Podcasts › Fiction Writing Made Easy with Savannah Gilbo
#249. 5 POV Mistakes That Pull Readers Out of Your Story
What's in this episode
Most fiction writers are making at least one of these point of view mistakes. Find out which one could be hiding in your draft. You know that feeling when a scene isn't quite working, but you can't put your finger on why? Your pacing, dialogue, and structure all seem fine. And yet something is still off. Nine times out of ten, the culprit is POV. In this episode, I'm walking you through the five most common point of view mistakes, what each one looks like on the page, why it pulls readers out of your story, and what to do if a POV mistake is hiding in your draft. The good news? It has nothing to do with your talent as a writer. I see these mistakes in the strongest of manuscripts. And every single one is fixable. This is what I talk about: [02:27] Why head-hopping feels so disorienting to readers, and the simple scene-level rule that instantly creates cleaner, stronger POV. [07:11] The subtle "omniscience leak" that happens when your POV character knows things they realistically couldn't know in the moment. [11:42] Why a POV character who only reports action—with no thought, reaction, or internal stakes—leaves readers feeling disconnected. [17:13] How info-dumping and backstory dis