Point of view

https://youtu.be/F6VW4t9kPgI
• Every piece of writing has a point of view. A novel, an academic
research paper, your journal, and this blog post all have a point of
view. Point of view in writing is the position from which a story is told.
A simple way to think about point of view is to ask: Where is the
narrator? 
What is point of view?
• Point of view is the writer’s way of deciding who is telling the story to
whom. Establishing a clear point of view is important because it
dictates how your reader interprets characters, events, and other
important details. There are three kinds of point of view: first person,
second person, and third person. 
First-person point of view 
• In first-person point of view, the reader accesses the story through
one person. It’s like reading the main character’s diary. You will notice
pronouns like I, me/my, we, us, or our in first-person writing. This
limits the scope of what a reader can know about other characters,
but it is truest to how we live our lives.
There are two ways to write in first person:

• First-person central: The narrator is also the protagonist of the story.

For example, in To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout is both the main
character and the narrator, meaning this novel is written in first-
person central.
• First-person peripheral: The narrator is telling the story of the
protagonist from close by. One famous example is F. Scott
Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. The story of Gatsby is told not by
Gatsby himself but by a narrator named Nick, a friend and neighbor of
Gatsby’s.
Why write in first person? 
• Identification: The reader is discovering information right alongside
the narrator, so they identify more closely with them. First-person
writing creates a feeling of “we’re in this together.”
Second-person point of view
• Second-person point of view uses the pronoun you. This point of view
establishes the reader as the protagonist or main character. It is the
most difficult point of view to maintain in a longer piece of creative
writing. As a writer, you want your reader to be engrossed, engaged,
and enthralled but . . . involved? There is a time and place for second
person, such as nonfiction, advertising, immersive stories, and this
blog post. There are some examples of second-person point of view in
novels, which we’ll explore later in this article. Just know that it’s the
most challenging and least-often-used point of view in fiction.
Third-person point of view
• In third-person point of view, the narrator has the ability to know everything. You’ll
see the pronouns he/his, she/her, they/them/their, and it/its in third-person point of
view. This point of view allows for the greatest flexibility and also creates the most
complexity.
• There are three ways to write in the third person: 
• Third-person omniscient: The narrator speaks freely about everyone and everything.
There are no limits to the time, space, or character the narrator can access.
• Third-person limited omniscient (also called third-person close): The author writes
in third person but keeps the thoughts and feelings limited to one central character.
The Harry Potter series is an example of third-person limited omniscient. The reader
has access to scenes across time and space, but they are only ever in the head of
Harry himself. 
Point of view examples
• Like we said, every piece of writing has a point of view. Here are some examples of
points of view in literature: 
• First person (peripheral)
• “When I came back from the East last autumn I felt that I wanted the world to be in
uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever; I wanted no more riotous
excursions with privileged glimpses into the human heart. Only Gatsby, the man who
gives his name to this book, was exempt from my reaction—Gatsby, who
represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn.”
• —The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• Fitzgerald’s narrator, the “I” in the example above, is a man named Nick. Though the
central character of the book is Gatsby, the reader learns Gatsby’s story through the
personal perspective of a nearby narrator.
Second person
• “You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino’s new novel, If on a winter’s
night a traveler. Relax. Concentrate. Dispel every other thought. Let the
world around you fade. Best to close the door; the TV is always on in the
next room. Tell the others right away, ‘No, I don’t want to watch TV!’”

• —If on a winter’s night a traveler, by Italo Calvino

• Calvino was famous for his innovative writing techniques. In this example
from the opening lines of his novel, Calvino is directly addressing the
reader in second person, instructing them how to read his book. 
Third person (objective)
• “The American and the girl with him sat at a table in the shade, outside the building. It
was very hot and the express from Barcelona would come in forty minutes. It stopped at
this junction for two minutes and went on to Madrid.
• ‘What should we drink?’ the girl asked. She had taken off her hat and put it on the table.
• ‘It’s pretty hot,’ the man said. 
• ‘Let’s drink beer.’
• ‘Dos cervezas,’ the man said into the curtain. 
• ‘Big ones?’ a woman asked from the doorway. 
• ‘Yes. Two big ones.’”
• —“Hills Like White Elephants,” by Ernest Hemingway
• This dialogue is told from a fly-on-the-wall perspective. The narrator is not talking about
themself (there is no “I”), and the reader has access to every character’s behaviors
equally. It is purely observational.