What's Your Story's Viewpoint?

Author: Arline Chandler

When I first began to study writing, viewpoint was a revelation to me—and one of the harder points to master. The late Lee Wyndham in her book, Writing for Children and Teenagers, states: “The term viewpoint does not mean which person (author, hero, or onlooker) tells the story, but through whose eyes and heart the story is told.” This distinction is important.

Nancy Lamb, author of Writer’s Guide to Crafting Stories for Children, feels the first person viewpoint with “I” as the storyteller has limitations. Technically, nothing can be told but that which the “I” sees and feels. The “I” has to be the lead character.

In her book, Lamb clearly states that “When you write a story in the first person, your ability to shift from place to place and person to person is limited. Everything you write about must be witnessed by the narrator. You cannot assume anyone thinks or feels anything unless it is manifested in some other way.”

Historian and author Velda Brotherton (www.veldabrotherton.com) offers an example: “If something happens in the backyard, the viewpoint character has to see it from the window. The writer cannot jump to the back yard and describe something not in the character’s view.”

I prefer to write in third person, subjective. From this viewpoint, the main character’s name and the pronouns he or she are used, rather than "I". This method of narration allows the reader to look on the scene, but also to get into the head and body of the main character.

Lamb explains that in the third person single point of view, the writer tells the story using “he said, she said” dialogue tags. “But you confine the action to one person’s thoughts, feelings, and point of view,” she adds.

She states that, while both first and third person viewpoints enlist the allegiance of the reader and bid for a strong emotional identification with one specific character, third person, single point of view, allows the writer to devise one voice for the protagonist and a different one for the narrator.

Lamb goes on to say, “In third person, you can get into a character’s head and heart, and you can still mine the depth of the feelings the character experiences. However, you—the writer—must always remain conscious of showing (not telling) how the character feels.”

Richard Young, storyteller and author of Favorite Scary Stories of American Children, says, “Children live in a world of their own. Remember the nostalgia of old Charlie Brown television specials? The adults' voices were just notes played on a saxophone; that's about how adult voices sound to kids!"

“A child knows only what goes on in his or her life...his or her head...so children understand best a story that starts in and stays in the child's perception of the world,” Young continues. “Describe events as a child sees them... A child's interpretation of the world can be (for the reader) cute, comic, or troublingly scary. Again, drawing an example from Charlie Brown, remember Lucy ‘explaining’ to Linus that ants pull the grass up...that's why it grows!”

Lee Wyndham’s advice, as relevant today as when she wrote and taught in the 1970s, echoes Richard Young. “One person, one central character, who may be surrounded by a number of other people, must tell the story. With this important character the reader takes the greatest interest, identifies, sheds tears, or shouts cheers right through to the final outcome of the plot. Begin the story with one character, and end the story with the same character.”

Choose the best way to tell your particular story—whether it is first person or third person. Only you, the writer, can decide the most effective viewpoint for your story.

What's Your Story's Viewpoint?

Author: Arline Chandler

This column first appeared on DM in 2009, but we think you'll agree that it still has some good information!