Point of View

Seeing and Speaking When you've got an idea for a story -- a few characters, a setting, and a conflict, you have to figure out who is going to tell it. This is point-of- view. Point-of-View determines whose eyes the reader experiences the story through. …so it sort of determines everything and is a pretty big deal.

Many POVs There are as many points-of-view as there are characters, plus Second and Third Person. Question: Do you tend to write in first, second or third person narrative mode? Have you ever told one story from multiple points of view? How did you switch? How did the story change?

First Person “I slipped on the banana peel.” A story written in the first person uses pronoun "I," where "I" can be any character who is in the story. Effective in giving reader a sense of closeness and empathy to the story. Pairs well with present tense for an especially real, immediate experience of the story.

First Person First Person Protagonist: Character tells of events that occurred to them; the "I" is the main character, telling her or his own story. First Person Witness: The story of the main character is told by another character who observes the events. First Person Re-teller: The story is told not by a witness to the events, but by someone who has heard the story from yet another character.

Second Person “You slipped on the banana peel.” The narrator addresses the protagonist as "you.” This mode often has the narrator speaking to a younger version of herself, or the reader directly. Make it clear to the reader who is being addressed as “you.”

Third Person “He slipped on the banana peel.” Characters are referred to as ”she,” “he,” or by their name. The narrator’s story is removed, or distant, from the immediate story.

Omniscient vs. Limited Narrator Depending on the type of third person POV, the narrator may know the thoughts and feelings of all characters, or only one character. Third Person Omniscient Third Person Objective Third Person Limited

Third Person Omniscient The narrator knows everything -- all thoughts, feelings, and actions may be told to the reader (or they may be withheld).

Third Person Objective The narrator can only tell the reader what is seen or heard. Allows for great indirect characterization, through which the reader is able to determine the thoughts and feelings of the characters without being directly stated.

Third Person Limited The narrator is able to tell a limited-knowledge version of the story. Often this version is limited to one character’s knowledge or experience.

Reliable versus Unreliable A narrator may or may not be telling the whole truth. Many readers assume the narrator is honest, unless the author gives reason to believe otherwise.

Natural versus Masked Natural voice is a voice that is perceived as authentic, maintaining perceived accuracy in depiction of an author’s voice. Masked Voice - A third person story which uses a voice that is not the author’s. Even though the narrator is not a character in the sense that they participate in the story, they can be a character in the sense that they are not the writer.

Tone versus Mood Tone: Reflects an attitude towards events and the world in general through the narrator’s voice. Mood: The perception of the events within a work according to the reader.

Voice We've now seen possibilities for who tells the story. What about how it's told? Narrative voice is the style of speaking in telling the story. This is not the same thing as the writer's voice (i.e. "You need to find your voice”).

Embrace Natural Speech Depict a certain manner of speaking in your narrator, one that accounts for dialect, informal language, etc. “Y’all better git in the truck!”