Daily Inspiration Quote by Arthur Herzog

“Understanding POV is essential, or ought to be” lands like a craft note delivered with a raised eyebrow. Arthur Herzog, a working novelist rather than a theorist, isn’t selling a grand aesthetic; he’s policing the basics of narrative authority. Point of view is the silent contract between writer and reader: who gets to know what, when, and with what emotional tint. Herzog’s line works because it treats that contract as both obvious and routinely violated.

The tiny pivot - “or ought to be” - is the real payload. “Essential” is prescriptive, almost managerial; “ought” admits the mess. It’s a sigh at how many stories wobble not because the plot is thin, but because the camera won’t hold still. In workshop terms, it’s a jab at casual head-hopping and omniscience-by-accident. In cultural terms, it’s an insistence on accountability: if you don’t know whose eyes we’re looking through, you can’t control empathy, suspense, or moral framing.

Herzog is also gesturing at an authorial temptation: treating POV as a decorative choice rather than an ethical and structural one. POV determines what gets legitimized as “truth” inside the story, which voices are granted interiority, which characters become mere surfaces. The quote’s dry conditionality suggests experience - the kind earned from drafts where one unclear perspective turns tension into confusion. It’s not romantic advice. It’s a warning label: readers will forgive a lot, but not a narrative that can’t decide who’s speaking.