You ask yourself "whose story is it?" which can help... somewhat. There are exceptions, such as Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby , which is not told from The Great Gatsby's point of view but from his friend. However, the story is basically about Gatsby. It can get tricky. There is a way to get around this "whose story is it" when the novel is really more than one character's story or the story is about something such as catching a serial killer. The latter may involve a couple of police officers, the victim or victims, and even the serial killer. Here you are allowed to use multiple points of view. But there are guidelines. The rule of thumb is each chapter or each scene (if you have more than one scene in a chapter) must be from the point of view of one character only. When you start another chapter you can change the point of view. You just leave a double space to show scene changes. Short stories are usually told from one point of view, but again there are exceptions. However, it is best to keep it to two points of view maximum as a short story has limited space in which to tell your story. Again, you can use the scene change set-up to go from one character's point of view to another character's. You can also segue from one character to another -- once -- in a scene, not a constant flipping back and forth. This