 The point of view of a story determines who is telling it.
First person: First person tells a story in the voice of one of the characters. Autobiographies are written in the first person. It uses pronouns 'I', 'me', 'my', and 'we', 'us', 'our'. Many stories and novels are written in the first-person point of view. In this kind of narrative, you are inside a character’s head, watching the story unfold through that character’s eyes. Some examples: " My sister is nice to me most of the time, although sometimes I think she’s faking it. She inherited the good looks in the family. At least, the evidence points that way, based on the number of boys who seem to be interested in her. I know because, like I said, I read her diary. The lock on it is so simple, a twelve year old could pick it. Yeah, I did." from "The Diary" "As irrational as it sounded, I was beginning to suspect that the plant towering over our doorway had eaten our cat!" from "The Plant" Second person: The second-person point of view belongs to the person or people being addressed. This is the 'you' perspective. It uses pronouns 'you', 'your', 'yours', 'yourself', and 'yourselves'. Stories and novels written in the second person exist, but they are much rarer than narratives written from a first- or third-person perspective. An example: "No, I think you need my help. This story is so out of character for you ... you’re floundering. You don’t know where to go from here, do you?" from "Self Analysis" "You’ll find that this is your only thought now. The burning pain in your lungs, the shocking cold of the water- everything has subsided. Now you float in a dark and murky existence and wonder how much longer you will have to wait before you die". from my daughter Emily's powerful true story "How Long Does It Take to Drown?" Third person: The third-person point of view belongs to the person or people being talked about. The third-person pronouns include 'he', 'him', 'his', 'himself', 'she', 'her', 'hers', 'herself', 'it', 'its', 'itself', 'they', 'them', 'their', 'theirs', and 'themselves'. Many stories and novels are written in the third person. In this type of story, a disembodied narrator describes what the characters do and what happens to them. You don’t see directly through a character’s eyes as you do in a first-person narrative, but often the narrator describes the main character’s thoughts and feelings about what’s going on. An example: "Eventually the night began to give way to dawn. The creature’s lust for blood was sated. It headed for its lair to sleep away the daylight hours". from "Blood Lust" |