Mr. Cobb's point of view essay was largely a plot summary for an
unwritten crossover. Since he's raised the subject, however, here's a
primer for those who want it.

One way to analyze fictional point of view is in terms of "person,"
namely first, second, and third person. These correspond to verb
conjugations in English and most Romance languages. Basically first
person is "I," second person is "you," and third person is "he, she, or
it."

 If a story is told in first person, its narrator is typically either
the main character or a consistently present observer. You might call it
confessional in some cases. The advantage of first person is that you
can make the action seem very immediate, and you can reveal all the
thoughts and motivations of the character who is telling the story.
Another advantage is that in first person it's easy to slip in all sorts
of commentary and personal or political opinion. If you like you can
even put in yours and then, if accused, say, "It isn't my opinion, it's
the character's!"  The disadvantage of first person is that you are
usually limited to recounting what the narrator knows; you can't move
around, foreshadow, etc. in any clear or effective way.

In sophisticated literary writing (and also some of the shoddy workshop
writing I read en route to my writing degree) first person narration is
often used to set up a "frame," in which a first person narrator
describes the occasion for a story being told by another person,
describing that person before s/he begins telling the story. For expert
examples of this technique, see _Wuthering Heights_ by Emily Bronte,
_The Turn of the Screw_ by Henry James, or (for a DOUBLE frame)  _Heart
of Darkness_ by Joseph Conrad.

First person also has a technique called "unreliable narrator," a
favorite of mine, in which the character telling the story can't be
trusted to tell it properly or even to understand it properly, and you
have to read carefully to figure out what's really happening. This is
hard to pull off, but I find it very satisfying to do. You will find an
example of it in my upcoming story, "Who is Frustrating the Great Chefs
of Europe?" in which I give an excerpt from Kodachi Kuno's diary.

Second person is telling a story that appears from the reader's
viewpoint. Hey,  reader, you go there, you see this, you do that, you
say something else. This way of writing is very rarely used. (The only
example of any quality I know is Lorrie Moore's short story "How to
Become a Writer.") Sometimes 2nd person can be used  when the main
character is NOT the reader, but the writer desires that the reader VERY
closely associate with the main character. The difference is usually in
the level of detail given. If "you" has a name, a physical description,
etc., this is being done, whereas if "you" has none of these, the reader
is expected to step into the main character's position, usually as an
observer of a situation.

Third person is the way most FFML stories are written. The characters in
a story are described as if observed on a TV screen. The writer can move
about from one to another, describing each in turn, even moving in and
out of their heads if desired.

There are two kinds of third person narration.  

Third person limited narration restricts itself to one character.  This
kind of story will follow that character around for the entire story,
describing ONLY what that one character thinks, says, does, and
experiences. You all know this kind of story; you're writing one like it
at the moment, I'll bet. In my mainstream fiction, this is what I write,
too, when I write third person. When writing fanfics, I choose the other
strategy, which is...

Third person omniscient narration allows you to go anywhere and tell
anything. "Omniscient" means  "all-knowing." Omniscient narration means
the writer can give any information desired, skipping around among
characters' viewpoints and minds, jumping from place to place, from past
to present to future at will.  This technique is powerful, but with a
price:  it's difficult to pull off. A story that jumps around can seem
to lose its focus; it can fail to treat all its characters fairly; it
can go off on tangents; it can give away more information early than it
should. Many writers find they are more comfortable with third person
limited or first person limited. These are, in fact, the two point of
view types I would recommend for beginners. The strongest omniscient
novel I know is _To the Lighthouse_ by Virginia Woolf; it is VERY
difficult, however.

There is a particular type of omniscient narration worth noting, and
that is one in which the author appears as speaker to insert opinions. 
These opinions tend to be politically motivated. This is characteristic
of Romantic and Victorian writing in English, but is unpopular these
days.  The best example I can think of right now is the first chapter of
Dickens' _Tale of Two Cities._   Note that, though the author's own
voice may appear, there is no reason why the author's voice must be
absolutely genuine. When I write this way, I tend to create a 'hip'
persona for myself, using more slang than I do in ordinary speech and
acting younger than I do in everyday life. But I could easily go the
other way, and become a stolid, pontificating college professor. Both
are poses; whenever the author talks, it's a pose.

In most stories, the writer chooses point of view out of instinct. 
Sometimes the instinct will be governed by the fact that you only ever
use one POV; sometimes it will be governed by the particular information
this story requires be imparted, and the pace at which it needs to
become known. For sheer efficiency, third  person omniscient rules,
while first person limited is extremely inefficient. But efficiency
isn't always the issue.

I hope this proves useful to someone.

DRM
-- 
My signature file, attending all mails:

Neither titles nor eloquence do we require, he said, nor an insidious
tongue
nor familiarity with saffron myths on painted scrolls, but patience to
disengage difficulties until matters disclose their essence without
opposition, because the most subtle understanding outweighs mountains.
          -- from Evan S. Connell, _The Alchymist's Journal_