write a response(use point of view) 250 word

Point of View

Adapted from http://www.users.qwest.net/~yarnspnr/writing/pov/pov.htm

© Erick Emert 2001

Writing is about choices and one of the very first choices we have to make when telling a story, whether its short or novel length, is who's telling the story? This is where point of view comes in to play. Will your story be narrated by the protagonist or some other character from within the story itself? Will it be told by some all knowing third party character away from the story? Will various characters within your story be tapped to tell certain parts of it that are integral to them? Is the story happening now? Is it being retold from an earlier time? Whatever you choose, you must stick with it for the entire telling of your tale in most cases. Your first choice is to pick a perspective.

Limited:  

If you choose to tell your story through the eyes of the protagonist or another character only, understand that you must limit what that character may say about the story (and the people in the story) to what that character knows from their own experience. This isn't easy because, as the author, you know what every character in the story knows. You also know how the story will end and what will happen to every character in the story. Sometimes it becomes difficult to tell the story from the limited point of view of one character because of this. An example:

"Hello, Mrs. Spade. I'm Pierre Tardivel." I was conscious of how out-of-place my Quebecois accent must have sounded here -- another reminder that I was intruding. There was a moment while Mrs. Spade looked me up and down during which I thought I saw a flicker of recognition on her face.

The other side of the coin is, your story will be much more personal if told from the viewpoint of the central character within it. It keeps the reader closer to the story itself. This is referred to as limited because the story is being told only through the perspective of one character.

Objective:

In the objective perspective, the reader is presented the story from a totally factual viewpoint. Although what characters say is communicated, nothing they think or feel is reported. It makes for a very dry story, almost like reading a newspaper or magazine article. An example:

German police have detained a Berlin woman who screamed she was a vampire and thirsty as she attempted to bite people.

"She tried to bite the necks of three people within a few minutes," police spokesman Hansjoerg Draeger said on Thursday. "She screamed out that she was a vampire and was thirsty."

The 21-year-old woman, identified only as Laura E., was put under psychiatric observation after she also tried to bite her fingers off, police said.

She first tried to bite the neck of a 20-year-old woman at a doctor's surgery, however the victim managed to escape. She then went into a fast-food restaurant and bit the neck of a 40-year-old waiter.

Police said she then ran out onto the street where she first cut the neck of an 88-year-old pensioner with a piece of broken glass and then bit the elderly woman's ear. Two police officers called to the scene managed to detain her, but she repeatedly bit their hands and arms.

Although objectivity as a perspective is fine for reporting, it presents difficulties when used in novels or short stories.

Omniscient:

Using a story-teller or narrator from totally outside the story solves many problems. Of course you must establish early on how this narrator came to know all the information about the story so the narrator will be believable to the reader. In other words, the unseen narrator knows what all the characters are thinking. No limits are placed on the story-teller regarding time or space either. This provides a large canvas for novels but can also be used for short stories. Example:

"Hello, Mrs. Spade. I'm Pierre Tardivel." He was conscious of how out-of-place his Quebecois accent must have sounded here -- another reminder that he was intruding. For a moment, Mrs. Spade thought she recognized Pierre.

This perspective is called omniscient and we will cover this particular viewpoint for story telling in another essay at a later date.

 

Now that you've decided that you want to use either a limited, objective, or omniscient perspective, you will need to choose the voice (1st person, 2nd person, or 3rd person) in which your story will be told.

1st person: (I or We)     

The first person account, while certainly being more personal, dramatic, and holding the reader closer to the story, is much more difficult to use. You can and must tell your readers what you think and what you feel. Once you've started, however, you must be consistent. You can never get inside another character's mind to tell what they think and feel. The reader, invited to partake from within the skin of the narrator, observes the events and drama as if becoming the story narrator. The reader can not be aware of anything in the story that the narrator is also not aware of. Example from Dracula's Guest by Bram Stoker:

When we started for our drive the sun was shining brightly on Munich, and the air was full of joyousness of early summer. Just as we were about to depart, Herr Delbruck (the maitre d'hotel of the Quantre Saisons, where I was staying) came down, bareheaded, to the carriage and, after wishing me a pleasant drive, said to the coachman, still holding his hand on the handle of the carriage door….

Notice how the use of "we" and "I" places the reader inside the narrator. The description is rich, but nothing is described outside the narrator's view. The reader is not privy to anything beyond the narrator's knowledge.

2nd Person: (You)     

This voice is hardly ever used in fiction or story telling. It is often used in instruction manuals and essays where the author speaks directly to the reader. Example:

When shooting a free throw, you must stay behind the free throw line. You should line up about six inches behind the line, dribble the ball a few times to relax, then take aim and shoot.

This would be a difficult perspective to maintain throughout a story.

3rd Person: (He, She, It, They)     

The third person story is told from an objective point of view. The characters are referred to by using the pronouns shown above. The narrator is outside the story giving us a glimpse inside. This example is from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling:

Harry was also growing to dread the hours he spent in Professor Trelawney's stifling tower room, deciphering lopsided shapes and symbols, trying to ignore the way Professor Trelawney's enormous eyes filled with tears every time she looked at him. He couldn't like Professor Trelawney, even though she was treated with respect bordering on reverence by many of the class. Parvati Patil and Lavender Brown had taken to haunting Professor Trelawney's tower room at lunchtimes, and always returned with annoyingly superior looks on their faces, as though they knew things the others didn't. They had also started using hushed voices whenever they spoke to Harry, as though he were on his deathbed.

Note there is no use of "I" when describing Harry, who is referred to as "he". The story is being told from the outside, but still keeps us within the framework of Harry's own personal point of view.

Tense

The final choice you have to make before you begin writing is whether your story will be told in the past, present, or future tense.

Present Tense: (It's Happening Now.)     

A story told in the present tense is unfolding right before the readers eyes. The time is now, the action is happening now:

I walk up to the top of the hill and look out over the valley. Darkness is setting in and it's difficult for me to identify landmarks. I can see Peter walking up to a man wearing an unusual hat. They're having a somewhat exaggerated conversation, both gesturing wildly and pointing toward a building near a stand of willow trees. I decide I must join Peter as quickly as possible in order to find out what is going on.

There is a sense of immediacy that is with the reader when a story is told in the present tense.

Past Tense: (It happened before.)     

Here the narrator recounts the story as they remember it. All the action has happened in the past and that is how the story is recounted to the reader:

I walked up to the top of the hill and looked out over the valley. Darkness was setting in and it was difficult for me to identify landmarks. I could see Peter walk up to a man who wore an unusual hat. They were having a somewhat exaggerated conversation as both gestured wildly and pointed toward a building near a stand of will trees. I decided I must join Peter as quickly as possible in order to find out what was going on.

Telling a story in the past tense is easy and natural.

Future Tense: (It will happen later.)     

It seems like there is always one choice that is easy to pass over. A story being told in the future tense is one of those:

I will walk up to the top of the hill and look out over the valley. Darkness will be setting in and it will be difficult for me to identify landmarks. Perhaps I will see Peter walk up to that man who will wear that unusual hat again. I can only hope they will have another exaggerated conversation. They will be gesturing wildly and pointing towards that building near the stand of willow trees. Then I will decide if I should join Peter as quickly as possible. I will find out what is going on.

A difficult perspective for a story without doubt.

A lot of choices. Pick one from column A, one from column B, and one from column C. Actually, it isn't that difficult. Most stories, upwards to 80% or more perhaps, are told from a 3rd person, limited omniscient point of view in the past tense. So why did I bother to share all this with you? Simply to let you know that you have choices and to remind you that once made, the choices must be carried on throughout your story or novel.

Here are the four main errors that occur concerning Point of View within a story:

1. Head Hopping. Switching from viewpoint to viewpoint as if the reader is placed inside one character, then abruptly and with no apparent reason, thrust into the thoughts of another character.

2. Not Establishing POV Early. Remember that POV is the reader's perception within the story. As the writer, signal your intentions in the beginning.

3. Author Intrusion. As the story's narrator speaks or thinks or acts, it is the narrator that should do so, not the author. Author intrusion takes place when the writer interjects his or her own thoughts or actions into the head of a story character and the thoughts or actions simply do not belong with that character.

4. Tense Switching. This happens when the writer switches from one tense to another while telling their story.