One of my earliest memories of reading a first person PoV was around 6 or 8 years old, when I was reading Goosebumps.
Goosebumps books are famously written in first person PoV from the protagonist's (although sometimes they end up being the antagonist, but that's for another day) perspective. It's a very easy and effective way to place the reader in the middle of the story and elicit the feeling of fear that is desired when reading a scary story. This started me down a path of noticing how PoV can change the entire feeling of a story, and I began to experiment with it myself.
Point of View can be a very effective method of creating different emotions in a reader. It's also very useful to signify they type of story you're telling. There's many different types of PoV, and PoV switches, but I want to talk about some popular ones and how they effect the story.
- Third Person, Past Tense
From my own findings, this tended to be one of the most popular methods of story-telling in days gone by. We've switched heavily into First Person in modern times, but we'll talk about that in a minute.
Third Person Past Tense is used in stories such as Anne of Green Gables, Wizard of Oz, and The Hobbit. This story-telling method feels very much like just that; story telling. In it, the author is all-powerful, telling the story of what happened to characters in the past. It gives the reader the sensation that whatever happens must happen, as it's already been done (past tense), but they are also able to see it from several points of view, knowing the thoughts and motives of many characters (third person).
It is less submersive than first person, but it allows the reader to see a better overarching story. They are able to understand more of the world they're reading about, and generally understand more of the characters.
This method doesn't necessarily mean that the story is about all of the characters, mind you, and it doesn't always mean they're all main characters. In each of the above examples, there are still main characters who the story follows more closely than the others.
For example, in The Hobbit, during the Battle of the Five Armies, Bilbo, the main character, is knocked unconscious early on, and as such, the readers don't experience the battle itself. Like Bilbo, they awake to the aftermath to discover what deaths and victories had occurred.
Third Person Past Tense is less popular today, but it's a good method none-the-less. It gives the reader a sense of hearing a ballad or story being told by someone who experienced it themselves. The purpose isn't to draw the reader into the story as a character themselves, it's to tell them what already happened.
- Third Person, Present Tense
Now, this one is a little strange, and I don't see it very often. In my opinion, it's difficult to pull off well, and most of the times I've seen it have been in very amateur fan-fictions. It's an odd marriage of the current trend of present tense, and the comfortable ease of third person. Done correctly, it can be interesting and capture the reader's attention, but it's something that isn't done often.
As this is such a rare form of story-telling, it's difficult to find an example that I know well. The only one that comes to mind is The Night Circus, which, unfortunately, is not a book that I read to completion. That being said, what portions of it I did read had a very out-of-this-world feeling, which is exactly the point of the story.
Being about something magical that doesn't quite fit into our realm of perception, The Night Circus is a perfect candidate for such a jarringly strange Point of View. It's told outside of a single character, making the reader feel as if they're watching, and along for the ride, while also giving the sense that the story is happening right now. It's a good way to let the reader be an observer of a story, rather than a participator, but still let them be part of the action.
I believe this method is best left to stories of the strange and unusual, as it's difficult for the reader to keep up with the odd grammar necessary to make the story work, but if it's done right, it can set the stage to an oddly personal story.
- First Person, Past Tense
This one is one of the most commonly seen Point of Views in modern literature. It's used in autobiographies for obvious reasons, but it's also heavily relied upon in fiction.
First Person Past Tense feels very personal, like the reader is being told a story directly from the lips of the story-teller. It's easy, uncomplicated, and can be used in most stories. It's the natural way a person would tell a story verbally, and as such, it's easy to follow.
An easy example of this is in The Fault in Our Stars. The story is told from Hazel's PoV; that is, she is the one telling the story. But it's told in Past Tense, as if the story is already over for her, and she's just writing it down. The reader gets to feel like they're listening to Hazel's eye-witness account to what happened between her and Gus, and as such, it gives the reader a sense of trust in the story. What happened to them already happened, but we know our main character survives the story, because she's the one telling it. We get to see the emotional aspects, but there's always the tickling idea in the back of our heads that she's going to be okay, because how else can she be telling the story?
Another very good example of this PoV is in The Outsiders. This one is obviously in First Person Past Tense, because Ponyboy is telling the story of what happened to him and his friends. By the end of the book, the reader learns that Ponyboy is actually writing the story for class, and that it's supposed to be his recent account of his horrific coming-of-age story. Throughout the story, the reader is able to firmly get a sense of who Johnny is to Ponyboy, and why the story is so traumatic. We know that Ponyboy will survive the story, because he is now telling it to us, so we can keep that sense of security in the back of our minds, but we are also able to truly empathize with the main character, because we are inside his head as he tells us what happened. We know his thoughts and motives, because he is telling them to us.
First Person Past Tense is very useful for directing readers into how they should think of the main characters. It gives a sense of security, knowing that the main character will be alright by the end, despite however bleak their trials may get in the middle of the story, and it allows the reader to better understand the main character, since they're able to tell them directly how they feel and what their motives are. This one is fairly easy to write, and spans across basically every genre effortlessly. You can focus heavily on your story, and less on the continuity of the PoV, as this is the natural way that we vocally tell stories.
- First Person, Present Tense
First Person Present Tense is more common in modern literature than in the past. I believe this is because the uses for this particular PoV have risen with Distopian, Thriller, and Horror novels, as it forces the reader into the story to experience it first hand.
My first experience with this PoV was perhaps my favorite. In The Hunger Games, Katniss is the protagonist, and also the point from which the story is read. Her story is happening as you read it, so there is no sense of security as to what might happen to her. She is not telling the story in hindsight, she is living the story, and has just as little idea as to what will happen next as the reader. She cannot foreshadow future events, as she doesn't know them yet.
First Person gives the reader a sense of being in the story, able to see themselves through the lens of the main character. Present Tense gives the reader an uneasy sense of not being able to predict the ending. If the author wants to kill their main character, then the book will simply end, and there is no way of knowing if this will happen or not.
In my book A State of Gray, the reader follows inside the story with Molly, unable to predict her actions based on knowing that she is telling her story from the future. Circumstances are as much a shock to Molly as the reader, giving a sense of submersion that is impossible if the story is being narrated in hindsight. Okay, self promotion over.
First Person Present Tense is very useful for stories that want to evoke that sense of unease. Mysteries, Thrillers, and Apocalyptic stories are all excellent candidates for this PoV, because it's harder to predict the end of the story when your characters don't even know it yet. It's also useful if you want the main character, and thus the reader, to be wondering about the motives of other characters. Similar to real life, the reader can only see what's happened already, what's happening right now, and how it effects the person who's point of view you are seeing it from.
In a future post, I will also be talking about Point of View shifts, from one character to another, but for time's sake, I'll stop here.
As you can see, Point of View is a very important tool in story-telling. It can vastly alter how the reader views the story and the emotions that are evoked from it. When you're planning a story, it's always very important to choose the Point of View that will easily bridge the gap between author and reader.
Cheers!
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