If you’re writing in third person omniscient POV, you are able to describe the same event from the point of view of different characters. Personally, I decide the POV before I write the scene. But sometimes, I write down the dialogue and decide whose POV gives the story its maximum impact and provokes the maximum emotional response from the reader. Of course, it can be subjective, but let’s look at an example.

  Let's say you are writing a scene about an argument between a husband and a wife. The husband is a drunk, jealous of his wife’s success, and assumes she is sleeping with her boss. Wife is just trying to make a living.

Let us take it from the husband’s POV: 

   Sam finished his third beer. He was hungry. Where the heck was Lilly? Gallivanting with her boss, no doubt. He was sure she was taken in my Brad’s fancy suits and perfumes. Sam had demanded that she return the pearl necklace Brad gave her after they got the last contract, but Sam was sure she kept it hidden somewhere. The lying bitch!

   A noise at the doorway made him look up. There she was, in a pant suit, pretending to be good people. And look at that blouse! He could see the curves she didn’t care to hide from her boss. Had she forgotten their roots? He had worked hard to put her through college! And this is how she repaid him! Flaunting her body in front of other people?

   Sam said, “Where have you been?” He put down his beer mug.

   Lilly looked startled and dropped her purse on the floor. “Oh! I asked you not to wait up.”

   He stood up and strode toward her. “You didn’t answer the question. Were you with Brad?”

   She took a step back and raised her hands in defense. “For the last time, there is nothing going on between me and Brad. He’s just my boss.”

   “Who keeps you in his office until late at night.” She was definitely sleeping with him!

   She took off her shoes and sank in the sofa, massaging her feet. “Don’t get mad! It’s just nine o’clock. He has a big presentation. If we don’t get this contract, I’ll be out of a job.”

   “You’ll find another!” A job that featured an elderly man with a potbelly, perhaps.

   She looked up, and her eyes glistened with tears. “If you didn’t stay at home drinking all day, I wouldn’t have to work so hard.”
 
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Let’s try it from the wife’s POV:

   The house looked dark. Lilly sighed and opened the door. She hoped Sam had gone to bed. She could not deal with his drinking anymore. 

   “Where have you been?” called a voice.

   Startled, Lilly dropped her purse on the floor. In the darkness, she saw his outline on the sofa, two empty cans of beer lying beside him. She watched as he put down his beer mug.
So he was drinking again.

   She wished he had just gone to bed. He would no doubt tell her how he had worked hard to put her through college. But she hadn’t squandered the opportunity by drinking! She had worked hard to get where she was.

   She didn’t know how long she could carry on like this. “Oh! I asked you not to wait up.”

   He stood up and strode toward her. “You didn’t answer the question. Were you with Brad?”
 
   She knew he was suspicious of Brad. And maybe he was right about Brad’s intentions. But Brad had never made a pass at her, although she had caught him staring down her cleavage once or twice. And the pearl necklace he gave her when they got the last contract? Sam was right in asking her to return it. That had set the boundaries right.

   She took a step back and raised her hands in defense. “For the last time, there is nothing going on between me and Brad. He’s just my boss.”

   “Who keeps you in his office until late at night.”

   She took off her shoes and sank in the sofa, massaging her feet. God, will I never catch a break? “It’s just nine o’clock. He has a big presentation. If we don’t get the contract, I’ll be out of a job.”

   “You’ll find another!”

   She looked up, tears stinging her eyes. Why don’t you get a job? “If you didn’t stay at home drinking all day, I wouldn’t have to work so hard.”

 
Looking at the two POVs, my personal preference is the wife’s, unless we are setting up the husband as the main character who changes his life based on the interaction. Sometimes writing the same scene from both POVs is incredibly powerful, and makes the reader empathize with both your characters.

How do you choose POVs?
 
 

This short story was published in www.induswomanwriting.com...
 
            Leaving the office with my briefcase and portfolio, I got into my old Nissan and drove toward the estates in Pasadena. The appointment was at 9:30 AM.
I drove through the hills beyond Rose Bowl, overlooking the country club, where all the ‘old money’ lived. My boss Mr. Chen, the owner of Yin & Yang Designs had told me our new clients were Indian, and preferred an Indian designer for decorating their new home. The lady spoke no English.
“Better not mess this one up,” Mr. Chen had said.
I wish he had told me about the meeting yesterday so I could have dressed in an Indian outfit to better impress the client. I looked at my beige blouse and black skirt in dismay. I’d neglected to wear pantyhose for it was forecasted to be a hot day, and hoped the clients wouldn’t be too traditional.
Mr. Chen had hired me just for providing service to the occasional Indian client in a Chinese-American dominated neighborhood of San Gabriel Valley, but I had the least experience on field. I’d worked on the projects with other designers, but was yet to get a client on my own.
My career depended on this meeting…
            Parking my car a block from the estate, I picked up my portfolio filled with designs and ideas for ‘Ethnically Oriented Interior Decorations’ that Yin & Yang boasted, and walked up the winding driveway.
An English butler opened the door and told me to wait in the morning room. The ‘mistress’ was a little late.
I looked at the beautiful home, bereft of professional decorating, but elegant nonetheless. The family room and formal living rooms still had a few unopened cardboard boxes. A spiral staircase led to an upper level, and from the room I was to wait in, I could see the hallway, in which stood an impressive oak table cluttered with old photographs, with an empty box beside it.
Unable to resist, I walked to the table and started looking at the black-and-white pictures, my professional mind already dreaming up beautiful oxidized silver frames which would show off their pristine beauty.
My eyes went to framed newspaper clipping dated seven years ago, about a rags-to-riches story of an entrepreneur who had made it big with his Indian pre-cooked frozen foods. The frozen food packets, initially launched for paying-guests and hostel-dwellers in Mumbai were now being exported to the United States.
I was familiar with the name “H & S Foods, Enjoy Home Cooked Meals Without Cooking at Home,” having sustained myself on those for nearly a year. H & S stood for Heat and Serve, the article informed me.
I placed the newspaper clipping back on the table.
Then I saw an old and yellowing photo of a family I knew a long time ago. Surely it wasn’t them? Yes, the old man, the frail woman, and the two girls.
The older girl with the plain face, and the little one with the limp.

To read the rest, click below:
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http://www.induswomanwriting.com/the-girl-with-the-limp.html