IS Entry No. 5: POV

I’m really struggling with deciding on the narrative POV for my story because a couple of nuances for my specific idea. Here’s a list of pros and cons for the different options I’m deciding between:

First person
Pros
– Generally more engaging for the reader in my experience
– Better for character building as the reader gets insight into the thoughts and experiences of the protagonist
– Write in the perspective of one character at a time/more straightforward

Cons
– I want the protagonist to be a one-size-fits-all character so the reader can respond to my prompts/questions from their POV not necessarily as the character
– Multiple characters which the protagonist doesn’t interact with for long, which may require multiple first person POV’s = confusing?

Second person
Pros
– The reader and the protagonist are synonymous – they get to step into a world as the character
– The reader has to imagine themselves within the context of the story and therefore, “act” or respond as the protagonist

Cons
– Requires a strong narrative voice to be effective (hard to pull off well)
– Can sounds prescriptive – like the narrator is controlling you
– Come off like a self-help book
– The reader can’t ‘be’ multiple characters within the story, hard to tell the POV of other characters

Third person omniscient
Pros
– Can tell the story in multiple character POVs
– Good for world building within the story
– More objective facts of what’s going on in the story vs. biased view from a character

Cons
– Further removes the player from the story i.e., almost like their a spectator
– Could get really long to describe the POV of multiple characters/confusing
– The prompts I ask the reader wouldn’t really make sense e.g., “How are you feeling?”

EDIT: I’ve decided that second person POV lends itself better to effectively communicate my idea. This is because I really want to emphasize that this story/game is meant to be a microcosmic experience of the everyday challenges that most of us face but with a zoomed out/big picture lens to pragmatically approach them in the future. The goal of my story is to illustrate to the reader how mindfulness of our emotions can be an easy solution to a lot of the mental turmoil that we go through. I’m just going to have to try really hard not to have an annoying narrative voice that sounds too preachy or sanctimonious because that would really defeat the purpose. Overall, I want to establish a protagonist that anyone/everyone can relate to… who knows if that’s even possible though 🙂