1st person collective? 2nd person instructional???
Let’s write some stories from weird points of view!
Category: Point of View
Let’s go over 4 things to keep in mind when writing multiple POVs, look at some examples from books, then write our own story from multiple POVs together!
There are two main points of view to write a story from: 1st person and 3rd person. (Yes there’s 2nd person and the distinction between 3rd person limited/omniscient, but that’s a story for another day.)
When you write a story with a narrator saying “I/me,” then it’s 1st person. If it’s a narrator saying “he/she,” then it’s 3rd person. Both methods have advantages and disadvantages.
To show them off, let’s take a look at the same scene written in both 1st person and 3rd person.
Last stream we continued our Rubbish to Published series, where we start from absolutely nothing and create something “publishable.”
We did our chapter-by-chapter plotting in the previous stream, so this time we took the next step: picking our tense and POV.
Choosing whether you tell your story in the past or present tense, and whether in the first or third person, is a big decision. A lot of time writers don’t give it the attention it deserves, since choosing the right combination can enhance your story.
We went over the pros and cons of each tense and POV combination, giving examples from real books and stories too. There was a lot of information, but here’s what we came up with: