Point of View (POV)

Point of View and Filter Verbs

If you walk into a high street bookstore's best sellers' aisle and choose a title, it will most likely be in First Person Present (FPP). This is the point of view preferred by publishers. It's seen as more immediate and personal. Yes, there will be the odd book written in Third Person limited. But this is because a work of genius will always get through.

In short, if you want to increase your chances of landing a book deal, write in FPP.

Example of FPP

My heart races as I climb on top of Ria's glistening frame. Her dark eyes shimmer in the glow of the bedroom light and draw me closer. Ria's plumb-painted lips part for a moment before she whispers breathly into my ear. "Fuck me."

Example of Third Person Limited.

Don's heart raced as he climbed on top of Ria's glistening frame. He watched her dark eyes shimmering in the glow of the bedroom light. Ria's plumb-painted lips parted for a moment before she whispered breathly into Don's ear. "Fuck me."

I'm sure you agree FPP is the better POV.

Third Person is old fashioned. I think another issue with Third is that it's the go-to POV for writers who are yet to find their confidence and discover their voice.

But when writng FPP, be careful of using too many filter verbs. Try to avoid them. Using filter verbs puts distance between the reader and the character.

Filter words are usually explanatory words that remove a reader from the action by describing a character’s thought process or action in an explanatory way. As an example, in the sentence, “I hear the engine rumbling,” you could eliminate the filter words “I hear” and simply write, “The engine rumbles.”