When you write a story or a poem, who is your narrator? The narrator is the person who tells the story. It is the voice inside our heads when we read. It describes characters, explains actions and keeps us interested in what we’re reading.
I’m guessing that most of the time you think of yourself as the narrator and tell the story as if it really happened to you. You may even pretend you are one of the characters in the story or poem. If that’s so, you mostly write from a first person point of view , which means you use pronouns like I, me, mine, my, we, and ours.
You may have learned about points of view in school and already know there is also a third person point of view which uses pronouns like he, she, it, his, hers, they, them, theirs, etc. It is the point of view we most often read in books. It is the point of view of someone outside the story (some say it’s the author), usually someone who sees and knows about everything, including what all the characters are thinking. This point of view is often great to use to increase the suspense. For example, the narrator may tell the reader that there is a bomb behind the door that will go off if anyone opens it. However, the hero doesn’t know this and he reaches for the doorknob and begins to turn it. If you read that, wouldn’t you be anxious to find out what happens?
The other point of view you may know about is the second person point of view, which is when your narrator talks directly to the readers using the pronouns you, your and yours. While this point of view is rarely used by writers, when it is used well it can make your story very exciting because It grabs and holds the reader’s attention, basically telling him that he’s now a character inside the story, experiencing the action himself. A good example of using second person in a scary story might be:
You are walking down a dark alley. You hear a footsteps behind you .
You turn around and see that someone is following you. You start running .
but you trip over something. AAAAAAAAAhhhhhh.
Isn’t that it much more exciting when the narrator says you are the one being followed instead of I or he?
Point of view is an important tool for writers and we should experiment using it to make our work more interesting. Have fun and experiment with point of view and if you come up with a good story or poem, send it to the Magic Dragon who loves reading the things you write.