"Language Arts point of view" by virginiarichardsonhttp://www.trailfire.com/virginiarichardson/trails/57500virginiarichardson/trails60Third Personhttp://www.trailfire.com/virginiarichardson/marks/199939effect of point of view]]>Language Arts point of viewvirginiarichardsonThu, 28 Feb 2008 17:51:08 -0800trailfire:markId:199939Defining Point of View - Third Person Point of Viewhttp://www.trailfire.com/virginiarichardson/marks/199940Language Arts point of viewvirginiarichardsonThu, 28 Feb 2008 17:55:16 -0800trailfire:markId:199940Writing in the Third Person -- Rewriting a Story from the Third Person Point of Viewhttp://www.trailfire.com/virginiarichardson/marks/199941

How To Start Writing in the Third Person

From Ginny Wiehardt,
Your Guide to Fiction Writing.
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Though it's easy to fall into the habit of always writing in the first person, it's important to to be able to write in the third person as well. Both first person and third person have their strengths and weaknesses; what works for one story may not work for another. This exercise will help you observe the effect of writing in the third person point of view in order to add this tool to your toolbox.

Difficulty: Average

Time Required: 1 hour

Here's How:

Choose a particularly compelling -- or problematic -- scene from a piece of prose you have recently written in the first person.
Rewrite the piece from the third person point of view. Take your time. It may require some strategizing to pull off the transformation. You'll also have to consider whether or not you want to use third person omniscient or limited. In moving from first to third, it might be easiest to try third person limited first.
Notice how the change in point of view changes the voice and the mood of the story. What freedom do you have with this narrator that you did not have before? Likewise, are there any limitations in using this point of view?
Make a list of three or four advantages of the new point of view: ways the new voice helps develop plot and/or character.
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Make a list of the limitations of the third person point of view with regard to this particular piece. Is it the most effective way of telling this story? Were there ways in which it was harder to develop your central character with third person? Did it force you to use other techniques in revealing your character? Was the voice stronger or weaker? If weaker, was the trade-off worthwhile?
If the new point of view works well with this scene, consider changing the point of view for the entire piece. Otherwise, return to your original.

Tips:

Even if changing to the third person point of view has not improved this particular piece, remain open to it in future work. Use the lessons learned in this exercise to evalaute point of view in all the fiction you write.
Lorrie Moore has a good explanation for how she chooses POV: "There are times when the first person is necessary for observing others (not the protagonist) in a voice that simultaneously creates a character (usually the protagonist); then there are times when the third person is necessary for observing the protagonist in a voice that is not the character’s but the story’s."

What You Need:

Scene from a recent story or novel.
Computer or paper and pen.
Quiet place to work.

More How To's from your Guide To Fiction Writing

Novel

Encyclopedia Article includes additional elements of a novel

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Article Outline

Introduction; What Is a Novel?; Elements of the Novel; Techniques of the Novel; Genres of the Novel; History of the Novel; Future of the Novel

Omniscient Point of View

In a novel written from the point of view of an omniscient narrator, the reader knows what each character does and thinks. The reader maintains this knowledge as the plot moves from place to place or era to era. An omniscient narrator can also provide the reader with direct assessment of action, character, and environment. For example, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1940) by American writer Carson McCullers opens with this description:

In the town there were two mutes, and they were always together. Early every morning they would come out from the house where they lived and walk arm in arm down the street to work. The two friends were very different. The one who always steered the way was an obese and dreamy Greek. In the summer he would come out wearing a yellow or green polo shirt stuffed sloppily into his trousers in front and hanging loose behind. When it was colder he wore over this a shapeless gray sweater. His face was round and oily, with half closed eyelids and lips that curved in a gentle, stupid smile. The other mute was tall. His eyes had a quick, intelligent expression. He was always immaculate and very soberly dressed.

The omniscient narrator can assume a familiar tone with the reader, because the narrator is not bound by the scope of the story. Many of the earliest novels used the omniscient narrator in such a fashion. In Tom Jones (1749), English novelist Henry Fielding provides brief overviews at the beginning of each major section. Most simply set forth the time frame of the section (“Containing a portion of time somewhat longer than half a year”), but others give a more detailed overview:

Containing the most memorable transactions which passed in the family of Mr. Allworth, from the time when Tommy Jones arrived at the age of fourteen, till he attained the age of nineteen. In this book the reader may pick up some hints concerning the education of children.

The omniscient point of view has advantages and disadvantages. Using an omniscient narrator allows a writer to be extremely clear about plot developments. This point of view also exposes the reader to the actions and thoughts of many characters and deepens the reader’s understanding of the various aspects of the story. However, using an omniscient narrator can make a novel seem too authoritarian and artificial, because in their own lives people do not have this all-knowing power. If clumsily executed, providing thick detail may cause the reader to lose sight of the central plot within a mass of scenes, settings, and characters.

First-Person Point of View

With the first-person point of view, one of the novel’s characters narrates the story. For example, a sentence in a novel in the first person might read, “As I waited on the corner, I remembered the last time I had seen her.”

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The first person provides total subjectivity and all the immediacy, intimacy, and urgency of a single individual’s conflicts. The first person also shows a character’s awareness at telling a story. David Copperfield (1849-1850) by English novelist Charles Dickens is narrated by the title character and opens, “Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.”

The first person allows the author to write in the voice of a particular character. In his novel Huckleberry Finn (1884), which is narrated by the character Huck, American author Mark Twain not only wrote from Huck’s point of view, but he wrote in the voice that Huck would use if he were a real person. This approach gives Huck authenticity as a real character. Twain began chapter one of the book:

You don’t know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain’t no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth. That is nothing. I never seen anybody but lied one time or another, without it was Aunt Polly, or the widow, or maybe Mary. Aunt Polly—Tom’s Aunt Polly, she is—and Mary, and the Widow Douglas is all told about in that book, which is mostly a true book, with some stretchers, as I said before.

Some novelists use the first person in more complex ways. In The Sound and the Fury (1929), American novelist William Faulkner tells the story of the Compson family from four points of view, three of which are first person. The narrative begins from the point of view of a developmentally disabled man, Benjy. It then moves to the point of view of his intellectual brother, Quentin, and then to the point of view of another brother, Jason. The final section is told by an omniscient narrator.

The novel ¡Yo! (1997) by Dominican-born writer Julia Alvarez also uses a series of first-person narrators. The book is a portrait of a single character, Yolanda, told from the point of view of various people who know her from different stages of her life. Never does the reader hear from Yolanda directly, but by piecing together the observations of her friends and family, many of which are told in the first person, the reader gains a sense of Yolanda.

Third-Person-Limited Point of View

The third-person-limited point of view tells the story from the third person (“he” or “she”), with a knowledge of what the main character thinks. For example, a sentence from a story in the third person limited might read, “As she waited on the corner, she remembered the last time she had seen him.”

Like the omniscient and first-person narrators, the third-person-limited narrator allows the reader access to the thoughts of the main character. Unlike the omniscient narrator, however, the third-person-limited narrator can only relay one character’s perspective to the reader. In this way the third-person-limited narrator is like the first-person narrator: The viewpoint recreates how an individual experiences the world.

American author Henry James employed the third-person-limited point of view to great effect in books such as Daisy Miller (1879) and The Portrait of a Lady (1881), with the central character acting as a person who can evaluate the significance of events and in turn convey that evaluation to the reader. In Daisy Miller, the character Winterbourne serves this purpose. Early in the novel, Winterbourne relates his first impressions of Daisy:

She was bareheaded, but she balanced in her hand a large parasol, with a deep border of embroidery; and she was strikingly, admirably pretty. “How pretty [Daisy and her parasol] are!” thought Winterbourne, straightening himself in his seat, as if he were prepared to rise.

When using a character as a voice of limited omniscience, the author may describe the character’s experiences only in terms that the character would use, or the author may take a more authoritative approach and describe the character’s life as an outside observer would. In Ulysses (1922), Irish novelist James Joyce uses the first approach when describing the character Gerty MacDowell. Gerty, a sentimental girl of limited understanding, expresses her narrow range of perceptions within her own limitations, and the reader sees the world very much through her eyes. By contrast, in the sections of Madame Bovary (1857) that Emma Bovary narrates, French novelist Gustave Flaubert adopts a broader perspective when he explains Emma’s thirst for romance, excitement, and grandeur in terms that Emma herself would not be able to express.

]]>Language Arts point of viewvirginiarichardsonFri, 29 Feb 2008 01:05:14 -0800trailfire:markId:200059English vocabulary exercises on-line. Free email tests. English quizzes to study the language on internethttp://www.trailfire.com/virginiarichardson/marks/203042Language Arts point of viewvirginiarichardsonThu, 13 Mar 2008 17:30:04 -0700trailfire:markId:203042English vocabulary exercises on-line. Free email tests. English quizzes to study the language on internethttp://www.trailfire.com/virginiarichardson/marks/203044Language Arts point of viewvirginiarichardsonThu, 13 Mar 2008 17:31:09 -0700trailfire:markId:203044