When I wrote my first book, Paraworld Zero, I didn't care much about POV, and a lot of author friends ripped me up and down about it. Interestingly, I've never had a reviewer complain about my omniscient POV in my book. This blog is great, because it confirms my suspicions that readers don't really care about this as much as writers do.

http://www.publishersweekly.com/blog/88 ... 39731.html

As a follow up, here's an interesting article I read from Jerry D. Simmons newsletter (WritersReaders.com).

The Top 10 Mistakes Writers Make with Point of View by Diane O’Connell

As an editor — both when I worked for Random House, and in my years as an independent editor — I have seen writers make the same mistakes over and over. Most of those mistakes involve problems with point of view (POV). And that can kill a novel’s chance at success. Avoid these common mistakes:

(1) Choosing the wrong POV. This could mean either writing a story in the 1st person, when you really need the flexibility of 3rd person. Or, it could mean choosing the wrong main POV character.

(2) Writing in No One’s POV. It’s rare that a writer will get through a whole book with no POV, but often I see entire scenes written from no characters’ POV. And those scenes are dead in the water.

(3) Writing in Everyone’s POV. This practice is commonly referred to as the omniscient narrator, which is all-seeing and all-knowing – like God. This was a common use of POV in literature of the 18th and 19th centuries, but is rarely used today.

(4) Mixing First and Third POV. Sure, Michael Connelly does this. But he’s Michael Connelly — and his early novels did not do this. Unless you’re a highly experienced writer, it’s very difficult to pull off successfully.

(5) Failing to use POV to color description and action, and to break up dialogue. Unless these elements are filtered through the POV of the character whose scene it is, the passages will fall flat.

(6) Relying too much on POV at the expense of plot and structure. The best stories recognize that plot, structure, and POV are all equally important. A novel that’s all POV is like spending a weekend with your motor-mouthed aunt who goes on and on about everyone and everything without any real point. You want to shoot yourself — or her — by the end of the weekend.

(7) Using crutches like “he thoughtâ€