer is your point of view, and it’s assimilated from every aspect of your very humanity: your biological wiring, your experiences, your childhood, your beliefs, even how you’re feeling in the moment.
Point of view (POV) in prose is just as deceptively complex. Yet, too often only simplistic definitions are served up, in the manner of the childhood “we all scream for ice cream” chant:
• First person (I scream for ice cream)• Second person (You scream for ice cream)• Third person limited (He, she, or• Third person multiple, or omniscient (Wow! Sue, Ted, and perhaps a whole lot of other people scream for ice cream)
