Write with a point of view


You’ve got a plot idea for your blog post or lunch-and-learn presentation. Now you’ve got to decide how to tell the story. Every story has a method of narration.

A project description for a procurement your office is issuing, a proposal for your firm to build a hydroelectric dam, an About Us page on your website, a bike share case study for a webinar — each has a point of view.

  • Don’t write in the first person.
  • Don’t preach or moralize.
  • Don’t tell a story through client testimonials.
  • Don’t let an inanimate object tell the story.

The best short stories are written in the third person. You’re looking for a sure thing, and that’s it. Third person is the point of view most likely to be simple and direct, free from annoying tangents, and just more interesting.

Convey your message from a distance in a natural voice, straightforward, and conversational.

The closer you can write the way you talk, the closer you come to holding the audience’s attention. Get your thoughts as clear as possible in your own head, and express those thoughts in the commonest way possible.

Facts get in the way of the plot when the audience is processing technical jargon and redundant adverbs (or as I call them, adverbs).

Take the perspective of one of your audience members to unravel the story. A helpful restriction here is to choose one person’s point of view and stick with it to the end. Observe the story as the audience might.

A water treatment facility manager hasn’t mastered zoning code nuances. A junior traffic engineer wasn’t trained to design for low-speed streets. A real estate agent has only heard rumors that wide sidewalks and ubiquitous bike lanes increase property value. Each deals with the built environment, and each needs to hear your story.

You’ve heard the worn-out plea to “be authentic.” The reason it’s used so often is that audiences of any type believe a story so much more when the point of view and plot details are in sync.

Hold fast to what you know without pretending to have professional competency in everything. (This is one reason to avoid first-person narrative. You save yourself from inevitable pomposity.)