Tips for Choosing a Point of View
There are a number of elements that you need to create for your short story. The main ones are the characters and the plot. Still, it is equally important who will tell the story. You have to choose the point of view (POV)carefully so that the story is well told and consistent. There are three narrative options.
Narrating the story in first person is a really successful approach. Choosing the point of view of “I” might also make it easier for you to write. In addition, you have a choice of which character tells the story. This can help you immensely in making it more interesting and captivating. But you have to be careful not to tell anything that the “I” character cannot know.
It is essential for you to decide on who the narrator will be in the first place. It is much easier if this is the protagonist. Having a secondary character as the narrator makes the story more difficult to write, but it gives you the opportunity to reveal the elements of the plot in a more intriguing way. Basically, you can use this secondary character to present the protagonist as well as their actions and speech with an element of surprise.
A large number of short stories and novels are written in third person. You have an objective narrator who views the action and characters and describes them. For most writers, this is the easiest narrative to create, but some experts in writing recommend the use of first person to beginners. This is a reasonable advice. When the author becomes the narrator they can get carried away more easily and lose the main idea of their short story.
One of the great things about using a third person narrative is that you have a lot of options when building your story. Again, you can choose a secondary character to tell the story, but this time you will not be using “I”. The other option is for the narrator to be omniscient and know everything about the characters. There are also various ways in which the person telling the story can present it. They might be transparent and totally objective. They might also advocate a position that the reader is supposed to support or challenge.
Writing a story in second person, “you”, is a lot harder. You actually make the reader participant in the action. This is called interactive fiction and is an effective approach. Still, it is more abstract and not recommended to beginners.
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Narrating the story in first person is a really successful approach. Choosing the point of view of “I” might also make it easier for you to write. In addition, you have a choice of which character tells the story. This can help you immensely in making it more interesting and captivating. But you have to be careful not to tell anything that the “I” character cannot know.
It is essential for you to decide on who the narrator will be in the first place. It is much easier if this is the protagonist. Having a secondary character as the narrator makes the story more difficult to write, but it gives you the opportunity to reveal the elements of the plot in a more intriguing way. Basically, you can use this secondary character to present the protagonist as well as their actions and speech with an element of surprise.
A large number of short stories and novels are written in third person. You have an objective narrator who views the action and characters and describes them. For most writers, this is the easiest narrative to create, but some experts in writing recommend the use of first person to beginners. This is a reasonable advice. When the author becomes the narrator they can get carried away more easily and lose the main idea of their short story.
One of the great things about using a third person narrative is that you have a lot of options when building your story. Again, you can choose a secondary character to tell the story, but this time you will not be using “I”. The other option is for the narrator to be omniscient and know everything about the characters. There are also various ways in which the person telling the story can present it. They might be transparent and totally objective. They might also advocate a position that the reader is supposed to support or challenge.
Writing a story in second person, “you”, is a lot harder. You actually make the reader participant in the action. This is called interactive fiction and is an effective approach. Still, it is more abstract and not recommended to beginners.
Follow @ThriveandGrowMe
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