For something so important to the reader experience, it’s sometimes frustrating as an author that there is no right answer to the POV question. Readers have different preferences, although there are some vague broader trends. Often the advice is to use the POV most appropriate to your story, but that advice only helps so far, as that would suggest that every genre/subgenre would have an ‘ideal’ POV (e.g. romance in first person for that immediate sympathy and experience with the characters, but thrillers in third to capture the action more clearly).
Third person past has long been the ‘default’ for storytelling, although by no means as dominant as we sometimes think (first-person narratives do pop up in classic literature too). With the explosion of the romance genre in digital publishing (arguably turbo-charged by EL James), there’s a lot more first-person romance available these days and many readers seem to prefer it.
As a reader, I struggled with first person and often still do. I found the closeness claustrophobic and I was more likely to cringe at the emotion without the distance from the subject, even though I am a die-hard romance reader who’s always looking for those butterflies. It was therefore logical that I began to write in the third person, quickly learning about the ‘close’ or ‘deep’ POV where you take one character and express their thoughts and feelings (and sometimes swap to another character, but that requires a scene break).
My books with Boldwood are written in this style. I do try to capture the depth of emotion experienced by the characters on the page. The reader is supposed to feel everything along with the characters, but there is a little distance to make it relaxing, kind of like watching a movie.
In first person, I do feel like the tendency these days is towards first person present, which I personally find hit-and-miss. When there is a lot of action in present tense, a book feels stressful to me, rather than the relaxing activity I usually want in a book. A lot of this must be personal, but I do get on with some authors in first-person-present much better than some others. The fact remains, though, that it’s a very popular format for romances.
When I experimented with writing in the first person (initially because I’d seen so many comments from readers saying they never read third or they much prefer first), I instinctively wrote in first person past, which is fairly unusual these days. Instead of a movie (and definitely instead of the escape-room first-present style), I wrote like a friend telling an anecdote. The resulting two books I self-published (as Lilo Moore) were a bit of a revelation to me. I enjoyed writing in first person more than I’d expected and the writing voice I discovered was also a little surprising to me. I wrote those in first person single POV, partly because that also seemed to be a trend, even though I do prefer dual POV myself usually. I was definitely converted to the idea of writing in the first person and I’ve become more tolerant of various POVs in my reading (which helps as there is so much romance in the first person).
My first sports romance is out next year (more information on that sooooon) and it’s first person dual POV! I absolutely adored writing the male main character in first. I love writing men in general (see my post about that!), but in first POV Seb was such a joy. I do struggle to contain the wordcount when I write in dual first (I struggle enough as it is in third, but I’m even wordier in first!), but we kind of tamed the wordcount. But I stuck with past tense, which I hope readers will get on board with. I haven’t quite been able to go into present tense when I still have such an uneasy relationship with it as a reader.
Do you have any preferences?
Leonie Mack 
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