Setting POV and Tense

Defining the Point of View and Tense of your story helps make sure that assistance from the AI is always on point. Sudowrite now has settings that provide explicit control over both the POV and Tense used by the AI while generating prose.

The POV and Tense settings are located in Outline section of Story Bible. They also appear in (and can be changed from) the Draft tool when opened.

These settings tell the AI how it should write in the Draft tool, Write button (both Auto and Guided), and Expand, helping to ensure consistency in narrative voice and tense. You have the option of setting a global POV and Tense for your entire novel, or defining them on a per-chapter basis.

When creating a new project, the POV and Tense is initially set to third-person limited, past tense. If you generate (or write!) a Synopsis in Story Bible, Sudowrite’s AI will intelligently choose the correct POV and Tense for your story. (For instance, a synopsis for a romance novel will likely prompt the AI to select either first-person or third-person limited POV and past tense since those are the POV and tense commonly used for romance novels.)

If you disagree with an AI-defined POV and Tense you can just change it. Once you’ve manually set a POV and Tense, it will remain what you set.

Note: Importing a file using Novel Import or directly into a project will set the POV and Tense settings to their defaults (3rd person limited, past tense).

3rd Person Limited POV (most common) - Stays close to only one character’s thoughts.

3rd Person Objective POV - Writes what a camera would see. No thoughts, just action.

3rd Person Omniscient POV - Reveals every character’s thoughts.

1st Person POV - Tells the story through the narrator’s eyes.

2nd Person POV - Makes “you” the main character.

Past Tense - Creates a feeling of narrative storytelling, with a small distance between the reader and the characters.

Present Tense - Creates a more action-packed, dynamic tone. Commonly paired with first-person POV.

Future Tense - An unusual choice, useful when you want to create contrast, such as in a prophecy or fable.

If you want your story to be written in first person from your protagonist’s perspective, you can select that character from the Characters section of the POV dropdown menu. All named characters from the Characters section of your project’s Story Bible will automatically appear there.

You can actually assign more than one character to a chosen narrative perspective. When a single character is selected, the AI will write with that character’s perspective in mind. If multiple characters are selected, the AI will use the context of the scene (Draft) or the highlighted or previous text (Write and Expand buttons) to determine the most appropriate character to use.

You have two options when it comes to setting your POV and Tense.

Same for all chapters (Default): A single POV and tense setting are applied to the entire novel, ensuring a consistent narrative voice throughout.

Customize per chapter: By choosing “Customize” in the Apply to menu, you can customize the POV and tense for each chapter. This is ideal for stories with alternating perspectives or timelines. If you toggle back to “Same for all chapters,” the per-chapter settings are removed and the global settings are reapplied.

Choose your preferred mode in the Outline section of the Story Bible.

When you link a document to a chapter in your Outline (or create a linked chapter from it), the POV and Tense settings from the linked Outline’s chapter are automatically synced to the Draft box.

Any changes made to the POV or Tense within the Draft section will be automatically synchronized with the corresponding chapter's settings in the Outline, and vice versa. This ensures that your entire project remains consistent.

For a completely new and unlinked document within the Draft section, the system defaults to a third-person limited POV and past tense.

The settings you choose for POV and Tense tell the AI how to generate prose in the Draft tool. They also influence the Write button’s Auto and Guided modes, and Expand.

Note: Plugins can’t currently see these new POV and Tense settings. If you currently use Plugins that rely on a POV and Tense in your Style box, it may be preferable to keep the redundant instruction in your Style box for now.