Using Point of View to Maximize Reader Engagement
Jane K. Cleland
Choosing your POV is crucial to storytelling success. Select the right POV, and you’ll increase reader relatability, a core element of publishing success. Pick the wrong one, and readers may not connect with your story. Worse, if you use too many POVs, readers end up confused, not intrigued. To decide, you need to understand the strengths of each POV option. What’s your reader engagement goal? An intimate connection? Keeping an unreliable narrator undiscovered until the big reveal? Sharing a wide-lens view? In this workshop, we’ll explore POV options, discuss whether and how to combine them, and review a three-step decision-making model to help you determine which POV is best for your project. I’ll provide plenty of examples so that you leave the workshop confident in your decisions and with actionable ideas you can put to work right away.
About the Presenter: Jane K. Cleland has written fourteen novels in the multiple award-winning Josie Prescott Antiques Mystery series [St. Martin’s Minotaur, with short fiction published by Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine]. The series has been optioned for TV/film development. Jane also writes about the craft of writing. In her most recent book, Beat the Bots: An Author’s Guide to Surviving and Thriving in the Age of AI, she shares practical exercises to nurture imagination, spark original thinking, and resist creative conformity. Her other nonfiction books, Mastering Suspense, Structure & Plot and Mastering Plot Twists both won the Agatha Award. In addition, Jane is a contributing editor for Writer’s Digest Magazine. She also offers small-group Mystery Mastermind virtual workshops, free monthly webinars, Jane’s Inner Circle, and free weekly YouTube Shorties—one- to three-minutes answers to FAQ. More information is available at: http://janecleland.com
Access to the video will be available after the Special Event on October 10.
The handout that will be referenced during the workshop may be downloaded at https://www.libertystatesfictionwriters.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/Handout-POV-Cleland-NJ-Liberty.pdf.
Please note that this is a Members Only benefit and distribution of the handout to non-members is not permitted.