Decisions, Decisions, Decisions Point of View.

Before you begin writing any story you need to establish how you want to tell it. What point of view you are going to use and if you are going to write it in past tense or present tense. Yesterday I had this discussion with my awesome critique partner, Kelley. The question was how do you choose which direction to take? I think this is one of the hardest parts of writing. You need to choose the one that is going to be best for telling that particular story. But seriously how do you actually know what way is best?

What I do before I take one of my ideas and run with it is I think about it. I spend time thinking about characters, dialogue and plot. I think of the story from all points of view, first, third and multiple and try to figure out which way will convey the story best. Sometimes it comes to me immediately other times it doesn't. I have several ideas on the backburner because I'm not sure how I want to proceed with them. I don't want to go into any of my ideas without being a hundred percent sure because let's face it, I don't want to get halfway through, realize I should have chosen a different path and have to scrap what I have already done.

Do you have a method in choosing point of view? How about what tense you are going to use? I'm curious to hear what everyone has to say. I also want to know if like me, do you think this is one of the hardest parts of the writing process?