The Romance Point of View

Point of view (POV) is essential in all forms of fiction to describe the action as the character experiences it, including emotional responses, thoughts, and reactions. Point of view is especially vital in romance fiction as we build a story around two people falling in love.

The hero and heroine cannot talk about everything they see, feel, want, so the point of view describes what is going on. Without it, your reader will not understand the inner lives of your characters. Their inner lives are especially important when the book is all about emotions. By getting inside the character’s minds, you can give the reader the full story. You can show their attraction, even when they don’t act like they are attracted to each other.

The same is true during action scenes, even when most of the focus is on external events. Point of view interwoven with dialogue and action can keep the romance front and center. Often adding a few lines of into a scene is the easiest way to convey pieces of information the reader needs.

Whose point of view is the right one for the scene? Whose head the writer gets into depends on if the hero or heroine has the most to learn or has the most at stake, at-risk, or the most to tell the reader or have the most interesting take on what is happening around them. If you decide both your hero and heroine are equal, you might choose to split the scene between the two characters. As you switch from one character’s point of view to another, use a scene break to make it easy for your reader.

Use an internal monologue to stay in the hero or heroine’s head longer to convey an important point. The most important use of the internal monologue is during moments of great emotional stress, or when the character realizes they are in love with the other person. That is a huge revelation and a key to everything else that will happen. Your reader needs to know how the hero or heroine feels about this sudden realization. Does it make them happy? Perhaps they are furious because this wasn’t in their plan? Do they think their love interest couldn’t possibly love them back? Maybe there have been so many negative things happening between them that they feel it’s impossible to work out the rocky road of their relationship.

No matter what they feel, those feelings are dramatic, complicated, and fascinating, and you need that extra time inside his/her head to tell the reader all about them. You can also use the internal monologue to convey information like what motivates a character or what the character thinks motivates someone else. These don’t fit well into dialogue.  

Choose the character’s point of view carefully. Ensure there is enough at stake to tell the story from inside the hero or heroine’s head. Make their inner life rich enough, so the story is dramatic and intriguing to your reader.  

As a reference for this article, I used Writing a Romance Novel for Dummies by Leslie Wainger.

Award-winning writer, Rose Gardner’s journey toward publication has come in two phases. During the early years, she was a finalist in thirteen contests and won her category in seven, was a 2007 RWA Golden Heart finalist in the Long Contemporary Category, and 2nd runner up in the 2008 Harlequin Super Romance Conflict of Interest Contest. After a break from writing, she returned to writing with a renewed focus on clean, contemporary heartwarming stories about love, hope, healing, and the power of forgiveness. She has won or placed in several contests for unpublished writers since 2017 as she works toward publication. You can find out more about Rose at her website mrosegardner.com or on social media at Facebook at MRoseGardner/, Twitter MaryGardner6, Instagram mrosegardner/