My Favorite Points of View–Guest Post by Bill Hopkins

by Bill Hopkins, @JudgeHopkins

• First person: This is a story that
  is usually narrated by the protagonist. If you use this, then your first
  sentence–or certainly your first paragraph–should make it clear.
  “Sally whirled around and slapped me in the face.” You know that
  someone (the narrator) has incurred Sally’s wrath and he’s going to tell the
  reader about it.

• Advantages: First person allows the
  narrator to develop a distinctive voice that no one else in the story has
  (or should have). The reader will learn to like or at least understand why
  the narrator acts the way he does. He can ramble on about relevant points
  inside his own head without anyone else but the reader knowing what he’s
  thinking. The reader also witnesses the stress placed on the narrator and
  how that causes him to act in a certain way. The reader learns about the
  world of the narrator quickly.

• Disadvantages: The narrator must
  be in every scene or he and the reader will be subjected to a lot of
  retelling by other characters what happened off-stage. But even that may
  be skillfully handled so that the narrator doesn’t appear to be just a
  listening post where different folks come to tell their tales. Also, other
  characters and not the narrator must describe him or the narrator must
  slip in hints at his appearance. “Sally slapped me so hard that I
  thought my scrawny mustache had been knocked off my face.” And,
  please, avoid the cliché of having the narrator look in a mirror and
  telling the reader what he sees. Finally, avoid as many “I’s” as
  you can. “I went to the store. I bought some eggs. I took the eggs to
  Sally.” That soon becomes boring.

• Third Person: An unknown narrator
  is telling the story. Generally, the narrator is never identified. Writers
  and readers have an unspoken agreement that this is one of those
  “willing suspension of disbelief” that someone witnessed and is
  able to tell the story. There are different kinds of third person. What
  makes my favorite version of third person “close” (other people
  have different terms for it) is that the narrator is in only one
  character’s head at a time. “Sally slapped him.” That would be
  the first line of a book written in third person (close or otherwise). Further
  on in the story, the reader realizes that the narrator can see into only
  one person’s mind. “He felt the stinging blow and didn’t like the
  look on Sally’s face.” In fact, third person close is almost a first
  person viewpoint using different pronouns.

• Advantages: You can describe your
  character in the narration. As a reader of fiction, I rarely remember what
  a person looks like while reading the story. As a writer, my descriptions
  of people tend to emphasize oddities of their appearance or perhaps one or
  two nods to a physical description. Another advantage that draws me to
  this point of view is that you can still show the direct thoughts of the
  person. “Sally slapped him. That’s
  the second time she’s done that to me!” or “Sally slapped
  him. That’s the second time, he thought, that she’s done that to me.”

• Disadvantages: You must be
  especially careful not to get into anyone else’s head. You must show us
  what the other person is doing to determine his reaction to what is going
  on or, of course, have the other person say something that presents his
  state of mind. This sounds easy, but it’s tricky. In one story, I had
  written about the protagonist and two companions doing something like
  “trudging dispiritedly” (it wasn’t really that bad). My most
  heartless editor (my wife, Sharon Woods Hopkins) pointed out that I was
  expressing the thoughts of the other two people as well as the
  protagonist. Which, of course, I was.