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Who is actually telling a story to the audience, and how do they know what happened? The perspective of a narrator towards the story they are telling is their point of view.
Who is actually telling a story to the audience, and how do they know what happened? The perspective of a narrator towards the story they are telling is their point of view.
Point of view (perspective, narrator, narration) - the position of a narrator in relation to the story they are telling.
Introduction
Introduction
Writers have full control over who is telling their story to the audience.
This story may be something from the writer's own direct experience, in which case the creator is the narrator. In fictional stories, however, a writer must invent a narrator who will guide the reader through the action.
Different Points of View
Different Points of View
It is the role of a narrator to make sense of the plot for the reader, while making the story as interesting and engaging as possible.
This narration can be given from the first, second or third person perspective.
First-person Perspective
First-person Perspective
When writing from the first-person perspective, the narrator is a part of the story and they tell the audience about their experience.
This perspective is easily identifiable by the pronouns I or me, as seen in the opening line of Herman Melville's Moby Dick:
Call me Ishmael.
An illustration of the final chase in Herman Melville's Moby Dick. 1902. I. W. Taber. Charkle Scribner's Sons. Public Domain.
In the first-person perspective, the narrator can also use the pronoun you to address the audience directly, as seen in the opening line of J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye:
If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.
Second-person Perspective
Second-person Perspective
When writing from the second-person perspective, the narrator invites the reader to imagine they are part of the story.
This requires a challenging suspension of disbelief on the part of the reader, and so it is rarely seen in fiction. However, it can be a powerful way to immerse the reader in a story. Consider this example from Leo Tolstoy's Sevastopol Sketches (December):
You choose the skiff nearest you, pick your way over the semi-decomposed carcass of a bay horse that is lying in the mud beside the vessel, and make your way to the tiller. Now you have cast off, and are away from the shore. Around you is the sea, sparkling now in the morning sun; in front of you an old seaman in camelhair coat…You listen to those oars, with their even beat, to the sounds of voices carried across the water towards you, and to the majestic resonance of the firing in Sebastopol, which , it seems to you, is growing in intensity.
You may be familiar with the use of second-person perspective storytelling from the popular Choose Your Own Adventure series of books. In these stories, the reader is invited to play the role of the protagonist, and can make their own decisions about how the plot will unfold.
Third-person Perspective
Third-person Perspective
When writing from the third-person perspective, the narrator tells the audience about what is happening without being a part of the action themselves.
This is the most common point of view in writing, and is identifiable by the pronouns she, he and they.
Consider the following opening line from Francis Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden
When Mary Lennox was sent to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her uncle everybody said she was the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen.
Cover of The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. 1911. Maria Louise Kirk. Houghton Library. Public Domain.
There are also two types of third-person perspective: limited and unlimited.
When writing from the third-person limited perspective, the narrator focuses solely on only one character and what is happening around them (like a camera crew that follows the character through the story).
When writing from the third-person unlimited perspective, the narrator can take the audience anywhere at anytime within the story to let them know what is happening (like an omnipresent god with a camera and microphone).
Choosing what to reveal to the reader, and what to keep from them, is a powerful storytelling decision, so we must think carefully about what details to unveil, and how and when to do so.
Tense
Tense
Finally, regardless of the perspective of their narrator, authors must also choose whether to write their story in past tense, present tense, or future tense.
While all tenses are viable, past tense is by far the most common in writing, as people usually tell stories about things that have already happened.
Editor's Notes
Editor's Notes
My father loved telling stories. He also loved fishing. Naturally, the size of a fish my father had caught would often get bigger each time he told the story of how he got it (he didn't catch many fish).
My father is what is known as an unreliable narrator: a storyteller who may or may not be telling the truth.
In fiction, unreliable narrators can be engaging, and even disturbing, for readers. They may, for example, exaggerate, forget, or deliberately lie about key details. They can even be psychologically detached from reality, as in Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho.
Unreliable narrators can be a wonderful invitation for readers to reflect on whether the stories they are reading are 'real'. Such is the case with the opening line to Kurt Vonnegut's semi-autobiographical novel Slaughterhouse Five:
"All of this happened, more or less."
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