How can you spot an accidental viewpoint jump?

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Mara sees Ivo smile. Then narration tells us he feels guilty about hiding a chart. Have we meant to leave her perspective, or slipped into a mind she cannot access? The issue is not that stories must contain only one consciousness. It is that the reader needs a coherent agreement about whose knowledge is available. Separate what Mara observes, what she infers, and what would require access to Ivo's thoughts.

Our before passage reads: Mara watched Ivo smile beside the locked gate. He felt guilty because he had hidden the chart, but he hoped she would not notice. Mara tightened her grip on the key. The middle sentence establishes an act, an emotion, and a private hope. If we intended a Mara-limited scene, her observation of a smile cannot supply those facts by itself.

Here is a Mara-limited revision. Mara watched Ivo smile beside the locked gate. The smile faded when she mentioned the missing chart. Was he hiding something? She tightened her grip on the key. We retain a reaction she could observe and a suspicion she could form. We remove confirmed knowledge of guilt and concealment. Her question can be wrong; the narration has not proved its answer.

Use three labels on the page. Smile fading is observation. Was he hiding something is Mara's inference, expressed as a question. He felt guilty would be access to Ivo's inner state if stated by narration as fact. The labels describe how the information reaches us, not whether a person is honest. A physical reaction can support suspicion without proving the hidden action that would explain it.

There is another valid revision if Ivo's private knowledge is essential. End the Mara section at a deliberate break, clearly establish an Ivo section, and then reveal his guilt from there. An omniscient design could also allow broader access if its narrator has established that scope. Do not insert a break solely as a mechanical license for every convenient thought. Ask whether the new perspective adds an experience this scene needs.

For a viewpoint pass, highlight every sentence naming a feeling, memory, hope, or secret. Identify whose it is and how the current perspective knows it. Keep the focal person's thoughts where appropriate. For another person's inner state, choose observation, a marked interpretation, spoken information, or a deliberate change of viewpoint. Check the verbs too: knew and wondered can quietly shift access even when no name appears at the start.

The goal is reliable orientation, not a blanket ban on changing perspectives. Our revision favors uncertainty with Mara; the original information could belong in a different narrative design. Separate observation, inference and access to thought. Read the paragraph and ask which claims Mara could actually make from this moment. Next, we will move narration nearer to or farther from a character without changing whose perspective it uses.