: Re: Which version of these three lines is more likely to attract the interest of the reader ? (character's viewpoint vs omnicient narrator) The first one is a suggestion I got from my previous

@Radia543

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I think the problem is that your second example isn't really in pure first person - the bits in the bracket are in third - which makes it feel awkward and, as someone else said, jerky.

But assuming that you're trying to chose between either distant third/omniscient or tight third/first person, I don't think you can make this decision based on two short excerpts. What are the demands of your story? Are you trying to get right inside one character's head and show how the events affect just him, or are you looking for a more dispassionate, removed examination of a strange situation and its effects on a variety of characters? DO you want readers to feel as if they, like your MC, don't have enough information to fully understand things, or do you want the readers to see the big picture and watch as the characters figure it out?

Choice of POV isn't just about the way that individual paragraphs feel, it's about the goals for the whole book.

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