"Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where, and why that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages."
--Kurt Vonnegut, Rule #8 of Creative Writing
Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction, Berkeley Books, 1999. p. 13.
Stories are told-- this much is obvious. Yet two people who witness the same event can tell the story in two different ways. We know the story of Snow White, for example, and it follows the little girl in most tellings. But what if it followed the queen instead? The queen's motivations for wanting to kill Snow White would be clearer and the reader would sympathize with her instead of Snow White, even if the story was told exactly the same. So what changed? The perspective.
Perspective describes the point of view of the storyteller
The role of the storyteller is a powerful one, as the storyteller relays the story to the reader, directs their attention, and determines who are heroes and who are villains. Thus, the choice of storyteller is critical. There are three different perspectives through which a narrative can be told: first person, second person, and third person (either omniscient or limited). Points of view come down to the use of personal pronouns and can completely change how the story is told.
FIRST PERSON: Character as storyteller
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First person perspective means that the story is told by the protagonist of the story, using the words I, me, we, us, our, my, and mine when referring to the protagonist. The advantage of first person storytelling is that it is more natural for readers to read, as almost everyone thinks in first person. First person can create a distinctive voice and more easily clue the reader in on a character's motivations and feelings, as that character's thoughts are being expressed. The disadvantage to this approach is that an author can only write about what the character sees and knows. This can work well for, say, a mystery where the protagonist shouldn't know who committed the crime until the end, but is hard for comedy, which depends on situational irony the character is not aware of but the reader should be.
The first person narrator also has a stake in the storytelling and thus may change or color events to make themselves look better. This is called the unreliable narrator. One of the best examples is Humbert Humbert, narrator of Vladmir Nabokov's Lolita, who manipulates the facts and tone of his story several times to paint himself in a more sympathetic light despite the fact that he is a murderer and a pedophile. Here is an example of Humbert attempting to mask his criminal attempt at the seduction of a young girl through understating how awful his behavior is: "I want my learned readers to participate in the scene I am about to replay; I want them to examine its every detail and see for themselves how careful, how chaste, the whole wine-sweet event is if viewed with what my lawyer has called, in a private talk we have had, "impartial sympathy." So let us get started. I have a difficult job before me." (57) |
SECOND PERSON: Reader as character
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In this video, Rob Cantor is telling a story about you... "You're walking in the woods. There's no one around and your phone is dead. Out of the corner of your eye you spot him: Shia LaBouf." He is making use of second person perspective, which casts the reader into the role of the narrator and uses the words you, your, and yours when referring to the protagonist. This is the rarest perspective used in narrative, as it makes assumptions on the part of the reader. Exact character details of the protagonist are left out, as a reader could be any age, race, or sex. Yet some types of texts exclusively use second person perspective, like Choose Your Own Adventure books and books giving advice.
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THIRD PERSON: Narrator as storyteller
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There are two types of third person perspective, both of which uses the pronouns he/him/his, she/her/hers, it/its, and they/them when referring to protagonists. Third person omniscient perspective uses a narrator divorced from the story action who knows all actions, thoughts, and desires of each character. Another way to think of this is a "god's eye view," looking down from above on all humanity. This perspective is very popular, as the author can examine conflicting points of view easily, check in with several characters who are not in physical proximity to set up later events, and can give the reader vital backstory or other information a single character my not know. Perhaps the biggest reason it's used it that the allows the story to be totally objective; since the storyteller is not part of the story, he or she has no incentive to lie or distort facts, eliminating the worries of an unreliable narrator. Conversely, being too divorced from the story can lead to a confusing story where the reader cannot relate or is confused on who is the protagonist.
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A nice cross between the first and third person perspectives is third person limited perspective. Here, the story is told by someone who is a minor character in the story who is not the protagonist. This is usually told as a retrospective: the story already happened and the character is recalling the events. This blend of perspectives allows for the knowledge of all events and conflicting points of view, but still keeps the distinctive voice of the narrative. There can be questions of if the narrator is reliable, but these are mostly allayed by the idea that someone would not lie about a story that is not theirs. While this can be an effective perspective, it is difficult to write in character and not be the protagonist, so it is not as widely used as first person or third person omniscient perspective.
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Works Referenced
The Big Lebowski. Directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, featuring Jeff Bridges and John Goodman. Gramercy, 1998.
Clueless. Directed by Amy Heckerling, starring Alicia Silverstone and Paul Rudd. Paramount, 1995.
Nabokov, Vladimir. Lolita (1955). Vintage International, 1997.
The Royal Tenenbaums. Directed by Wes Anderson, featuring Gene Hackman and Anjelica Huston. Buena Vista, 2001.
"Shia LaBeouf." Directed and featuring Rob Cantor. YouTube, 21 October 2014, youtu.be/o0u4M6vppCI.
The Big Lebowski. Directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, featuring Jeff Bridges and John Goodman. Gramercy, 1998.
Clueless. Directed by Amy Heckerling, starring Alicia Silverstone and Paul Rudd. Paramount, 1995.
Nabokov, Vladimir. Lolita (1955). Vintage International, 1997.
The Royal Tenenbaums. Directed by Wes Anderson, featuring Gene Hackman and Anjelica Huston. Buena Vista, 2001.
"Shia LaBeouf." Directed and featuring Rob Cantor. YouTube, 21 October 2014, youtu.be/o0u4M6vppCI.