POV is arguably the most consequential decision in a writing project and yet also the most frequently misunderstood and mishandled. In this talk, we’ll discuss why as we break down the various types of POV and the advantages, limitations, and pitfalls unique to each. What makes first-person the most restrictive and also the most potentially capacious? Why do so many writers get third-person wrong without knowing it? Why are the terms omniscient and second-person misnomers? Why do we default needlessly to multiple narrators? The answers to such questions are connected to two fundamental aspects of POV that we often neglect: the reader’s distance from what our narrator or protagonist knows, and the necessary limits of that knowledge. Our class will approach POV as a constant calibration of this imperfect knowledge: an obstructed view of the story that, in its obstructions, actually helps us imagine the story better and bring it to life more vividly for the reader.
Vu Tran is the author of Dragonfish, a NYT Notable Book, and a forthcoming novel, Your Origins. His other writing has appeared in the O. Henry Prize Stories, Best American Mystery Stories, Ploughshares, and Virginia Quarterly, and he is guest co-editor of the upcoming Spring 2025 issue of McSweeney’s. He is also the recipient of a Whiting Award and fellowships from the NEA, MacDowell, Yaddo, and Bread Loaf. Born in Vietnam and raised in Oklahoma, Vu completed his MFA at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and his PhD at the Black Mountain Institute, and is an Associate Professor of Practice at the University of Chicago, where he is director of undergraduate studies in creative writing.
