1. It all depends on your…

2.  The perspective, or vantage point, from which the story is told. It is either a narrator outside the story or a character in the story.

3.  How does your point of view affect your perception of a situation? ◦ Example: A fight has broken out in the lunch room. How do you know who is right? How might your opinion change if you were a different person, for instance… ◦ The fight participants ◦ The observers of the fight ◦ A teacher ◦ An administrator ◦ A parent

4. Simply, this is who is talking or telling the story to the reader. There are three points of view that we will talk about in this class.

5. 1. First Person – One of the main characters is telling the story as he/she participates in it. 2. Third Person LIMITED – a narrator (who is not a character in the story) tells the story but shares only the thoughts and feelings of a single character. 3. Third Person OMNISCIENT – a narrator (who is not a character in the story) tells the story but has the ability to share the thoughts and feelings of all story characters.

6. “I never had a brain until Freak came along and let me borrow his for a while, and that’s the truth, the whole truth. The unvanquished truth, is how Freak would say it, and for a long time it was him who did the talking. Except I had a way of saying things with my fists and my feet even before we became Freak the Mighty….” Excerpt from Freak the Mighty

7. “[The scientist] tried switching through various sounds, but there was no echo. The scientist was puzzled, but he could not very well give up with everyone watching him so intently.” Excerpt from “He-y, Come On O-ut!”

8. “Mr. Bueller shuffled through the papers on his desk. He smiled and hummed as he sat down to work. He remembered his college years when he dated a girlfriend in borrowed cars. She thought he was rich because each time he picked her up he had a different car. It was fun until he had spent all his money on her and had to write home to his parents because he was broke.” Excerpt from “Seventh Grade”

9.  The narrator reveals only the actions and words without the benefit of the inner thoughts and feelings.  An objective narrator only records what can be seen or heard.  The reader is never allowed into any of the characters’ minds, nor given any of their feelings or emotions.  The reader has to judge what the character is thinking or feeling by what they say, what they do, and their facial expressions - much like real life, in fact!

10.  The narrator restricts the perspective to that of only one character to tell the story.  First person and third person subjective are both “limited” points of view. ◦ In first person the character may say “I saw, I heard, I felt.” ◦ In third person the same character’s thoughts and emotions would be revealed by the pronouns “he” or “she” as in “he saw, he heard, he felt.”  A subjective or limited point of view means that the observations in the book are always limited to what the main character would realistically observe, think, or experience.  The viewpoint character cannot know about or comment upon events that occur outside of his normal range of thought and vision.

11. Dialogue = When characters speak. Narration = When the narrator speaks. I went home. My mom said, “Did you get out early?” I said, “No.” ONLY LOOK AT THE NARRATION, Or you’ll get confused.