To reduce POV to whether the narrator uses first person (“I”) or third person (“He/she/they”) is deceptively simple, as though POV is a point and shoot camera, when in fact, it’s more like a manual one, with various controls that can be adjusted to alter what the reader sees.

We spend so much time laboring over just the right words to use in our writing, why shouldn’t we be as careful with the words we use about our writing?