Ooh great question! Thank you for it 😄

I’m quite the plotter, so I almost always plan stuff out extensively on a separate document before ever starting a work, and this often includes what POV I’ll be writing from. But sometimes I just start writing and see what I think fits the purpose of the story I’m trying to tell best. It really depends on what the piece is trying to accomplish but my default is third person omniscient because I like to be able to explore the thoughts, feelings, perceptions, and so on of multiple characters. As someone who enjoys this part of writing most of all, it’s just that much more fun when you can do it with more characters. It’s also nice for dramatic irony purposes, like if characters have secrets they keep from each other and the reader knows both sides of the story but the characters’ only know their own.

However, in the times that I deviate from this POV, it’s usually done because other POVs confer an advantage that third person omniscient doesn’t. My first ever serious writing project (the book I was writing that I’ve mentioned a couple of times now) was all first person. Though I was new to writing and probably chose this because I was most experienced reading first person (since it’s so prevalent in young adult (YA) fiction), I still think this was the best choice for that project since it was heavily focused on each character’s POV by consequence of the plot I chose to write.

I alternated POV each chapter because the story was all about each character’s perception of one another and the contrast of that perception to the reality of that other character’s world. First person POV helped me stay focused on each characters’ thoughts on events as they happened, only giving the reader as much info as they had at any given point in time, which was useful since there were mysterious circumstances they all had to deal with and work together to overcome. I prefer to stick to third person nowadays but I stand by my choice of first person for this project nearly 10 years after I first started writing it.

For third person limited, I find it’s good for when withholding another character’s POV is beneficial to the story. Quality of Life ended up being like this, somewhat by accident actually. Third person was chosen deliberately because Adachi would be not truthful with himself enough to narrate his experience in the format of first person (because of course he was extremely truthful and unbiased in canon 🤣), so that eliminated first person. But to be honest, I think third person is best for all character studies because no one is going to be completely objective with their experiences and upfront about some of the most deeply-rooted issues they have (which you know I love to explore 👌🏻). So exploring conscious and subconscious thoughts, as well as feelings people can’t always articulate, is much easier in third person.

In terms of omniscient versus limited, I don’t usually use limited but it ended up being the best option for QOL. Partly because the majority of the fic only focused on Adachi and the only other character was Dojima at the very end, and partly because I endeavored to present Adachi’s warped perception of life without any sort of counter perspective to ground the reader, thus adding to immersion in his depressing world. I ended up only having Dojima come in at the end to emphasize his ignorance to what was going on with Adachi and how Adachi was able to just compartmentalize, pulling himself together and coming into work after basically having the morning from hell.

That’s not technically a matter of POV because I could have still achieved this by giving Dojima’s POV on the situation, but I wanted to keep the focus on Adachi’s experience to emphasize how he had to pretend as if nothing was going on despite falling apart on the inside. I also wanted to juxtapose Dojima’s treatment of Adachi with how much Adachi really needed to be handled with care in the mental state I depicted him in because… yeah, Dojima has his own personal issues that make being patient and understanding difficult, but he definitely could have been better to Adachi in canon.

Going back to third person omniscient, it tends to be the most versatile POV because it allows me the ability to explore multiple characters’ perception of events, often with wildly different observations, interpretations, and experiences. So I typically stick to it unless I have reason to change.

Thanks again for the question! 💕 Bet you didn’t expect this lengthy of an answer 😂 I really hadn’t thought all of this through consciously so it was interesting to put into words what I’ve mostly just kind of known but not given much direct, concentrated analysis.