The POV Contract: What You Owe the Reader in Scene 1

In this episode, we tackle one of the biggest hidden causes of reader disengagement: unstable point of view. The problem usually is not whether you chose first person, third person, or multiple POVs. It is whether the story keeps changing the rules. When that happens, readers don't experience it as a technical slip. They experience it as a breach of trust.You’ll learn what the POV contract really is, why Scene 1 is where that contract gets made, and how to strengthen the three promises that hold it together: access, attitude, and authority. We also dig into multi-POV switching rules, accidental head-hopping, and a simple micro-rewrite method you can use to test whether a scene is truly staying inside the promised viewpoint.By the end, you’ll have a practical POV checklist you can use straight away, plus a sharp sentence-level diagnostic to catch drift before your reader does.If your POV has ever felt a little slippery on the page, this episode will help you lock the rules in and keep the reader with you.