So we’re writing from a certain point of view/POV.
There are three POVs, or storytelling perspectives, you’re likely to come across when you read or write: first person, second person and third person.
First and second are fairly straightforward as there’s only really one way to do them. Third can be trickier, as it breaks into two. You’ll spot the first- and third-person POV most often. Second is a rarer beast. Over time, we’ll have fun trying them all.
FIRST PERSON
You’re writing as yourself, or the person or thing telling the story.
Use “I” and “my” to help your reader experience life from your/the thing’s perspective. Autobiographies and personal memoirs are written in the first person. For example, Bill Bryson’s Notes From a Small Island:
I had a platter of eggs, beans, fried bread, bacon and sausage, with a side plate of bread and marge, and two cups of tea, all for 22p. Afterwards, feeling a new man, I emerged with a toothpick and a burp, and sauntered happily through the streets, watching Dover come to life. It must be said that Dover was not vastly improved by daylight, but I liked it. I liked its small scale and cosy air, and the way everyone said ‘Good-morning,’ and ‘Hello,’ and, ‘Dreadful weather – but it might brighten up,’ to everyone else...
SECOND PERSON
You’re speaking directly to your audience, like they’re a character in the story.
Use “you” and “your” to help your reader feel in the thick of it. I first came across this POV when studying the great American essayists. For example, EB White, who uses second person for grit and immediacy in ‘Here is New York’ from 1949:
Walk the Bowery under the El at night and all you feel is a sort of cold guilt. Touched for a dime, you try to drop the coin and not touch the hand, because the hand is dirty; you try to avoid the glance, because the glance accuses.
THIRD PERSON
You’re writing as a narrator who is removed from the story.
It’s all “he”, “she”, “they”, “their” and “them”, giving your reader everything they need to make sense of what’s happening. Well, most of the time. But not always.
You can have an all-knowing third-person narrator. They see into the minds of all characters, and know what’s been and what’s to come. Nothing is secret from them. Or you can have a limited third-person narrator. They might learn things as you do.
Jane Austen was genius with this. Here she is giving us a wide-angle, all-knowing sweep of place, plot and character to open Sense and Sensibility:
The family of Dashwood had been long settled in Sussex. Their estate was large, and their residence was at Norland Park, in the centre of their property, where for many generations, they had lived in so respectable a manner as to engage the general good opinion of their surrounding acquaintance. The late owner of this estate was a single man, who lived to a very advanced age, and who for many years of his life had a constant companion and housekeeper in his sister. But her death, which happened ten years before his own, produced a great alteration in his home; for to supply her loss, he invited and received into his house the family of his nephew, Mr. Henry Dashwood, the legal inheritor of the Norland estate, and the person to whom he intended to bequeath it.
We’ll play with these different points of view over time. If they don’t make sense now, please don’t worry at all – they’ll become clearer the more we use them.
Theory is interesting, but play is where we learn.
Happy writing
Rob