[General] Point of Views?? Confused, help please?

[FenderStrat]

I thought I had it cracked about POVs, and then after reading this site:
What is Point of View (POV)? by Vicki Hinze

I got confused. What I thought:
1st Person: Using "I" and from one POV
2nd Person: No POV ermm... something like Harry Potter.
3rd Person: Switching around the POVs, like The Last Day (forgot the author, about vampires and he sortof goes from e.g. MOZ to PEARL to ZAHLER to MIN all different chapter, telling their part of the story)
Omniscient: ??? Never heard about it in my English classes (but I skipped some basic one, maybe that explains why)

This site says (or give me the impression):
Omniscient: "godlike" like Harry Potter???
1st Person: I was right about it
2nd: Another person telling a story about another??? Like what Sherlock Homles?
3rd person: "Third Person POV is when the writer incorporates pronouns like "he" and "she" (versus "I") [huh??? Totally confused with the v.s. thing ] and is most prevalent in commercial fiction at this time. For that reason, we'll spend the lion's share of this article exploring it."

[FenderStrat]

Originally Posted by FenderStrat

I thought I had it cracked about POVs, and then after reading this site:
What is Point of View (POV)? by Vicki Hinze

I got confused. What I thought:
1st Person: Using "I" and from one POV
2nd Person: No POV ermm... something like Harry Potter.
3rd Person: Switching around the POVs, like The Last Day (forgot the author, about vampires and he sortof goes from e.g. MOZ to PEARL to ZAHLER to MIN all different chapter, telling their part of the story)
Omniscient: ??? Never heard about it in my English classes (but I skipped some basic one, maybe that explains why)

This site says (or give me the impression):
Omniscient: "godlike" like Harry Potter???
1st Person: I was right about it
2nd: Another person telling a story about another??? Like what Sherlock Homles?
3rd person: "Third Person POV is when the writer incorporates pronouns like "he" and "she" (versus "I") [huh??? Totally confused with the v.s. thing ] and is most prevalent in commercial fiction at this time. For that reason, we'll spend the lion's share of this article exploring it."

I got it cracked. Just thought I'd shared with people here: http://www.epcc.edu/Student/Tutorial...ointofview.pdf

[Charlie Bernstein]

Originally Posted by FenderStrat

I thought I had it cracked about POVs, and then after reading this site:
What is Point of View (POV)? by Vicki Hinze


I got confused.

Hi, Fender-bender! Vicki is exactly right.

I'm not sure what's confusing you, so I'll say a few things.

Point-of-view is not the same thing as tense! It's the position a fiction writer, poet, or song writer takes in telling a story. It has nothing to do with grammar.

What I thought:
1st Person: Using "I" and from one POV
2nd Person: No POV ermm... something like Harry Potter.
3rd Person: Switching around the POVs, like The Last Day (forgot the author, about vampires and he sortof goes from e.g. MOZ to PEARL to ZAHLER to MIN all different chapter, telling their part of the story)
Omniscient: ??? Never heard about it in my English classes (but I skipped some basic one, maybe that explains why)

Second-person point-of-view is never used in fiction. Song writers use it all the time: "You walked into the party like you were walking onto a yacht...."

Third person point of view looks like this: "She opened the door and found him lying on the floor. He moaned. She backed away slowly, terrified...."

The author decides whether to show the reader what everyone is thinking (that's the omniscient narrator), what some people are thinking, or what just one person is thinking.

The writer can even decide not to tell us what anyone is thinking or feeling and allow the action to speak for itself. She put out the match. Her hand was trembling. He took a step toward her, then stopped...

A guy named J.D. Salinger did that all the time.

This site says (or give me the impression):
Omniscient: "godlike" like Harry Potter???

Back to omniscient: She's not saying Harry Potter is like God. She's saying that the narrator knows everything, as God does.

There's no such thing as first-person omniscient, because one person can't know everything. In the third-person omniscient point of view, the narrator can tell you things none of the characters can know: a meteor is heading toward Earth, there's a booby-trap on the road, Pablo's headache is a brain tumor, the factory is going to burn down tomorrow.

1st Person: I was right about it
2nd: Another person telling a story about another??? Like what Sherlock Homles?
3rd person: "Third Person POV is when the writer incorporates pronouns like "he" and "she" (versus "I") [huh??? Totally confused with the v.s. thing ] and is most prevalent in commercial fiction at this time. For that reason, we'll spend the lion's share of this article exploring it."

Yes. The third person point of view is written in terms of he and she, not I. First person: I ate too fast. We ate too fast. Third person. He ate too fast. She ate too fast. They ate too fast.

I think your problem might be that you're confusing point-of-view with grammar. Don't! This is about style, not rules. Go back and read her article again, and I think it will make more sense.

[I edit copy and have tutored college writing.]