Three Types of Point of View

When it comes to writing, every author has to establish what kind of point of view they want. There are three different kinds, 1st person, 2nd person and 3rd person. Each of these narrations are fine to use, but whichever one you choose will affect how your story is told. 

First person: 

→ Uses personal pronouns such as ‘I’ and ‘We’.

→ It is normally told from the point of view of your protagonist, thus we see everything from their eyes. However, this is not always the case, for example The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. 

→ Gives a layer of intimacy, as you get deeper into the emotions of this character.

→ Unfortunately, it does just limit you as you write from their point of view, and we don’t know what the other characters go through. Yet in the last book of the YA series Matched by Ally Condie, she has three main characters, each chapter is from one of their point of view. This is a way to keep the first person narrative, but also not have it so limited. 

Second person: 

→ Uses personal pronoun ‘You’ 

→ This type of narration is the least common.

→ This point of view is normally used for ‘choose your story’ books, where at the end of the chapter you decide to go to chapter 34 or chapter 7.

→ It does make the reader feel that they are more part of the story, due to the fact the person pronoun ‘you’ creates a layer of intimacy between the book and reader. 

→ Yet, it is known to be the hardest narration to write in. 

Third Person: 

→ Uses personal pronouns such as: ‘They/Them’ ‘She/Her’ and ‘He/Him’.

→ Can be split into omniscient or limited. 

→ Limited can be seen to be similar to first person, as the reader will follow one character and view what they see, but the personal pronouns will be different. For example: Night School by C. J. Daughtery does this. 

→ Omniscient is the thought that you as an author can see all, you are like the god of your story and can feel all your characters’ emotions and see everything they can see. The reader will be able to move through the novel from the viewpoint of two characters or more. 

It is a common thought to wonder what point of view you should write from. You have the idea for a novel, you even planned but now you are wondering how to write it. Think about the genre you are writing in, it is common for Young Adult books to be written in first person, there are a few that are third person. 

Also think about you personally, what types of books do you prefer? And what way do you find easier to write? For me, I love writing third person. In my eyes, when I write in the first person I feel I end up telling too much and mention areas that aren’t really needed, and doesn’t help with my story to flow. 

For my YA novel, I have written it as third person limited. I choose this way because originally I wrote it as first person. Changing the perspective to this one, kept everything to be viewed from my protagonist's eyes, but made everything tighter. 

However, my women fiction novels are third person omniscient. I like doing this point of view for these novels, as I like to move between characters and it helps with the subplots. 

In my opinion, it is fine whatever point of view you decide from, you can always rewrite it if you don’t like it. I would advise you to experiment. Perhaps change it up between different stories.