Writing Point of View Help!?

Question

I am writing a children's chapter book for age's 9-12. I need to view some samples of writing in all 3 areas of Point of View: First person, Second Person, and Third Person. Is there anywhere online that I can see these? Also which point of view is best for my book?

Answer 1

I won't send you to websites to read. I will explain it to you.

The answer is it depends on what kind of story you are writing and what kind of information you want to get out.

First person. Very limited. You can only report on what you actually can SEE or HEAR. It basically means the narrator has to be in the book in every scene. Then you can be either a reliable narrator or an unreliable narrator. Either telling the straight truth or slanting it for your own purposes. Think of The Great Gatsby. Nick had to be in every scene. Every important think had to be TOLD to Nick. It can make writing very difficult if you want secrets kept from people.

Second Person - The hardest and least used. Rod Serling of the Twilight Zone was a Master of it. You are on a plane. You are crashing. It is very difficult to keep up. I have only used it once in a story successfully. Stay away from it if you can.

Third Person - Here again we have two choices. Third Person Omniscient and Third Person Limited. Third Person Omniscient is probably the most popular. Think of yourself as a fly on the wall. You hear and know everything about everyone. You can report on anything ... Usually this is used in the past tense. It is as though this situation has taken place and you are going to now sit down and tell it to your grandchildren. You know how it ends before you start telling the beginning. Again, you can have a reliable or unreliable narrator. Let's say you hate one of the characters, you can slant the story to make them worse - that would be an unreliable narrator. A reliable narrator would just tell the story straight through. No slanting.

A limited third person narrator only knows some of what is going on. Think of the story The Gift of the Magi by O Henry. The reader learns some of the information at the same time as the characters. We do not know until Della does that John sold his beautiful watch. Our information is limited. We do not know everything about everyone. Most mysteries are written this way. We don't know the answer until Miss Marple tells it to us. But we can have clues along the way.

What type of POV you use depends on what you are trying to do. Are you telling your audience something YOU did? Then you want first person. Are you trying to educate them or tell them a story? Then third person omniscient would be better. Do you want to surprise them? Then third person limited is best.

Only use second person sparingly and only when you want to literately force your readers into a certain situation. Let's say you want to talk about a kid who drops out of school and becomes a drug addict. You could use second person there to put your readers into that situation.

Hope that helps.
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They're, Their, There - Three Different Words.

Careful or you may wind up in my next novel.

Pax - C

Answer 2

I write in both 1st and 3rd person, but mainly first when I want my readers to feel extremely close to my character, as though they are seeing and feeling what my character feels. I have three main characters for my current story, but only one of the characters is written in first person. So it is possible for you to flip from first person in one character to third person for the others. I think it depends on the story. To me, sometimes they need to be in 1st person, and then other times they sound better in 3rd. Just try writing a paragraph or so of your story in third person and see if you like it more. I do agree with everyone else, writing the name of the person above the chapter can be pretty confusing. When writing my own story, I can keep track, but when I read "My Sister's Keeper" I got confused many times about who was "speaking". So just choose the best POV for you that makes you feel close to your characters and fits your story.

Answer 3

Try googling View Points in Writing. It should give you a lot of options.

First Person: I,me,my,we,were etc. Example: I went to go meet my best friend at the movies.
Second person: You, your, they etc. Example: You went to go meet your best friend at the movies.
Third person: she/he, they, their, his/her, etc. Example: She went to go meet her best friend at the movies.

Well that's my expanation on that. Hope it helped.
I think either first or third is good for your book. Definetly NOT second. I don't think I've ever read a book in second person. I'd suggest writing your book in third person if it has a lot of main characters, if the story mainly focuses on one person then do it in First person.

Answer 4

You can try wikipedia first, but there are many sites out there on writing tips and advice.

Answer 5

Try the links below, please.