Telling Your Story
The Storytellers Point Of View
This is pretty basic stuff, but sometimes it’s the basic stuff that trip us up. Stories are told from a particular pint of view. The two major narrative viewpoints in this regards are:
· The first person point of view, and
· The third person point of view.
First person is where the person telling the story is a person within the story themselves. “I saw John run down the street and jump onto a bus.”
Third person: This is where the narrator is the writer:
“John walked down the street and jumped onto a bus” is an example of third person narrative.
You’re not stuck with one point of view, however. It’s quite ok to switch viewpoint from chapter to chapter, especially if you are telling the story from sever people’s point of view. But let me issue a warning here – don’t switch characters in the middle of a paragraph that’s poor writing.
One of the major difficulties when starting into a new story is in deciding how you are going to tell your story. Will you be outside looking in (first person) or will you be telling the story from the point of view of one or more of the characters (third person).
When deciding upon a point of view here’s a tip I’ve found useful. Sit down and write a few scenes. It’s not that important what viewpoint you are taking here. Once it is reasonably tidy re-write it from the first person point of view and then from the third person point of view. Keep all details the same. Come back two days later and then you’ll have an idea of which flows better.
You might like to try the following exercise. Write a quick story from the first person perspective but use the present tense. Imagine you are hearing the character’s thoughts as events unfold. It’s difficult I know but this exercise has the added bonus of improving your writing by getting you into the practice of writing active as opposed to writing passive sentences.)
As an exercise, try writing in first person perspective but use the present tense. Try to make it sound like your hearing the character’s thoughts as events around them unfold. I tried this in one of my stories “Hollow” and found it was very hard to stick to the present tense. (As a side note, this exercise can improve your writing by getting you into the practice of writing active, rather than passive sentences.)
