Taking a Closer Look at Point of View
The point of view is the relationship of the narrator and the story. Sometimes this
is called the method of narration.
First-Person Narration: This type of narrator is telling their own story. The story is
narrated using first-person pronouns – I, me, mine, my, we, us, our.
There are 4 types of first-person narration:
a. First-person Major – telling their own story.
b. First –person Minor – an onlooker telling someone else’s story (Dr. Watson in
Sherlock Holmes).
c. Innocent Eye – the story is told through the eyes of a child.
d. Stream of Consciousness – the story is told so that the reader is inside the
head of one character and feels and experiences every detail as the
character does.
Third-Person Narration: The story is told by an outsider, someone not directly
involved in the story. It is told using third-person pronouns – he, she, they, them,
their.
There are 3 types of third-person narration:
a. Omniscient: a God-like narrator that knows the thoughts of every
character.
b. Limited omniscient: a narrator that can tell the thoughts of only one
character – normally the primary character. They can tell the reader the
feelings and motivations of only that character.
c. Objective: a narrator that only tells about the actions and words of the
characters. They can only tell what they see or perceive not the thoughts
of any of the characters.
Second-Person Narration: where the narrator tells the story to another character
or audience using the word 'you.' The author could be talking to the audience,
which we could tell by the use of 'you,' 'you're,' or 'your.' In nonfiction, we see
second person in business and technical writing, process writing, self-help
books, and even more interactive (game playing) writing.