POV slips can confuse readers about who is experiencing the scene and what information is legitimately available.
Glossary term
Point-of-view continuity
Point-of-view continuity is the consistency of what a viewpoint character can perceive, know, infer, remember, or privately report.
Definition
What point-of-view continuity means
Point-of-view continuity helps a scene stay anchored. It includes perception limits, private thoughts, knowledge access, head-hopping, and unmarked viewpoint shifts.
A scene in one character's viewpoint reports another character's private thought without a deliberate omniscient frame.
Wise Wombat checks for impossible perception, unmarked shifts, private thoughts outside viewpoint, and knowledge beyond the viewpoint character's access.
Related
Related continuity terms
These terms often appear together during manuscript revision.