what is the difference between 1st person point of view and 3rd person point of view in a book or story?

Question

an example would be nice

Answer 1

The difference is that if you are writing in the first person, you limit yourself to the knowledge of the narrator. You can only see what he sees, hear what he hears, know what he knows.

Quite often, you will see a person writing in the first person who suddenly tosses in someone else's thoughts or who reports on a conversation the narrator was not privy to. That is called a POV violation. You have broken that invisible barrier that you created when you set out to tell a story through the eyes of that one particular person.

Mysteries are especially hard to write in first person. So is any story where the narrator is missing from key scenes.

More common in such situations is writing in the third person omniscient - past tense. In that format, every event in the story has already taken place. It is over. Now, some person often unknown by name to the reader is sitting and telling someone the whole story - beginning to end. Think of it as though they have been a fly on the wall for the whole entire incident and lived to tell about it.

There is a way to commit a POV violation with third person omniscient too. And I would bet you about 85% of authors today do it. Here is an example.

Jill walked into the jewelry store with Mike. They were going to get engaged and they wanted to buy the ring so they could show it to her parents tomorrow.

See the violation?? Remember in this format the story is OVER. Jill and Mike are already married, they have kids, whatever happens in the story is over and done with. The narrator could be sitting down ten years later and telling the story. So "tomorrow" is the day after the telling of the story - 10 years and one day later.

The correct sentence there would be

Jill walked into the jewelry store with Mike. They were going to get engaged and they wanted to buy the ring so they could show it to her parents the following day.

The only way you can use time dating words like today, tomorrow, ago, before etc. is in quotations.

You could say

"We went to get the ring so we could show it to Jill's parents tomorrow," MIke said.

Hope that helps. Another lesson from my Writers Boot Camp. Pax - C

Answer 2

In a first person point of view, the book is written with reference to the personal experiences of the writer. While on the 3rd person, he was not part of what had happened but wrote the books based on the accounts of someone he probably knew well.

Answer 3

It's not unusual for a prologue to be written from a different point of view than the rest of the book. But I wouldn't keep switching viewpoints--that's very difficult to accomplish. Even well established writers often make a botch of that. Third person is much easier to work with.

Answer 4

first person is when the person narrating is using "I," talking about the story from their own point of view. Eg, a first person story would say, "I saw my best friend get into a stranger's car, and I knew this wouldn't end well."

a third person narration is from the point of view of someone who isn't directly involved in the story. It can often get inside a character's thoughts just like a 1st person can, but it provides the author with more leeway, because narrating this way, they can distance themselves from the story when neccessary, and they also have the option of being omniscient, which is difficult in 1st person. the same example in third person would look like this: "She saw her best friend get into a stranger's car, and she knew it wouldn't end well."

Answer 5

First person point of view is someone who participated in the event. Third person point of view is someone who was told about the event. And just for fun second is witnessing the event but not taking part in it. That should be right?!?!?

Answer 6

"I don't know,even now,how it happened,but the events that lead to the terrible tragedy hid themselves comfortably in the weave of daily life." 1st person narrative
"They didn't know,even after it happened,how the events that lead to the terrible tragedy had hidden themselves comfortably in the weave of daily life."3rd person,omniscient.
PS.I made that up on the fly,not bad,eh?:-)

Answer 7

First person is a participant in the story: "I went to war".
Third person is an observer or story teller: "Joe went to war".

Answer 8

"I"=1st person
"he/she/they"=3rd person