Creative writing: point of view

Point of view Looking for a fun example? Check out the Wicked Witch from The Wizard of Oz. She’s a classic antagonist in the original story. But in the musical Wicked, we’re told her background tale and she’s transformed into a protagonist the audience can’t help but love. That is the power of a good story! What changed in our two stories above about the Wicked Witch of the West? The point of view! Point of view (or POV) describes the lens through which the story is being told. In The Wizard of Oz, the Wicked Witch is at odds with our protagonist Dorothy and her quest to return home. However, in Wicked, we get to see the green witch as a young woman going through the typical struggles of friendship and young love. And that is a whole other story.

Types of Point of View The POV you choose can help shape your entire story. There are several different POVs to consider, but the most common are first person, second person, and third person. First Person Point of View A story told in the first person is most often told from the point of view of the protagonist. Our protagonist narrator will speak using first person pronouns (I, we, me, etc). And as the reader, we are privy to their innermost thoughts and feelings. This is a great way to pull a reader into the story, and a very strong bond can be formed between the reader and the narrator.

Advantages of using first person point of view From their first introduction to the narrator, the reader begins to build up a relationship with them. Their perspective is (potentially) the only lens through which your reader will see your narrative unfold, and therefore it is easier to build a rapport and intimacy between the reader and narrator, as the reader experiences events as the character does, as well as discovers new information as the character does. You are granted the opportunity to fully explore a character and their personality. This allows you the freedom to use a unique and intriguing voice to tell your narrative - one that potentially has drastically differing opinions to your own. As the story is being narrated through the lens of a specific character, you can introduce bias into your story. This makes for compelling storytelling as you can utilise the concept of the unreliable narrator, or use it to your advantage.

Assassin's Apprentice follows Fitz Chivalry, who is the novel's main protagonist and narrator. My pen falters, then falls from my knuckly grip, leaving a worm’s trail of ink across Fedwren’s paper. I have spoiled another leaf of the fine stuff, in what I suspect is a futile endeavor. I wonder if I can write this history, or if on every page there will be some sneaking show of a bitterness I thought long dead. I think myself cured of all spite, but when I touch pen to paper, the hurt of a boy bleeds out with the sea-­spawned ink, until I suspect each carefully formed black letter scabs over some ancient scarlet wound.

Moving onto a dystopian science fiction... Red Rising is set on Mars and follows the story of Darrow, a lowborn Red who impersonates a highborn Gold in order to enact revenge for the death of his wife. The first thing you should know about me is I am my father’s son. And when they came for him, I did as he asked. I did not cry. Not when the Society televised the arrest. Not when the Golds tried him. Not when the Grays hanged him. Mother hit me for that. My brother Kieran was supposed to be the stoic one. He was the elder, I the younger. I was supposed to cry. Instead, Kieran bawled like a girl when Little Eo tucked a haemanthus into Father’s left work boot and ran back to her own father’s side. My sister Leanna murmured a lament beside me. I just watched and thought it a shame that he died dancing but without his dancing shoes.

An American Marriage is written in the first person point of view of three central characters: Roy, a black man falsely accused and sentenced to 12 years in prison for a crime he didn't commit; Celestial, his wife of one year at the time of the false accusation; and Andre, Celestial's childhood best friend who she leans on for support in the years following Roy's incarceration. There are two kinds of people in the world, those who leave home, and those who don’t. I’m a proud member of the first category. My wife, Celestial, used to say that I’m a country boy at the core, but I never cared for that designation. For one, I’m not from the country per se. Eloe, Louisiana, is a small town. When you hear “country,” you think raising crops, baling hay, and milking cows. Never in my life have I picked a single cotton boll, although my daddy did. I have never touched a horse, goat, or pig, nor have I any desire to. Celestial used to laugh, clarifying that she’s not saying I’m a farmer, just country. She is from Atlanta, and there was a case to be made that she is country, too. But let her tell it, she’s a “southern woman,” not to be confused with a “southern belle.” For some reason, “Georgia peach” is all right with her, and it’s all right with me, so there you have it.

Second Person Point of View You won’t see second person used very often in literature, but it is an important POV to keep in mind. In the second person, the reader is addressed directly and may even become a character of sorts in your story. This point of view is written using second person pronouns (you, your, etc). Though you can find some books written in second person, most often you will see this writing in your digital reading, such as ads and blog posts — why, hello there!

Advantages of using second person point of view In a second person narrative, the writer casts the reader as the main character. The reader is placed at the very centre of the story, which makes for an intense and immersive reader experience. This POV can also be used to reinforce the key themes and ideas of the story. Perhaps the narrator wants to distance themselves from their own narrative because the topic is difficult to think or talk about. Or perhaps self-talk is central to your narrator's identity. Second person POV is an exciting challenge for a writer. And an original and intriguing format for a reader. To avoid putting too much pressure on either party, short stories written in the second person provide a good introduction to this mode of storytelling.

Why is second person point of view generally avoided? We’ve covered the reasons to give second person point of view a go. But there are a few good reasons why writers tend to avoid it. It’s not something writers or readers are used to. It’s rare to come across fiction written in the second person. And – honestly – writers don’t tend to consider it as one of the narrative formats available to them. Readers don’t always like it. They may feel uncomfortable or alienated from events when being told by a narrator that they have acted or spoken in ways that feel far removed from their own real life experience. Because readers don’t tend to like second person point of view narratives, it’s much harder to convince an agent or publisher that your story has commercial potential. A reader will inevitably question this form of storytelling. So a writer has to convince the reader that the second person point of view is necessary to the narrative. Very few stories really require it – so writers simply choose other points of view.

The Night Circus is a tale of two magicians, their lifelong rivalry and a mysterious circus. Morgenstern writes the majority of The Night Circus in third person. But there are times when she chooses to put the reader at the very heart of the action. At these moments she switches to second person point of view, evoking the wonder and excitement the audience feel when experiencing the circus for themselves. "What kind of circus is only open at night?" people ask. No one has a proper answer, yet as dusk approaches there is a substantial crowd of spectators gathering outside the gates. You are amongst them, of course. Your curiosity got the better of you, as curiosity is wont to do. You stand in the fading light, the scarf around your neck pulled up against the chilly evening breeze, waiting to see for yourself exactly what kind of circus only opens once the sun sets. The ticket booth clearly visible behind the gates is closed and barred. The tents are still, save for when they ripple ever so slightly in the wind. The only movement within the circus is the clock that ticks by the passing minutes, if such a wonder of sculpture can even be called a clock. The circus looks abandoned and empty. But you think perhaps you can smell caramel wafting through the evening breeze, beneath the crisp scent of the autumn leaves. A subtle sweetness at the edges of the cold.

In Complicity, the story is told from the perspective of two narrators: a journalist and a murderer. Chapters from the murderer’s point of view are written in second person. This narrative choice highlights a central theme of the novel – complicity. A reader is made to feel complicit in the murders that have taken place. This echoes the feelings of the journalist, whose old editorial the killer is now using as inspiration for his murder targets. You hear the car after an hour and a half. During that time you've been here in the darkness, sitting on the small telephone seat near the front door, waiting. You only moved once, after half an hour, when you went back through to the kitchen to check on the maid. She was still there, eyes white in the half-darkness. There was a strange, sharp smell in the air and you thought of cats, though you know he doesn't have cats. Then you realised the maid had pissed herself. You felt a moment of disgust, and then a little guilt.

The focus of Open Water is a love affair between a female dancer and a male photographer. By writing in second person Caleb Azumah Nelson heightens the emotional intensity that the photographer (the main protagonist) experiences in both this relationship and the rest of his life.

The first night you met, a night you both negate as too brief an encounter, you pull your friend Samuel to the side. There's a bunch of you in the basement of this south-east London pub. A birthday celebration. Most on their way to drunk, or jolly, depending on which they’d prefer. What’s up?’ ‘I don’t normally do this.’ ‘Usually means this is something you’ve done before.’ ‘No, promise. Pinky promise,’ you say. ‘But I need you to introduce me to your friend.’ You’d like to say that in this moment, the older gentleman spinning records had faded something fast, something like Curtis Mayfield’s ‘Move On Up’, into something equally so. You’d like to say it was the Isley Brothers, ‘Fight the Power’, playing when you expressed a desire you did not wholly understand, but knew you must act upon. You’d like to say, behind you, the dance floor heaved and the young moved like it was the eighties, where to move in this way was but one of a few freedoms afforded to those who came before. And since you’re remembering this, the liberty is yours. But you did promise to be honest. The reality was you were so taken aback by the presence of this woman that you first reached to shake her hand, before opening up for the usual wide embrace, the result an awkward flapping of your arms.

Third Person Point of View Third person POV is by far the most common point of view in fiction writing. In this kind of story, the reader is a bystander, observing the actions of the characters as told by an ‘outside narrator’. This POV used third person pronouns (he, she, they, etc). But how much we learn as a reader depends on which style of narrator you choose.

Third Person Limited In this POV, our narrator has access to only one character’s inside thoughts and feelings. As the reader, we typically follow this one character as our main character, learning only what they know and seeing the world through their eyes and experiences.

Advantages of third person limited point of view If your story has a few main characters with contrasting POVs, third person limited gives you an opportunity to explore all of their unique voices without disrupting the flow of the narrative. You get to introduce the reader to all your major players, their personalities, feelings and opinions about each other and their world. You can introduce multiple unreliable narrators, each convinced of their own fictions. This can create extra intrigue in the story or, with a certain level of psychic distance, add some humour to it. You get your reader invested into the story of every main character, making what happens to each of them equally important. The intimacy of a close third person limited point of view draws the reader in and allows them to build a strong relationship with the characters.

Third person limited POV lets you find the right balance between character and action. You get to explore the inner world of the hero and the outside circumstances that influence it. In an action-driven story, you have the benefit of seeing the character’s immediate reaction to the unfolding events and knowing what motivates them to make certain choices. A limited perspective allows you to focus your story and avoid getting distracted. As you are writing from the perspective of one character, rather than a narrator who knows everything, you have to be more selective about what you can and can't show the reader at a given moment.

A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire #1) – George R.R. Martin This world-famous series masterfully uses third person limited point of view to build a narrative that spans kingdoms and generations. We see the events of the saga through several main characters whose origins, perspectives and alliances are vastly different from each other. The morning had dawned clear and cold, with a crispness that hinted at the end of summer. They set forth at daybreak to see a man beheaded, twenty in all, and Bran rode among them, nervous with excitement. This was the first time he had been deemed old enough to go with his lord father and his brothers to see the king's justice done. It was the ninth year of summer, and the seventh of Bran's life.

Here, we begin to see the world through Bran's eyes. While this could veer into third person omniscient, as the scene continues (see rest of excerpt here), it becomes clearer and clearer that we are viewing the scene from a third person limited point of view – Bran's. For example, a few paragraphs later: Bran's father sat solemnly on his horse, long brown hair stirring in the wind. His closely trimmed beard was shot with white, making him look older than his thirty-five years. He had a grim cast to his grey eyes this day, and he seemed not at all the man who would sit before the fire in the evening and talk softly of the age of heroes and the children of the forest. He had taken off Father's face, Bran thought, and donned the face of Lord Stark of Winterfell. Here, we're introduced to Bran's father through Bran's own perspective. If we were in an omniscient point of view, we would likely be introduced to Bran's father by his name (Ned Stark) and we wouldn't see terminology like 'he seemed', as this, without clarification of who it seemed to, is indicative of a limited point of view (aka: it seemed to Bran).

Fahrenheit 451 – Ray Bradbury This novel uses close third person limited to lead us through the world of Guy Montag and his journey of disillusionment and dissent. The reader follows as Montag breaks free of the social constraints of a fictional version of America. Once again, third person limited helps us connect with the character and see the world around him.

It was a pleasure to burn. It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed. With the brass nozzle in his fists, with this great python spitting its venomous kerosene upon the world, the blood pounded in his head, and his hands were the hands of some amazing conductor playing all the symphonies of blazing and burning to bring down the tatters and charcoal ruins of history. With his symbolic helmet numbered 451 on his stolid head, and his eyes all orange flame with the thought of what came next, he flicked the igniter and the house jumped up in a gorging fire that burned the evening sky red and yellow and black. He strode in a swarm of fireflies. He wanted above all, like the old joke, to shove a marshmallow on a stick in the furnace, while the flapping pigeon-winged books died on the porch and lawn of the house. While the books went up in sparkling whirls and blew away on a wind turned dark with burning. Montag grinned the fierce grin of all men singed and driven back by flame.

Third Person Omniscient A third person omniscient narrator knows everything going down in the story. As a reader, we can learn the inside thoughts and feelings of all the main characters. The story unfolds in front of us, and we get to experience it through a variety of character lenses.

The advantages of third person omniscient POV: You aren't restricted by a certain character's perception and access to information. You can relay any information about the past, the present and maybe even the future without having to make sure that this information would be knowable to a specific character and without having to make sure this information is introduced in a natural way in the character's perspective. You can develop your own narrative voice which is separate from that of a character or characters. The narrator becomes a sort of extra character in themselves through their voice. They can have their own personality, and even be unreliable, or they can be a more objective narrator that tells things completely as they are.

You can move between characters easily and get a glimpse into different characters' thoughts in a scene so the reader is able to see exactly what's going on all around. An example of this would be two characters meeting for the first time. If we were in third person limited, the reader would be limited to the thoughts of one character. They would therefore only get to see what the POV character thought about the new character. In third person omniscient, the narrator can tell the reader about both characters' perceptions of the other and convey what both characters think of each other in their first meeting.

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen (1813) Jane Austen is the queen of the third person omniscient point of view and I believe all of her novels are written in this way (eek, I haven't read them all - yet). While the book is narrated by a third person omniscient narrator, who allows the reader access into certain events or thoughts that could not be known by our principal character, Elizabeth Bennet, the book does closely follow Elizabeth throughout.

...Mr. Darcy soon drew the attention of the room by his fine, tall person, handsome features, noble mien, and the report which was in general circulation within five minutes after his entrance, of his having ten thousand a year. The gentlemen pronounced him to be a fine figure of a man, the ladies declared he was much handsomer than Mr. Bingley, and he was looked at with great admiration for about half the evening, till his manners gave a disgust which turned the tide of his popularity; for he was discovered to be proud; to be above his company, and above being pleased; and not all his large estate in Derbyshire could then save him from having a most forbidding, disagreeable countenance, and being unworthy to be compared with his friend.

Mr. Bingley had soon made himself acquainted with all the principal people in the room; he was lively and unreserved, danced every dance, was angry that the ball closed so early, and talked of giving one himself at Netherfield. Such amiable qualities must speak for themselves. What a contrast between him and his friend! Mr. Darcy danced only once with Mrs. Hurst and once with Miss Bingley, declined being introduced to any other lady, and spent the rest of the evening in walking about the room, speaking occasionally to one of his own party. His character was decided. He was the proudest, most disagreeable man in the world, and everybody hoped that he would never come there again. Amongst the most violent against him was Mrs. Bennet, whose dislike of his general behaviour was sharpened into particular resentment by his having slighted one of her daughters. Our principal character is Elizabeth Bennet, but here we see Mr Darcy and Mr Bingley introduced without it being through her eyes. Instead, we get a more general overview of how everyone perceives the men rather than how Elizabeth perceives them (even if these perceptions are the same).

The Bear and the Nightingale is a historical fairy tale fantasy published in 2017. While the story predominatly follows one character, the story is told from a third person omniscient narrator who frequently flits between other characters and tells the tale in a more detached style. It was late winter in northern Rus’, the air sullen with wet that was neither rain nor snow. The brilliant February landscape had given way to the dreary grey of March, and the household of the boyar Pyotr Vladimirovich were all sniffling from the damp and thin from six weeks’ fasting on black bread and fermented cabbage. But no one was thinking of chilblains or runny noses, or even, wistfully, of porridge and roast meats, for Dunya was to tell a story. That evening, the old lady sat in the best place for talking: in the kitchen, on the wooden bench beside the oven. This oven was a massive affair built of fired clay, taller than a man and large enough that all four of Pyotr Vladimirovich’s children could have fit easily inside. The flat top served as a sleeping platform; its innards cooked their food, heated their kitchen and made steam-baths for the sick.

Beautiful World, Where Are You? by Sally Rooney is written in both third person omniscient and first person email interaction. It's an interesting decision for a contemporary novel, but it's exciting to see authors pushing the boat out again and making bold decisions regarding point of view in newer, more contemporary work. Here's an excerpt from the opening chapter to showcase this: A woman sat in a hotel bar, watching the door. Her appearance was neat and tidy: white blouse, fair hair tucked behind her ears. She glanced at the screen of her phone, on which was displayed a messaging interface, and then looked back at the door again. It was late March, the bar was quiet, and outside the window to her right the sun was beginning to set over the Atlantic. It was four minutes past seven, and then five, six minutes past. Briefly and with no perceptible interest she examined her fingernails. At eight minutes past seven, a man entered through the door. He was slight and dark-haired, with a narrow face. He looked around, scanning the faces of the other patrons, and then took his phone out and checked the screen. The woman at the window noticed him but, beyond watching him, made no additional effort to catch his attention. They appeared to be about the same age, in their late twenties or early thirties. She let him stand there until he saw her and came over.

Rooney adopts a more objective omniscient narrator here, whose sole purpose is to relay the events of the story without adding their own opinions or acting as a character in their own right.