Getting Some Perspective: How to Use the First, Second, and Third Person
Choosing a perspective is one of the first decisions that a writer must make when beginning their story. Doing so informs every other aspect of the story, from its construction to its characters.
In this article, we will cover the different types of perspective, their advantages and disadvantages, along with the types of stories that each type benefits from most.
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Key Takeaways:
- Perspective and POV are different
- First and third person are safest
- Perspective is like a floating camera
First Person:
Perspective refers to how the author presents the world of the story. In the case of the first person perspective, the author filters the view of the story through the lens of a single character. Personal pronouns like I, we, and us are used to indicate the first person.
This intimate perspective allows for the author to set the reader in the body of a character. It is easier for the reader to feel the setting, action, and emotion of the story when they are physically present for it. Furthermore, the reader is privy to the thoughts of the perspective character. In my dialogue article, I discussed the benefits of using thoughts as a method of characterization. It can reveal the true intentions of a character, or obscure the truth of a situation through bias; this is one reason why the first person is a strong pairing with an unreliable protagonist.
The issue most authors encounter with the first person perspective is consistency. The first person locks the author into one character’s body at a time. This means that all descriptions of others, the scene, and the setting must be filtered through this character’s eyes. Clever writers can warp the reality of a situation through the perspective of their characters, but most end up with a hyper-observant main character. This works in a detective fic, but not so well in other stories. In a first person story, every minor detail must relate back to our protagonist because any mischaracterization of the scene could reflect back on them.
Third Person:
The third person perspective is probably the most commonly used across all domains of writing.
I think of the third person perceptive like a floating camera in a sitcom, while the first person perspective is like a GoPro. While a GoPro gives the viewer a tight, in-the-action shot, a floating camera catches a lot more of what’s happening. The use of impersonal pronouns like he/she and they creates distance between the characters and the readers, but that distance allows for a broader view of each scene.
Third person is an impartial perspective. That means that events are not filtered through an imperfect, human lens. Events happen as we describe them with little room for interpretation. With the third person, we can zoom out as far as we want, but we can’t achieve the same level of closeness as the first person. Many authors reserve the third person for complicated, interpersonal stories with many developed characters. If we want the freedom to describe our scenes as we see fit and move from character to character as it serves our story, the third person is our best bet.
Second Person:
The red-headed stepchild of perspective is the second person. This perspective integrates the reader as a participant in our story. I’ve used it in other articles to refer to ‘you’ when necessary to make a point, but in the realm of storytelling it is anything but commonplace.
When utilizing the second person in our story, it is important to know the effect that fourth-wall breaking has on a reader. When a reader is called out in any work of writing, there best be a reason. It immediately forces self-awareness, which is usually at direct odds with the immersion we want to create. The only way to mitigate this is by finding a way to fit the reader into the story we’ve crafted.
The second person is the best fit for educational articles like these where there is an important reason for addressing the reader, but even still I choose to use the first person plural. There are some famous stories that make good use of it, but they are too few and far between. Beware inconsiderate use of the second person.
Conclusion:
Each perspective has their place and use, but it depends entirely on our story which we will choose.
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