First Person

I never did think I’d see the day when I was thankful for the oak.

         I certainly wasn’t thankful this last autumn when I stood with my rake in the middle of the scraggly patches of grass that stood for the front lawn and cursed the leaves that, I swear, multiplied like loaves and fished on their way to the ground. Come autumn, I’ll probably stand and curse the tree again.

But for now, when it seems the dog days have come to linger, when the sun’d bake anyone fool enough to venture off his porch and onto the street – well, that tree is a positive comfort.

Written in the “I” voice, where all the narrative is written as if the narrator is speaking directly to the reader. In the first person, the narrator is one of the characters, not the writer. An advantage is that it gives your readers a great deal of intimacy with your viewpoint character.

In order to succeed in the first person point of view, you have to create a character strong enough and interesting enough to keep your reader going for an entire novel, yet not so eccentric or bizarre your reader feels trapped inside their head. Also, what you gain in intimacy you lose in perspective. You can’t write about anything your main character couldn’t know, which means you have to have your main character on the spot whenever you want to write an immediate scene. This can limit your plot development possibilities.

Also, your readers get to know only one character directly. Everyone else is filtered through your viewpoint character. That may mean that other characters are not actually interpreted as they really are – which can be either a blessing or a curse, depending on the needs of the story and how the writer handles it. For example, it can serve as the reason for a surprise twist in the story.

Third Person-Omniscient

In small South Caroline towns, most houses are built in the shadow of tall trees. Each autumn, the children tasked with the lawn care curse the leaves that seem to multiply on their way to the ground. But on particular mid-afternoons during the dog days of August, when the blazing sun had taken possession of the streets and baked anyone who dared to challenge it, entire families retreated to their front porches, there to await whatever stray breezes that happened by in the shade of those same trees.

One such tree, a tall oak, stood in the front yard of the house Coral Blake rented from a man who had long ago moved his family north. The lush expanse of the oak belied the barren nature of the surrounding yard, where little grew except sparse clumps of grass, random weeds, and a scraggly pair of hydrangea bushes–pale blue instead of violet.

This is not written from inside anyone’s head. What you gain in perspective you lose in intimacy. It can contain more information, but it lacks the warmth, the sense of what it actually “feels like”  to sit under the old oak tree in the dog days.

Third Person-Close

Coral Blake mopped the gritty sweat out of her eyes and gazed up at the dusty underside of the oak. The dog days of August had settled in, it seems, and, like most folks in Greeleyville, South Carolina, she took cover from the sun on her front porch under the grandfatherly tree.

My, how she hated that tree in the autumn. Then she’d stand out in the scraggly front yard with a rake and curse the leaves that multiplied like leaves and fishes as they fell. But now, with her head up against the cool metal of the glider, the tree was a positive blessing.

Third Person-Distant

Coral Blake mopped the sweat out of her eyes and gazed up at the dusty underside of the oak. It seemed the dog days of August had arrived, and like most of the citizens in Greeleyville, South Carolina, she took refuge from the sun on her front porch under the tree.

Ironic how much she hated that tree at other times. Every fall she’d stand in her threadbare front yard with a rake and curse the leaves that multiplied as they fell. But now, resting her head against the cool metal of the glider, she considered the tree to be a blessing.

The third person strikes a balance – and a continuum between first and omniscient views, running between narrative intimacy to narrative distance. What defines the difference? Word choice and syntax. When you describe your settings and action using only words from your viewpoint character’s vocabulary, you’re not only telling the reader the facts, you’re running those facts through your viewpoint character’s history and sensibility. On the other hand, when the voice of your description is more sophisticated, more verbose, perhaps more acutely observant that your viewpoint character can manage, you’ve put distance between the two.

Another factor that controls your narrative distance is how much you allow your viewpoint character’s emotions to color your descriptions. Say, for instance, you’re writing about a New England snowstorm. If your main character is a middle-aged man who has cleared the driveway twice this week and is already walking the dog using snowshoes, then you might describe the snow as falling “slowly and inexorably, smothering the landscape.” If your viewpoint character is a seven year old girl delighting in her first real winter, you might describe the snow “floating gently down and making the yard fresh and new again.” Same facts, different feelings, different descriptions. If, on the other hand, the tone you want is emotionally detached, then, well, you writing is emotionally detached.