First, disclaimer. No one is a perfect author, and I am not claiming to be one. But with my 7 years of fanfic writing experience (yep, I've been here about 7 years) and taking AP and college courses on writing, I feel prepared to delve into this subject in the hopes that someone who's struggling with this writing error reads this and learns a new tool.

I think one of the biggest mistakes I ever made in my years of writing fanfiction was writing 1st person POV stories with multiple character perspectives. And it's still something I have to constantly correct myself with and check myself while I'm writing. Of all my fan fictions that are currently published (whether completed, partially published, or on HIATUS), only one remains in 1st person POV, and only because those stories are based off of novels that use first person.

Let's break this down.

Point of view (POV) is the writing style that determines where the reader is in relation to the story. There are three POVs.

1st person is where the narrator uses "I" or "me" in singular, and "we/us" in plural. In this POV, it's like the narrator/main character is sitting down and personally telling the story to the reader. The narrator can either be nameless (more often this is seen in short stories) or be the main character that you follow through the story (more common in novels, where you follow the main character through their adventures. E.g. Hunger Games (Katniss), Percy Jackson and the Olympians (Percy), and Twilight (Bella)).

2nd person is where the narrator uses the noun "you" EXCLUSIVELY when referring to the character's POV. In this POV, the reader literally becomes the main character/subject of the story the narrator is describing. This POV is rare; I've only read one short story that actually used 2nd person POV. Sometimes it seems like a story might be in 2nd person, but it's actually 1st person.

Ex: "To succeed in this environment, you need to be prepared to put in the work. Clock in on time. Focus while you're here. If you have to use your lunch to get paperwork done, do it. Everyone has to eventually, you might as well just suck it up. It's either that, or stay after hours, but that'll piss off the boss. If you every need help with anything, my desk is right over there. If I'm not too busy, I'll give you a hand."

See? When you're first reading that paragraph, it seems like it's in 2nd person. But right at the end the narrator used 1st person pronouns. The narrator only has to refer to themselves once with "I" for it to be considered 1st person POV.

Finally, 3rd person POV is where the narrator refers to the main character as "he/him" "she/her" or "they/them" (singular or plural), or of course by name. In this point of the view, the narrator is telling the reader the story from outside the actual story. When I was in school, my teachers would refer to this as "the god POV", because the narrator can see everything in the scene: the main character, other characters in the scene, and the room around them as if they're watching from above.

Now, when writing fanfiction (or really, a novel in general) you're likely using either 1st person or 3rd person POV.

When I first started right fanfiction, I exclusively used 1st person. Depending on how the person is approaching the story, 1st person may seem like the correct way to go. Let me explain to you why it may not be the right choice for your story.

Okay, it terms of deciding whether it's right fit for your story. Sometimes, in order to properly tell your story, you need to tell the story from more than one character's perspective. Perspectives are something exclusively utilized in 3rd person POV, or, it should be, as 3rd person is the only POV where the narrator can see all the characters. In 1st person, the narrator is the main character, and therefore there can only be one character's perspective. If you're using multiple character perspectives, then you're implying that there's multiple narrators, and chances are your fanfiction isn't the Bible.

I've made this mistake before. When I first wrote my TMNT fanfiction, I used 1st person. When I went through and did the first reconstruction, I decided that Mikey and Shelby's relationship was unrealistic, and for some reason I blamed that on the fact that we didn't get to see Miley's perspective, rather than the fact that it was poorly written and rushed. So, I sprinkled in a few chapters that were Mikey's perspective in 1st person.

That's a no-no. And later I realized that, and I either had to get rid of Mikey's chapters, or switch everything to 3rd person. I opted for the second option because I liked the way the chapters outside of Shelby's perspective helped round out the story. And this is a valid, publishable writing method. Some novel series I've read that use multiple character perspective in 3rd person POV include most of the Warrior Cat arcs and Heroes of Olympus series.

Now, I'm telling you this is improper writing. If you don't want to change it, that's fine. Fanfiction writing is a hobby, not a profession. But if you ever want to publish real literary works, you're not gonna make it past publishers if you submit a 1st person story with multiple perspectives.

Okay, that's my writing lesson. Hope you enjoyed 😂