First person or third person? Choosing a point of view

Before you write much of a story, you decide who is telling it. This is point of view, and it affects everything: the voice, what the reader knows, and how close they feel.

First person

"I" tells the story. I stood at the gate and watched the bus leave.

Strengths

• It feels intimate. The reader hears one person's thoughts directly.
• Voice comes through strongly. Personality shows in every sentence.
• It suits confessions, diaries, coming of age stories.

Limits

• The reader only knows what the narrator knows. You cannot describe a scene the narrator did not witness.
• The narrator can be unreliable, which is useful sometimes and awkward at others.
• A whole novel in one voice can tire the reader if the voice is not strong enough.

Third person limited

"He" or "she", but the narration stays close to one character. Ravi stood at the gate and watched the bus leave. He wondered if he had made a mistake.

Strengths

• You get closeness like first person, with more flexibility in language.
• You can switch to another character in a different chapter.
• It is the most common choice in modern fiction, and readers are used to it.

Limits

• You must be careful not to slip into another character's head mid scene.

Third person omniscient

The narrator knows everything. They can describe any character's thoughts and comment on events. This was common in older novels.

Strengths

• You can show the whole picture, past and future.
• Good for large casts and sweeping stories.

Limits

• It can feel distant.
• It needs a strong narrative voice to hold together.

Second person

"You" tells the story. It is rare and can feel gimmicky, but in short pieces it can be striking.

How to choose

1. Write the same page in first and in third person. Notice which feels more natural.
2. Ask who has the most at stake in the story. That person is often the right one to tell it.
3. Consider what the reader should not know yet. If a secret has to be kept, limited points of view help.
4. Think about the length. A short piece can carry a quirky voice more easily than a four hundred page novel.

Tense

Another choice is past or present tense. Past is traditional and feels settled. Present feels immediate, but it can become wearing. Whichever you pick, stay consistent.

Do not slip

The most common mistake is changing viewpoint without noticing. In the middle of a scene about Ravi, we suddenly learn what Meera is thinking. Check each scene and ask whose head we are in.

Try writing a short scene both ways. The right choice usually becomes clear within a page.