Point of View in Narratives

Every story has a narrator, and that narrator picks which details you get to hear. If you already know how to tell first person and third person apart, you are ready to go one step further. In this lesson, you will look closely at how a narrator's point of view controls what details and events show up in a story.

Point of view is the position a narrator tells the story from. A first person narrator is inside the story and uses words like "I," "me," and "my." A third person narrator stands outside the story and uses words like "he," "she," "they," or a character's name.

Point of view is more than just which pronoun a narrator uses. It also decides how much a narrator can know and share. That is the part you will explore in this lesson.

A first person narrator can only tell you what that one character sees, hears, thinks, and feels. If the narrator is not in the room, you do not find out what happens there. A third person narrator can often step back and describe more than one character, so you may learn about things the first narrator could never know.

Picture a birthday party. Max is blowing out candles, and his sister Lily is hiding a surprise gift behind her back.

If Max tells the story in first person, you read something like this: "I closed my eyes and made my wish. My cake smelled like chocolate." You do not find out about the hidden gift, because Max does not know it is there.

If a third person narrator tells the story, you might read: "Max closed his eyes and made his wish. Behind him, Lily hid a small box wrapped in blue paper." Now you know a detail that Max does not even know yet.

Point of View: The position a narrator tells a story from, which decides what details and events the reader learns.

Narrator: The voice telling the story, whether it is a character inside the story or a voice outside of it.

First Person Narrator: A narrator who is a character in the story and uses words like "I," "me," and "my."

Third Person Narrator: A narrator outside the story who uses words like "he," "she," "they," or character names.

Detail: A small piece of information, such as a smell, a sound, or a hidden object, that a narrator chooses to include.

Event: Something that happens in the story, like blowing out candles or hiding a gift.

Read these two short passages about the same soccer game.

First person: "I kicked the ball as hard as I could. My heart pounded when it flew toward the goal."

Third person: "Ana kicked the ball as hard as she could. On the sideline, her coach covered his eyes, afraid to watch."

Notice that the first passage only shares what Ana feels. The second passage adds a detail about the coach that Ana might not even notice while she is kicking. This shows how the narrator's point of view controls which details make it into the story. You can practice spotting this kind of shift with more short passages in Narrative Point of View.

Read a short passage and list every detail the narrator shares. Then ask yourself what the narrator could not know because of their point of view. Try rewriting the passage from the other point of view and see what new details you can add or what details disappear.

Pick a simple event, like a dog chasing a ball, and write it twice. Write it once in first person from the dog's view, sharing only what the dog sees and feels. Write it again in third person, adding a detail the dog cannot know, such as what the owner is thinking.

Related lessons

• First vs Third Person Stories