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Narrative point of view describes from whose eyes the story is perceived.


Related Articles: Voice, Tense

First-person view[]

First-person is where a story is narrated by one character at a time, who explicitly refers to themselves using words and phrases involving "I" and/or "We".

We only see through the eyes (including opinions, thoughts, and feelings) of the narrator, and no other characters.

To deliver a larger point of view, first-person narrators may refer to information they have heard from other characters. Other stories will jump from one character's point of view to another. These jumps usually come at the beginning of a new chapter.

Examples of writing in 1st person[]

  • "Don't we all," I said, but something was turning over in my head.
  • I put the shotgun in an Adidas bag and padded it out with four pairs of tennis socks, not my style at all, but that was what I was aiming for.

Third-person view[]

Third-person point of view provides the greatest flexibility to the author and is the most commonly used narrative mode in literature. In third-person, each and every character is referred to by the narrator as "he", "she", "it", or "they".

Examples of writing in 3rd person[]

  • "Don't we all," he said, but something was turning over in his head.
  • He put the shotgun in an Adidas bag and padded it out with four pairs of tennis socks, not his style at all, but that was what he was aiming for.

Third-person voices[]

See the main voice article.

  • Third-person subjective
  • Third-person, objective
  • Third-person, omniscient

Uncommon Views[]

Second-person view[]

Second-person point of view is where the narrator directly addresses the reader. It is considered by many to be one of the more difficult perspectives to write from. Second-person point of view uses the pronoun, "you".

Examples of writing in 2nd person[]

  • Examples Here

Multiple-person view[]

Alternating person view[]

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