Points of View

March 30, 2026 45 minute read

Over the course of several days in September of 1666, a conflagration swept through downtown London, turning thousands of buildings to ash. Contemporary writer Samuel Pepys kept a diary during this time, in which he discussed his observations and thoughts on the fire—and the actions he took during its spread. Then in the aftermath, Robert Brooke led an investigation, ultimately producing his report to the government describing how the fire came to be, and what should be done among the wreckage. Through these and other narratives, historians have been able to piece together a great deal of information about what happened and why.

But these two stories about the same events come across drastically different. One of them is deeply personal, showcasing emotions among the quotidian trivia of living in seventeenth-century London, even during a fire. The other impersonal, providing a broader overview of the events while remaining at a remove from personal reactions and daily minutiae. They’re both important documents, but they have drastically different perspectives, and that impacts how they’re told, and how they’re received.

The same is true when writing a fiction story, though in fiction authors have more liberty to choose who tells that story—and therefore how the story is told, and how it’s received. This makes sense, of course: we each have our own ways of telling stories about our own lives when talking with our friends, tailored to our audience, and to our experiences. Likewise, authors can have narrators who tell different stories in different ways: about things that happen to them, about people in a land far away, or perhaps even addressing the reader directly, explaining things above and beyond the characters themselves.

This is called a story’s point of view, part of a broader concept of narrative voice or narrative mode. These are ways of discussing, ultimately, the narrator of a story, because that narrator provides so much texture to the prose, and can support or heighten the themes, tension, and emotion of what’s written.

As it turns out, there are a lot of options for point of view! It’s a big topic! But I’m still going to try to break it down for you the way I understand it, and to lay out some details about those various options.

A story’s point of view, in my opinion, is composed of several things:

Who is narrating the story
When the events of the story happened relative to the narration
How much interiority of the characters is revealed
Who the story is being narrated to

I’m going to go over each of these dimensions, and along the way discuss a few interesting ideas somewhat outside of the “standard”.

While doing this, I have more or less the same scene written using each POV I want to discuss. This will hopefully illustrate some of the differences that come up between each of them—though the narrative is a little different in some of them, to try to highlight that POV’s particular qualities. At the end of the day, however, they all have strengths and weaknesses, and you should pick which one (or ones!) to use based on what suits the story best.

Person

In writing, as in grammar, the person is who the narrator is talking about. If I talk about myself, I say “I”, and that’s first person. If I address you, the reader—or person I’m talking to—I say “you”, and that’s second person. And if I’m talking about someone (or something) who isn’t either of us, then I say “he”, “she”, “they”, or “it” depending on the gender, my knowledge of gender, and animacy of that person or thing.¹

So it is also for points of view. A first-person narrative has the narrator talking about themself; a second-person narrative has the narrator directly addressing someone; and a third-person narrative has the narrator talking about people and things other than themself or the person being addressed.²

First-Person Past Tense

I looked into the room, trying to figure out what we were up against. It was a pretty normal museum gallery, with white walls above a faded wainscot. The gas had revealed an array of lasers protecting the gem on its pedestal, but I wasn’t worried. They were just lasers, after all. So I dove in, ducking and weaving through the beams until I got to the target.

“Don’t forget the code!” Bob called from the doorway behind me.

Silly man, I thought to myself as I started typing on the keypad. We’d gotten the code from our informant, and I’d been in luck with memorizing it. My mother’s birthdate: as easy to remember as the apple pie she used to make. “I’ve got it.”

A few moments later, my work came to fruition as the lasers powered down with a lowering hum, and a small click indicated that the case was unlocked, sending a frisson of pleasure through my bones. The Scallion Gem was mine!

The first-person past tense is an inherently natural way to tell a story. It is, after all, how we talk about our own lives with the people around us. In this point of view, we (the readers) are pulled in to identify with the narrator, who is the main character of the story. We learn their inner thoughts and ideas, and see the world through their eyes. If there’s something this character doesn’t see or doesn’t know, we don’t learn about it. We’re limited, in that way. However, that also means we can associate more closely with the events going on, and resonate with the emotions of the main character.

To that end, a first-person narrator can also lend an air of unreliability, because we’re relying on what the narrator says, and how they describe things. So if there are things the narrator either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care about, we don’t learn about it. A common thing I’ve seen doing this is to obliquely indicate that the narrator is crying by way of talking about hot water suddenly “appearing” and the narrator being confused about it. You certainly can think of people in your life whose rendition of events in their life is probably lacking in important details; it’s that sort of thing.

Being past tense, also, it means the narrator has had time to reflect on the events of the story. They might include information that rounds out the description of the scene, or the background. The events might come out in a coherent order instead of a jumble of things that happened in the exact order they occurred. You’ll notice here that I also show two far-past events: the gas, and how Alice got the code.

All in all, it’s a very natural way to tell a story, and is realistically the one we all start with as children. Even as adults, it’s the way we’re going to answer the question “So what did you do today?”

First-person narratives—past and present—are very popular in romance literature right now.³

Second-Person Past Tense

You looked into the room, gauging what you were up against. It was a pretty normal museum gallery, with white walls above a faded wainscot. The gas had revealed an array of lasers protecting the pedestal and its gem, but you weren’t worried. You knew how to deal with lasers, and you did: ducking and weaving through them like the acrobatics competitions you did as a girl.

“Don’t forget the code!” Bob called from behind you.

Again, you weren’t concerned: the code was your mother’s birthdate, and you swore when you were six years old you’d never forget her apple pie. “I’ve got it!” you call with no small hint of triumph.

A few moments later, the pervasive hum of the lasers dimmed to silence, and a small click indicated that the case was unlocked. You were excited, of course: the Scallion Gem was yours!

Second person is a very awkward well to tell a story. As a result, there aren’t very many books that use it, especially in the past tense.

And that makes sense, I think: usually when we tell stories, we tell them about ourselves or about someone else. Sometimes when we’re in discussion with someone we might narrate their events to them in the second person, but that doesn’t necessarily work out well in long-form narrative.

Some of the awkwardness, it seems to me, is the problem with agency. Reading something in second person makes us, the readers, feel like we would have agency in the actions narrated—but we don’t. We’re simply told (if it’s past tense) about the things we did, which doesn’t much engender interest.

That said, there are ways of sprinkling second-person tidbits in an otherwise first- or third-person narrative; those are discussed more later.

Third-Person Past Tense

Alice considered the room, plotting her next move. It seemed a normal museum gallery, with white walls above a faded wainscot—but the gas had revealed an array of lasers protecting the pedestal. It wasn’t something she was overly concerned with, and once she’d decided on a route, she ducked, dodged, and danced her way through with little problem.

Bob frowned at her from the doorway. “Don’t forget the code!”

Silly man, she thought as she tapped out the code on the keypad. They’d gotten it from their informant, and it was easy for her to memorize, being her mother’s birthdate. She remembered the scent of apple pie at those annual celebrations. “I’ve got it,” she announced as hit the last key.

The hum of the room wound down, the lights of the lasers disappearing. A small click signalled that the case was unlocked, sending a frisson of pleasure through her body. The Scallion Gem was hers!

The third-person past tense is also a pretty natural way to tell a story, and one that’s used a lot in everyday speech and discussion. It is, after all, just the general way of talking about other people doing things, like telling scary stories around a campfire or telling your friends what your children did at school. It’s also what people do when describing the events of their favorite book, or explaining a situation about the world to someone.

Though one difference between how people tell those sorts of stores compared to prose novels is that in prose narration, there tends to be a bit more interiority, and it’s more bit-by-bit rather than summaries as people tend to tell them.

One of the things about a third-person narrator in general is that it lends more of an “objective” overture. We’re not bound to just what the character in question sees or thinks, but the narrator can tell us a bit more about the broader world. It also means the narrator can more easily change points of view; for instance, after this example scene, we could get a third-person scene then narrating what Bob does in response. It would flow more naturally.

The downside of that “objectivity” is that we (the readers) are going to feel less connected to the character. Pulling back like this makes things less intimate, and we might connect less with an “impartial” narrator.

Being past tense, much like its first-person counterpart, there’s a lot of room for descriptions and reflection. You can organize the order of things for what makes sense for the logical way to tell a story about some people, rather than following a more-strict chronology of things as they happen in the narrative. You’ll notice that in this example, as well, I show two far-past events: the gas, and how Alice got the code.

It’s ultimately a point of view that has a lot of versatility—but when writing in it, you also need to consider psychic distance; just saying “third-person past tense” isn’t actually sufficient.

Tense

The next dimension I want to discuss is tense, which is when the events of the story take place relative to the narration. Now, this isn’t necessarily talking about grammatical tense per se, but is instead talking about narrative tense, and English has two of them: the events happened in the past relative to the narration, or they’re happening as the narration happens.⁴

Grammatically speaking, when talking about events that happened in the past, the story is written in the grammatical past tense, using the past perfect for things farther back than that. If the events are happening with the narration, the story is written in the grammatical present tense, using the past tense for things that happened in the past. The full details of how to manage the English tenses here are beyond the scope of this blog post, however.

That said, whether you write in the past or present narrative tense can have a huge impact on how the story comes across.

The previous examples are all in past tense.

First-Person Present Tense

I look into the room, gauging the resistance. The thrown gas showed lasers guarding the pedestal—easy. I dash in quick as a minnow. Left, left, right, over, under. And then, the pedestal, taunting me with its treasure within.

“Don’t forget the code!” Bob calls.

Silly man. The code is easy: my mother’s birthdate. Typing it reminds me of the apple pie she used to make. “I’ve got it,” I call back.

The hum of the lasers fades, and with a click the pedestal unlocks, sending a frisson of pleasure through my bones. The Scallion Gem is mine!

Pulling into the present tense suddenly heightens the intensity, ramping up the tension. It’s more frenetic, keeping us much more tightly paced with the in-the-moment thoughts and observations of the narrator. We’re not reflecting on a thing that happened—we’re in the thick of it with the narrator, dodging lasers and stealing priceless artifacts.

Personally, I find it much more difficult to include descriptions of things beyond the barest sketches when writing in this point of view. It doesn’t flow as naturally to my pen, and I want to treat the narrator more like a metaphorical stereotypical squirrel, suddenly tugged to the next thing, the next event, the next observation before they get a chance to really let things sink in—and before the reader has a chance to reflect with the narrator.

However, also being in first person means that we’re tightly attached to our narrator’s emotions and perspective. This pulls us tightly through the thrill ride. What the narrator feels, we feel in the moment it happens. It’s unfiltered and raw.

The immediacy of present tense is often used in thrillers and romances, either first-person like this or in third-person. It’s also commonly used in text-based roleplaying, though that tends to be a different sort of writing entirely from standard narrative prose.

As noted earlier, first-person narratives are very popular in romance literature right now.

Second Person Present Tense

You look into the room, and it seems the gas has illuminated the laser beams. It wouldn’t be too hard to go through—and before you realize it, you’ve ducked and weaved through the beams to the pedestal in the middle

“Don’t forget the code!” Bob calls from the doorway.

You’re not worried about forgetting the code: it’s your mother’s birthdate. Thinking of it makes you remember the way her apple pies tasted.

Once the code is keyed in, the lasers disappear with a softening hum, and a soft click indicates that the pedestal is unlocked. The Scallion Gem is yours!

This is the style Choose Your Own Adventure books use, and also fits in with roleplaying more generally. The immediacy helps capture the moment, and those are both situations where the reader—or player—truly does have agency. It is also devilishly hard to write in, especially with long-form works, which is one of the reasons it’s not very common. It’s also not necessarily the most interesting thing to read, because it implies to some extent that the reader has agency, when they don’t.

You could also do this in past tense, and you can make the actual person being narrated to the reader or another character. There’s plenty of opportunity for variety here, but there’s a reason second-person narratives don’t show up very often. However, there’s some ability to sprinkle second-person tidbits in an otherwise first- or third-person narrative; that’s discussed a little more later.

Third-Person Present Tense

Alice looks into the room, checking for—there. Lasers, highlighted by the gas. Easy enough, she thinks as she ducks past the first one. Left. Right. Under. Bam, pedestal.

“Don’t forget the code!” Bob calls from the doorway.

Silly man. Recalling the code they got from their informant—conveniently, her mother’s birthdate—she taps the buttons with light pressure. They smell like apples. “I’ve got it,” she says.

The hum of the lasers fades, and with a soft clink the pedestal unlocks, sending a frisson of pleasure through her body. The Scallion Gem!

Much as first-person present, setting the narrative in present tense heightens the intensity and make the narrative more immediate. There’s not as much room for description or reflection, and the sequence of events is set chronologically; it’s much harder to jump around⁵

However, much like being in third-person past, there’s a bit more distance from the character in question, and the narrator can tell a bit more about the events going on that the characters may not be immediately aware of.

As I noted with first-person present, this is a very common point of view used in thrillers and romances, or other such stories that want to keep characters constantly moving, and readers’ hearts pounding. It’s really effective for that sort of action, and keeping the readers invested. As well, because of the immediacy, this shows up a lot in roleplaying contexts, though that is a different sort of narrative from a novel, typically.

And much as with third-person past, you also need to consider psychic distance.

Distance

In third-person narration, we need to also consider how “tightly” the narrator is keeping to the character. This is called psychic distance or narrative distance. Books are not movies, but a convenient metaphor for discussing this is like camera distance—you can have a third-person narrator who tells things very tightly to a character, still giving us a lot of insight into their interiority; or you can have one that’s more distant, giving us a lot less about that information. Or even one that knows things the individual characters don’t, and is willing to share that information with the reader. There are a tremendous number of shades of distance that can be done; I will not be covering them all, and will instead cover some of what I consider to be the main three high-level options.

Third-Person Omniscient Past Tense

Alice considered the room, plotting her next move. Lasers sparkled against the gas, a modern-day contrast to the walls that hadn’t been painted in years and a fading wainscot the museum curator wanted to dump years ago. She and Bob both knew it wouldn’t actually be hard for her: just a few acrobatic moves, and she’d be there. With the aplomb of an Olympic gymnast, she did it, getting to the pedestal in no time.

“Don’t forget the code!” Bob called from his perch in the doorway. He wouldn’t have been able to go through the lasers, but he was truly more worried about Alice’s memory. Ever since the accident, she hadn’t been the same.

“I’ve got it,” she called after keying in the code. Memory issues or no, it was her mother’s birthdate, and that was an apple pie she’d never forget. Silly man, she thought, deciding not to spare a look back at her partner in crime.

With the system shut off, the laser generator spun down, its hum fading into an eerie silence over the room. The pedestal made a clink sound as it unlocked, giving the thieves the ability to pull the glass off and access the Scallion Gem—and undoubtedly bringing Bob to double-cross Alice, as he’d planned all along.

At one extreme of the psychic-distance scale is a narrator who doesn’t talk just about what one character thinks and feels, but what several of them think and feel. And possibly also get information well outside of what the characters would know. At this point, the conceit that this is a story becomes apparent, the curtain drawn back to make the narrator—and the narrator’s voice—much more apparent as a character above and beyond the ones of the story itself.

In this excerpt, I played that aspect up a little bit for effect, but this can be done with a lighter touch or a heavier touch, though finding the right balance of what all to reveal to the reader becomes tricky.

These days, this style is very not in vogue, and is even looked down upon in a lot of circles. Plenty of advice for writers now says not to do this, that you shouldn’t write while “head-hopping” from one perspective to another, that it’s absolute anathema to reveal information the characters don’t know. If you write in this way these days, people will notice.

I do not necessarily agree with that assessment. This was, actually, the default way of writing—in various degrees—for centuries, and is used in stories as far-flung as Homer’s Odyssey and Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales to Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut and The Stand by Steven King. Now, in a lot of these cases, it’s not constantly telling us what everyone is thinking—but it’s a technique that’s used to convey a lot of information to the reader in a short time.

It’s also a point of view common in fairy tales and children’s books.

The flip side is that it pulls the reader more away from associating deeply with one character’s thoughts and feelings. It moves towards becoming a story to read rather than a narrative to get lost within.

I think a lot of the hate for it comes in part for this, and something of a rejection of post-modernism, which really tried to surface the mechanics of how stories worked, and made these sorts of things obvious. As well, amateur writers often over-use an omniscient perspective, often not even realizing they’re doing it.

It has its place, but should be used wisely—be careful about head-hopping when you want to stay closely attached to a single character. But don’t eschew it just because it’s not “cool”.

I talk a little more about this point of view later, in what I call narration as character.

Third-Person Limited Past Tense

Bob frowned at her from the doorway. “Don’t forget the code!”

The hum of the room wound down, the lights of the lasers disappearing. A small click signalled that the case was unlocked, sending a frisson of pleasure through her body. The Scallion Gem was hers!

When you pull the psychic distance in a bit, you get to a narrative where we only learn about the thoughts and feelings about one character. And one thing that might stand out about third-person limited is how similar it is to first person, especially if there’s a very tight camera on the character. Within the bounds of “limited to one character”, however, there are a tremendous number of shades of distance that can be done, from being super tight on all the character’s interiority, or pulling back to just get the occasional surface thought. There’s a lot of ground here.⁶

You might also notice that I used the same example as in third-person past, for simplicity. If I were to do third-person limited present tense, I would use the example I have in third-person present instead. Here, I wanted to focus on where the “limited” view sits in a hierarchy of psychic distance—though I could have written several variations of this example at slightly different gradations of “tightness”.

This narrative mode—third-person limited, past or present—is the style that is extremely in vogue right now, especially in science fiction and fantasy. As noted, it gives the ability to build that resonance with a character through intimacy, but also provides a little bit of distance, leaving the ability to state things that the character doesn’t notice or think about. It also provides an ability to shift which character is being talked about, though the current preference is for that to happen in a scene break (otherwise, see third-person omniscient).

It’s hard to go wrong with this point of view in modern fiction, though it’s important to be reasonably consistent with psychic distance over the course of the story, or else it ends up being jarring to readers.

Third-Person Cinematic Past Tense

Alice looked into the room, her eyes flicking over the laser beams illuminated by gas. She jumped in, dodging the security system like an acrobat, landing on her feet in front of the pedestal. The Scallion Gem gleamed from within its glass box.

“Don’t forget the code!” Bob called from the doorway.

Alice looked back at him a moment, then rolled her eyes and returned her focus to the panel. “I’ve got it,” she said as she keyed in a code.

The lasers turned off and the hum in the room faded to silence, except for a soft clink from the pedestal. Alice smiled as she put her hands on the glass, lifting it and revealing the Scallion Gem to open air.

This is pretty much the complete opposite of an omniscient distance. This is when you pull the psychic distance back so much, the narrative loses all interiority, and becomes a sequence of events, as though seen by an “objective” camera. This would be, of course, why it’s called “cinematic”.

Needless to say, I think the rise of this—particularly in amateur writing—is because of the prevalence of film and graphic novels. Movies are not (narrative prose) books, and film generally has a complete lack of interiority on display; it is all what is visual to the characters, the occasional voice-over notwithstanding.⁷

The thing about a cinematic narrator is that it becomes a lot harder to deeply know or understand a character. They all become a bit of mysteries to us as readers, and the author is relying a lot in their skill at accurately describing events visually to communicate information, contextual or otherwise. It takes “show don’t tell” to its limit, and in my opinion shows why that aphorism is not always applicable. More-visual media like film and graphic novels can do this far better than narrative prose.

It’s particularly common in writers new to narrative prose, describing what they’d see on a screen rather than actually digging into characters’ thoughts and feelings. And it can make it harder to get attached to characters as a result.

However, this is also more or less the narrative mode of plays going back centuries. All the audience knows is what is shown on stage, or what the actors explicitly verbalize—but you’ll notice then the existence of the Greek Chorus or soliloquies or other devices to give a peek at that interiority to the audience.

I personally think you should tread lightly with this one when writing narrative prose. I won’t say there’s never a good time to use it, but it’s not exactly common—though Hemingway trended more in that direction, for instance. To me, though, this is more suited to other media, as one of narrative prose’s strengths is its ability to explore interiority.

Address

Most discussions of points of view stop with person (first or third) and tense (past or present), but I personally feel like there’s another aspect to be considered: that of whom the narrator is addressing. Properly speaking, this isn’t “point of view”, but is instead a larger part of narrative voice, but it’s such an important part that I want to consider it here. After all, who you’re addressing changes the way you speak, and therefore in a story can change the entire texture of the narration.

And thus the question: who is the narrator telling the story to?

Nobody

One option is that the story isn’t being told “to” anyone. It’s just there, put forward like an exhibit in a museum, as though behind a sheet of glass so there can be no interaction whatsoever. All you the reader can do is observe.

I feel like this has been on the rise in the age of cinema, since this is how films work. It’s very rare that a film acknowledges that it’s a film with viewers, and very rare that a film addresses the audience. Actors don’t look at the camera, don’t break the fourth wall. And then the movie is put out there, submitted as though it’s an entirely self-contained thing, that you can immerse yourself in, but you’re never part of it. You just passively watch.

All of the examples I have above fit into this category.

In practice, there’s nothing wrong with choosing this. You miss out on some texture, but you also don’t call attention to the story from a meta perspective.

The Reader

So there I was, breaking into the Sandstone Museum, looking into the room with our prize when the gas revealed some laser beams I needed to deal with. Thankfully, it wasn’t too hard: just some ducking and weaving, and I was there at the pedestal.

“Don’t forget the code!” Bob called from behind me, but I wasn’t actually worried. The code was my mother’s birthdate, and as I mentioned earlier, her birthday parties had the best apple pie you’ve ever had.

I turned back to him once the code was in and said, “I’ve got it.” The lasers disappeared, and with a click the pedestal’s glass box opened, revealing our prize: the Scallion Gem.

Reader, I grabbed it.

In this voice, the narrator acknowledges the reality that they are telling a story to us, the readers. We become somewhat-active participants in the drama, engaged with as people who are peers to the narrator, rather than merely watching from without. We may even be addressed directly as the “reader” or “you”, though in my experience this more often shows up in the tone of the story itself. It sounds more like someone recounting an event that happened to them or that they know about, engaging with the listener more directly. Think of how you might tell a friend about a date you went on last night, where you’re doing the bulk of the narration, but your friend might ask questions, might divert things a little. Obviously, in a book those diversions are planned, but that sort of tone can still come across, depending on how much the author wants to make the narrator feel like this.

Plays as performed sometimes fit into this category to some extent, as being live they have an audience to interact with. This is known as “breaking the fourth wall”, and sometimes isn’t written into plays themselves, but comes up in the performing. For instance, I was at a performance of William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream where the players in the fifth act interacted with the audience of the play as part of the performance, even though as written they only interact with the characters who in the play are watching the players.⁸

A lot of times, this runs with the conceit that the author of the book is the narrator. That is, to some extent, we do away with the construct of the author simply channeling some other narrator-as-character, but instead embrace the fact that the author is the one telling the story. However, this should be considered in different degrees, as sometimes it may indeed just be the author telling the story, but other times, it may be the author creating a character—a fiction—who’s the narrator telling the story to us, the readers.

This style is not particularly popular these days, though it was significantly more the norm historically, particularly before film dominated the storytelling landscape. It provides a sense of intimacy, of drawing the reader in as though at a campfire hearing someone talk about their trials and tribulations. It creates a folksy tone, which benefits some stories. On the other hand, this is a common tone in nonfiction, and in blogs like this one, where I (the author) talk directly to you (the reader) about both general truths and things that have happened in the past.

Needless to say, this can be done in different degrees. Sometimes it’s laced throughout a narrative, sometimes it’s just sprinkled in: there’s a fair amount of fiction that’s mostly in the no-audience category most of the time, but occasionally talks directly to the reader without getting too folksy about it.

Though my example for this is in first-person, this can also be done in third person, which to some extent can justify the use of an omniscient narrator, particularly in past tense: the narrator character of course would have had time to reflect, learn, and in general know the various details being organized to tell the reader chronologically. This can then lead into what I call narration as character.

Another Character

Right, back to the Sandstone Museum heist. You know how Bob is with his gadgets; he’d gotten a nice gas spray that showed where the laser beams were, so it was a trivial matter to dance through them all. Remember when I did that performance of La Sylphede in fifth grade, and Miss Lewis had me going all over the stage? It was a lot like that.

Once I got to the pedestal holding our prize, Bob called out, “Don’t forget the code!”

I told that silly man, “I’ve got it,” because how could I not? The code was mom’s birthdate, which was easy for both of us to remember when we were young, because that was the day of apple pies.

I tapped it in easily, then the lasers turned off, and the case unlocked. That’s how I got this, the Scallion Gem.

This voice is very similar to addressing the reader, but has a shared understanding that the audience for the story is actually another character. It can give the narration a bit of a personalized feeling, and gives the narrator a chance to refer to things that the reader doesn’t necessarily know about. For example, I laid it on a bit thick here for demonstration purposes, but there can be references to experiences the narrator had with the character they’re talking to. Much like talking directly to the reader, this is similar to telling your friend about a date you went on last night, but it pulls them in more, makes them part of the story. There’s something that can be compelling about this.

An interesting aspect of this style is that in some ways it returns to addressing nobody in terms of the reader’s involvement; we are simply passive observers of an exhibit in a museum or a film. We’re watching this conversation—monologue, really—happen between the narrator and someone else. Yet, it does have a particularly different feel compared to what I talked about in the “addressing nobody” section.

This style was not, as far as I know, particularly popular historically, and even today isn’t a tremendously common thing. However, it does crop up often enough that it’s not unusual, either. And of course this can be played with to varying amounts; Roger Zelazny’s Chronicles of Amber series changes the narrator and the narrator’s audience partway through, for instance.

Additionally, a twist that you see occasionally in stories is where it seems as though the novel is being addressed to the reader, then it’s revealed it’s actually being told to another character. This can be a lot of fun, but also requires threading a needle on how, exactly, that character is being addressed. I would give examples, but for spoilers.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen this in third person; I’m not entirely sure how that would even work. However, this can be a very fun style to work with, in a way completely different from the rest.

Epistolary

Dearest Mary,

Remember in my last letter when I mentioned Bob and I were planning to rob the Sandstone Museum? Well, we did it! The main room was a little tricky, but a bit of Bob’s laser-finding gas and my fancy dance moves later, I was at the pedestal. The code was mom’s birthdate, if you can believe it!

Needless to say, I now have the Scallion Gem, and will be traveling to Atlantis to complete the Allium Tableau. Please send Henry when you get this letter; he will be most useful in placing the gems in their proper places.

Much love, and hopefully when I come visit you this next summer, I will have achieved total Garlictical Dominance!

Your doting sister,
Alice

The name of this narrative style is confusing, because “epistolary” is not a word that’s in particularly common English usage. It comes from the Ancient Greek word ἐπιστολή, romanized epistolḗ, meaning “letter”. Though historically as a form of literature it was a somewhat more formal sort of letter, expounding on some topic, rather than a short exchange sent to catch up on recent events. If you spend time in Christian churches, you may hear some books of the Bible being called “epistles”—these are letters sent by someone to a community expounding on the teachings of Jesus. Same idea.

In modern parlance, an epistolary work is any where the writing purports essentially to be a diegetic artifact of some sort. This usually means either letters—as in my example—or journal entries or newspaper articles, or other things of that sort. This was a fairly popular style for a time—for example, both Dracula and Frankenstein are epistolary novels—though audiences these days tend to prefer a more direct form of narration.

That said, this gives the narration a grounded, realistic feel, sometimes like when narrating directly to another character. But it also heightens the experience, making it seem like the events happened in real life, rather than just being another fiction story.⁹

One of the lovely things about this voice, also, is that it allows for a lot of misdirection and elision in a way that a straight first person narrative can’t. With a more-direct narrative, it can be very awkward for the narrator to avoid talking about some things, or to describe things incorrectly. When it’s presented as diary entries or letters, a whole new dimension of character can be brought about around what they say and what they don’t. If the narrative is a sequence of letters to different people, it can slowly reveal things through context and hinting. And descriptions of events that happened prior to the narrative can easily be in an order other than chronological—consider how some people, when telling stories to their friends, jump all over from the beginning to the end to the middle. You can achieve a similar effect here.

The downside is that because it’s all artifacts, it all has to have happened in the past, and that can bleed some of the tension out of the story. As well, the events happen at a level of remove—it might be harder for the reader to get more emotionally invested. However, the novel Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes is an epistolary novel told through diary entries by the main character, and it’s often known as a tear-jerker. Meanwhile, Dracula by Bram Stoker uses epistolary items of various forms, helping add to the horror aspects.

More common than full epistolary novels these days, in my observation, is to include epistolary elements among a more straightforward first- or third-person narration. This can provide the best of both worlds, but it depends on what you’re wanting to achieve.

Mixing it Up

There is, of course, nothing saying that you have to stick to these points of view I’ve discussed through the entirety of one story. Or that you have to stay strictly within the lines for any of them. So I’d like to discuss a few ways to mix it up a little, and talk about a few things outside of footnotes.

Frame Story

A frame story is when the narration of a story turns to tell a different story within the context of the larger frame. This literary technique has been used for a long time: Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, for instance, has a frame story of a pilgrimage that has small vignettes from the various characters as the internal stories.

I bring this up because in practice, it’s not uncommon for the internal story to be told in a different point of view from the frame story. For example, in The Princess Bride by William Goldman, the frame story is in first person, where the narrator discusses a book his father read to him growing up, and his trials and tribulations acquiring a copy of that novel, which he will now present in edited fashion; and then the narration of the internal story is then text of the story from that book, which is in third-person omniscient past.

You can invert this, also. In Question Quest by Piers Anthony, the frame narrative is relatively standard third-person limited past tense, about a woman who has the magic power to make text appear on a wall. She encounters someone who wants her to write down his life story, and then the internal story is in first person past, from that character’s point of view.

Internal stories in general can occur in all sorts of shades. Sometimes just one chapter of a longer novel might be an internal story, to avoid having to do lots of long dialogue or block quotes if there’s something that needs to be quoted at length. Or for example, Under the Pendulum Sun by Jeanette Ng opens with a newspaper article about the setting, but otherwise doesn’t use epistolary narration.

Another option is to interleave present and past tense, making the story itself in present tense have flashbacks to the past tense. When done well, this can be very effective, providing something of a backstory that helps lend context to the current situation. Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk does this, though it doesn’t separate out the flashbacks into separate scenes.

Sometimes this shifting between past and present tense can also come to light in something like an epilogue: “that was what happened, this is where I am now”, creating an implied frame story; this is not very common these days.

Historical Present

Sometimes the present tense is used to describe past actions, which is called the historical present. If you listen to people tell stories about things in their past, you’ll notice that sometimes for exciting bits they slip into present tense, pulling the listener in. As such, I’ve encountered some books that are mostly past tense, but use the present tense occasionally for capturing that immediacy for a pivotal moment; Mary Robinette Kowal’s The Calculating Stars does this, for example.

In general, though, this isn’t a particularly common technique in English; I’m given to understand it’s more common in other languages.

Illeism

One stylistic quirk that might be interesting is illeism. This is when someone talks about themself in the third person, when you’d normally expect first person. You typically encounter this sort of thing within dialogue, where someone is trying to pretend not to be themself, or to portray them as perhaps not the brightest bulb in the box. Someone might also use this in a pompous manner, to be hyperbolic about their achievements.

This was historically used sometimes by people writing “objective” accounts of historical events involving themselves; these days, I don’t know of any books that use this outside of dialogue.¹⁰ That said, I think this could be used to emphasize themes of disorientation or to portray a disassociated mental state.

Narration as Character

As you may imagine, Alice and Bob’s theft of the Scallion Gem was an undaunted success. Authorities were stymied as to who could have been responsible for the rash of thefts—or as the notorious magazine The Bulb put it, a Radish of Thefts.

The only notable exchange during the entire time, of course, was when Bob reminded Alice that she needed to remember the code to open the pedestal. “I’ve got it,” she had told him with as much derision as a child of three years does when asked to put their shoes on for the tenth time and they’re “already doing it, stop bothering me”. They never do learn, do they?

But, she knew the code, as it was her mother’s birthdate, and was easily able to obtain the Scallion Gem. It was the sort of thing the world should have been more terrified of, because she already had the Leek Jewel, the Shallot Stone, and the Onion Crystal. And with those, she could go to Atlantis and find the Allium Tableau, and with her brother-in-law Henry’s help, could place the gems, and claim Garlictical Dominance.

After all, who hasn’t heard Juniper Radish Rhatany Tracheokien’s verse about the great ring that Frodo Bulbbins unearthed:

One clove to rule them all
One clove to find them
One clove to cook them all and in the kitchen chive them

This is third-person omniscient with addressing the reader taken to the extreme. In other third-person points of view, the narrator is of course a “character”, but here they become a full-on character in their own right. They talk not just about the events in order, but also anecdotes about related things, or tying non-chronological events together, or just wandering off on tangents and asides.¹¹ They’re not typically a character in the action, though—they’re removed from it, and make it obvious that they’re a narrator relating a story to you, the reader, and you should just sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride.

This is the style of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy books, where the narrator is a character all on their own, interleaving anecdotes about the eponymous book with narration of the characters, while also weaving in other bits and pieces, where you really feel like you’re being told a story by a not-entirely-impartial narrator who loves providing dry, humorous commentary on everything.

Much as third-person omniscient is not particularly popular these days, this also isn’t a particularly used style. And, in truth, it’s hard to get right—I personally think it lends itself to comedy much more than tragedy or drama. It’s also a difficult needle to thread, keeping the narrator engaging without feeling overbearing. But when done well, it can lend a lot of color and uniqueness to a story.

Summary

There’s a lot of information in this blog post, and it can be pretty dense. Here, I’ve tried to summarize down to key points, though I highly recommend checking back against the individual sections for more detail.

Persons

First-person (Past, Present) means intimacy, but limited to the narrator’s perspective and reliability.
Second-person (Past, Present) is awkward and implies the reader has agency.
Third-person (Past, Present) means distance and theoretically more objectivity; it’s less limited, but requires knowing psychic distance. It makes it easier to change narrative focus between scenes.

Tenses

Past tense (First-person, Second-person, Third-person) means the narrator has had time to reflect and get their thoughts in order, so can present a cohesive narrative that isn’t as bound by the strict chronology of events.
Present tense (First-person, Second-person, Third-person) feels significantly more immediate, but makes it harder to linger on descriptions or thoughts.

Distances

Omniscient means we know what multiple people in a scene think, which means we get a broader picture of things, but (ironically) reduces intimacy. Highly disfavored in the current literary environment.
Limited means we’re constrained to the thoughts and feelings of one character at a time, which can help with intimacy. It’s important to know which character we’re limited to, though.
Cinematic means we don’t get anyone’s interior thoughts or feelings, like describing what we see in a movie. It greatly reduces intimacy, and is common among authors who are more familiar with cinema than prose.

Addressees

Sometimes the narrator isn’t talking to anyone; the story just exists. This can feel more “literary”, and sets the reader at a remove from the events.
Sometimes the narrator addresses the reader directly, mimicking how stories are often told in person. This can help draw readers in, though too much gets cloying.
Sometimes narrators are addressing another character in the story, giving an extra place for characterization.
Epistolary scenes are presented as diegetic artifacts such as newspaper articles, letters, or diary entries. This can help with characterization, but while it provides intimate insight can make the reader feel emotionally removed from the situation.

Variations

You can interleave two different points of view with a frame story.
Sometimes a narrator can become a character all their own, particularly in third-person omniscient, which allows for anecdotes and commentary, but can also be a bit much for some readers who just want the story.

Conclusion

Needless to say, there are a lot of options when it comes to Point of View in a story, and a lot of variations on those options. They’re all different, though, and each have their strengths and weaknesses—the sorts of stories that do well told with them, and the stories that don’t. They’re all valid, even if some of them aren’t popular these days, and some of them weren’t popular in the past.

And on top of that, stories will sometimes mix them in interesting ways. Frame stories might be first person present, with their interior stories in third person omniscient past.¹² The narrative might mostly be told in first person, with occasional glimpses of third person to build dramatic irony with the reader.¹³ There might be a braided story, where some parts are told in second person, and then others in third person, to highlight the effects of trauma.¹⁴ The story might shift from past tense to present tense to highlight the immediacy in certain moments, as I’ve alluded to before. There are a tremendous number of options here.

Ultimately, I think what’s important is to know what point of view a story is in, and why. Understand the strengths and weaknesses of each, and decide based on the needs of the story which you want, and hold yourself to it. Be consistent—within, of course, the bounds of sometimes it’s interesting to twist and mix them. As always, the advice becomes to know what you’re doing.

And don’t listen to the people who say you can’t write a story in any of the Points of View. It may not be popular, and it may not sell as a result, but you can still write the story, even if it’s only for the art of it.¹⁵ It really is unfortunate, in my opinion, that so many readers get hung up on points of view, and refuse to read books that aren’t in their preferred perspective. Or who think books in a particular genre have to have a particular point of view. Or anything like that. They’re all valid, they’re all good, and you should pick the one that best serves the story.

And in the end, I found writing the examples in this blog post to be a very fun—if exhausting—exercise as a writer. I’d encountered the “homework” before,¹⁶ to write the same scene in different points of view in order to explore their differences, but hadn’t actually done it until now. It’s given me a newfound appreciation for some of them, and helped me understand some aspects of them better. I hope my examples were able to do that for you, as well, though I would recommend doing the exercise yourself—maybe not with all the variations I did—to feel it out even more.

In either case, I hope you come away with a better understanding of the myriad of ways stories can be narrated, and some of their strengths and weaknesses. And if there’s ones I’ve missed, let me know; I’d love to add to the collection!

Much thanks to Scidra and Wiz for looking over earlier versions of this blog post and providing feedback. And to Scidra in particular for helping me brainstorm ideas, from organization to what the examples should tell the story of, to plant-based puns for going thoroughly off the rails by the end. I really do appreciate it all.

Grammatically, there are a few things that might be considered a “fourth person”, but there’s not really anything that can be done with them in an English narrative as far as I know. ↩
There is also the stylistic technique of illeism, which is talking about oneself in the third person. It’s not a very common technique, and likely would be more useful in dialogue than in the narrative itself. ↩
To the point where Slate even wrote an article on it while I was in the process of drafting this blog post. ↩
There is, nominally, a theoretical future tense that you could write in, but I’m not familiar with any literature that uses it in any sustained manner. ↩
You could do something that jumps around in a disjointed fashion, I suppose, but it’s not very common. ↩
This reddit comment also does a pretty good summary, or you can go directly to The Art of Fiction by John Gardner for more information. ↩
Also notable is that it seems voice-overs are no longer very common. ↩
Though the play also in the end has Puck directly addressing the audience, so make of that what you will. ↩
It’s very similar in effect to found-footage films, in fact. ↩
Well, I can think of one, but noting it as such would be a fairly big spoiler, unfortunately. ↩
Sometimes with footnotes for particularly tangential asides. ↩
William Goldman’s The Princess Bride, for instance. ↩
L. E. Modesitt Jr.’s The Magic of Recluce, for instance. ↩
N. K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season, for instance. ↩
And who knows, maybe you actually kick of a new trend in the industry? What’s popular changes over time, and someone has to be out there trying to skate to where the puck is going to be, as it were. ↩
Probably from the podcast Writing Excuses. ↩

Megan Bessel