6. POV, Tense, Tone

Point of View (POV)¶

There are 3 types of Point of Views (POVs)

First Person	Second Person	Third Person
I, me, us, we, my, ours, mine	You, your, yours	She, he, it, they, them, their, theirs
I am writing.	You are reading.	They are reading.
Personal Tone	Direct, Immersive Tone	Universal Tone
Focuses on the writer/narrator.	Focuses on the reader.	Focuses on the content.

My name is Sally, and this is my story.

Your name is Sally, and this is your story.

Her name is Sally, and this is her story.

There are also 3 additional types of Third Person Point of View:

Third Person Omniscient POV	The narrator speaks for everyone.
Third Person Limited POV	The narrator speaks for one character.
Third Person Objective POV	The narrator is an observer.

Past tense is the most common tense used in writing.

Sally walked to the door and opened it.

Sally walks to the door and opens it.

Combine Point of View and Tense to get your overall Perspective.

First Person POV + Past Tense I walked to the door and opened it.

Third Person POV + Past Tense Sally walked to the door and opened it.

Very Casual	Casual	Semi- Casual	Neutral	Semi- Formal	Formal	Very Formal
Howdy	Hi	Hey	Hello	Greetings	Good Day	Salutations

Informal Writing	Formal Writing
Use contractions.	Don't use any contractions.
Use numerals (1, 2, 3).	Spell out numbers (one, two, three).
Use some common phrases of speech.	Avoid phrases of speech.
Avoid jargon.	Use necessary field-related jargon.
Use short, simple sentence structures.	Use longer, more complex sentence structures.
Use parallel sentence structure.	Use parallel sentence structure.
Avoid needing punctuation beyond simple commas.	Use any punctuation necessary.

90-100	80-90	70-80	60-70	50-60	30-50	0-30
5th grade	6th grade	7th grade	8-9th grade	10-12th grade	College	College graduate
Very easy	Easy	Fairly easy	Easily understood	Fairly difficult	Difficult	Very difficult