Storytelling: Point of View and Tenses

1. Introduction: Hello and welcome to storytelling points of view and tenses. Point of view and tense are writing tools that you can use to control the type of story that you want to tell. This class is part of the writer's motivation series, which is designed to help authors find the tools and processes that will help them reach their red and goals. I'm Kate Campbell. I'm a hybrid author, which means I'm both traditionally and indeed published. I've also been an editor, book format, or a very occasional cover designer. I am the manager of an indie co-op. So this class is designed for beginning authors or anyone who feels like they don't really understand point of view, intense and why it matters or how to use it. So we will go over the different points of view that you can use, as well as the different tenses. And we will go over when you want to use them, why you want to use them, and how changing them can affect your own work. This class is primarily aimed at fiction writers, though other writers may also find this information useful. At the end of the class, you will have the opportunity to take what you've learned about point of view and tense and apply that to your personal work so that you can see what you've learned in action. Alright, let's give it a try. 2. What is Point of View?: In this section, we'll define what point of view is. Quite simply, the point of view is who is telling the story. However, it's a little more than that, not just two, but how or as the Oxford Dictionary says, the narrator's position in relation to the story that is being told. One of the way points of view or viewpoints, the terms can be used interchangeably in most cases, differ is in how close the reader and by extension, the writer is to the character. In some cases, you're in the character's head, so you see what they see and know what they know. However, this means that if someone else is doing something off screen where your character can't see it, your character can't know about it. Other viewpoints take a bird's-eye view of things so you can see what many characters are doing at once. These viewpoints, however, you are farther away from a character's thoughts and feelings. Because of how each point of view functions, they can be used effectively for your story or make the whole thing fall flat. E.g. if you're writing a coming-of-age story where the thoughts and emotions of your main character or the whole point of view point that is tight and on that character and focuses on those emotions is going to work best. However, for a thriller or other plot driven work where the action is more important than the character. A titan viewpoint is going to slow the pacing and detract from the plot. The good news is that point of view is just another tool in your author toolbox. And you can play with it to make your story work the way you want it to. So that means you're perfectly fine to use more than one point of view per story. Some genres tend toward multiple points of view. Anyway, thrillers often have chapters from side characters or even characters who only appear once. And epic fantasies may have half a dozen characters you're following. Romances to increasingly have both the female love interests end mill love interests point of views. You don't have to though, if you want to follow a single character the whole time, that's fine too. Because point of view is a tool. You can use it however necessary, even if that involves mixing and matching different types. We'll go for the different types of point of view in the next few sections. One author who uses different viewpoint types that I can think of off the top of my head is urban fantasy author Charles de Lind, who varies not only viewpoint for different characters, but also tenses as well. In the next section, we'll look at the third-person point of view. 3. Third Person: If you took any sort of English class at all during your years in school, you've heard the term third-person before. Third person is when you are on the outside looking in. Or to be clear, when you are outside a character watching them do something. Many books are written in third person, perhaps even most of them. When you read or write in third person, you use he, she, it, et cetera, pronouns in the character's name in the pros, married decided to go for a walk, e.g. or Henry couldn't believe his eyes. Third person is further divided into three types, limited, objective and omniscient. Limited. Third is a closing point of view, where the story falls one person at a time and is deep enough into their viewpoint that thoughts and feelings can be easily shared. This is a good middle ground between first-person, which we'll discuss in the next section, and the other farther out, third person's readers can feel they know a character without having to try to project themselves into that character. But you can still have the narrow focused viewpoint that allows you to control what information is being presented. If you're using multiple third-person viewpoints, such as having one chapter from character A's point of view and the next character B's limited third is most often the viewpoint used. This allows you to give each character their own voice will, making it easy for readers to tell whose head urine. One thing to keep an eye out for when using limited third, is to make sure you're not head hopping. Head hopping is where you move from sharing one character's thoughts and feelings to a different character's thoughts and feelings without a logical break. Just starting a new chapter. This is jarring for the reader and can make a story feel poorly written. If you want to be able to share multiple people's thoughts at the same time, you'll need a different point of view. Third-person objective is when a story contains a neutral narrator who is not in anyone's head, meaning thoughts and feelings are not included in the story. The narrator merely tells the story as it is happening, as can be observed by an outside observer. Imagine watching two people have an argument in public. You can describe what they're doing, what they're saying, but you don't know for sure what they're thinking or feeling. So you leave that part out. As the name suggests. In a third-person omniscient point of view, the narrator knows everything, every character's thoughts, opinions, and feelings. They know background information happening off-screen. They know what's going to happen in the future, as well as what each character is hiding. Additionally, they often add in their own commentary and opinions while they're telling the story. So when do you want to use third person? Third person is great for stories where you have more than one point of view. So that you have more freedom and flexibility in exploring the story. Plus it makes it easier for the reader to keep track of which character is being followed. If using limited. It also makes your narrator more trustworthy. Ie the reader is more confident what they're being told is what is really happening as opposed to using an unreliable narrator. We'll talk more about that in the first-person section. If your character is more plot driven than character-driven than third person may be the right choice, since you don't have to worry about dwelling on feelings and thoughts as much as you would with say, first-person. It may be easiest to see the difference between each type of third-person with a short example. I've included the examples on the screen so you may pause the videos and look at them in more detail if you would like. We'll start with objective as that is perhaps the most basic of the third person's, a simple recitation of what is happening. I'm going to use the same scene for all three examples so you can see the difference between them. It was cold and windy the day prints Robert arrived at the court of King Albert. His Majesty and his daughter Eleanor, were in the throne room for their weekly meeting with their advisors when the prints made his entrance. Your Majesty, I've come for your daughter's hand in marriage. He said, producing a scroll. I've listed my kingdoms wealth in standing. So you may see if it is a good match. King albert took the scroll from Robert, looking at over before turning to his daughter, it would be a good match. He said, What do you say, My dear princess Eleanor, glance down at her hands before meeting her father's eyes? No. She said. As you can see, there's no note of thoughts, opinions, or feelings, just what each character is doing. Now we'll take the same passage and use omniscient third person instead. It was cold and windy. The day Prince Robert arrived at the court of King Albert, the prince could not help, but be glad he would take his bride if she would be his back to his own land in the South. His majesty and his daughter, Eleanor, were in the throne room for their weekly meeting with their advisors. When the prints made his entrance. Your Majesty, I've come to ask for your daughter's hand in marriage. He said producing a scroll. He'd worked hard on it, going back and forth through the often confusing treasury records. I've listed my kingdoms wealth in standing, so you may see if it is a good match. So he was annoyed at the interruption. King albert took the scroll from Robert, looking at over the list was thorough and fairly impressive. Eleanor was his only child and he would like to see her married. Well, he turned to his daughter. It would be a good match. He said, What do you say, My dear princess Eleanor, glance down at her hands. There was something about this young man that worried her. Something below the surface that she could just barely detect. It could be nothing or it could be everything. She would need more information, but for now, it was best to play it safe. Meeting her father's eyes. She said, no omniscient ads and basic thoughts and feelings from all the characters. Remember the ideas that you, the author are looking down from on high, able to know everything that is going on. Lastly, we'll look at a limited third-person example. Remember, limited falls a single character at a time and is the closest you can get to set character while using third-person. For our example, we'll follow princess Eleanor. Eleanor leaned her head on her hand, tuning out the advisors as they drowned on God, how she hated their weekly meetings. Really, did anyone have anything useful to say? They just fought over minutiae and made trouble just so someone else wouldn't get their way. The door to the throne room opened and a young man Eleanor had never seen before strode in like he owned the place. He made his way to the meeting without apologizing for the interruptions, working, smuggling the whole time. Your Majesty, I come to ask for your daughter's hand in marriage. The man produced to scroll from inside his tunic and gave it to her father. Eleanor expected her father to object, or at least asked the man who he was or where he came from. When steady simply unrolled the scroll and began to read it. Wow, she hadn't realized he was so eager to get rid of her. While her father exam the document, Eleanor examined the men. He was handsome. She'd give him that. But he stood like he expected to get everything he wanted when he asked for it. And he looked at her like she was just another thing to be owned and then disposed of when he tired of playing with it. There's something else, something she can put her finger on, but something she did not like. Her father turned to her. It would be a good match. What do you say, My dear princess Eleanor, glance down at her hands. How could he say that without knowing anything about this man, who he was, where he came from, to expect her to just make a decision here in front of everyone when she hadn't even gone to see the document. He probably wasn't really asking. Well, there was one way to find out meeting her father's eyes. She said, no. Limited follows a single character much closer, allowing you to add in their thoughts, feelings, and voice. Hopefully the differences between the types of third-person are fairly clear. But feel free to ask questions in the comments if you have them. Or pause and look closer at each example. The next section, we'll look at first-person. 4. First Person: In this section, we'll look at the first-person point of view. First-person is when you're inside, looking out, you are the character or at least along for the ride with them. First-person is a popular second choice for stories, especially ones that only follows single character are going for emotional payoffs. First-person is denoted by using the pronouns I, me and my, I surveyed my domain or my father was often out late. Unlike third-person, there is only one form of first-person. First-person connects your readers directly to your characters, your in their thoughts, their feelings, going through the advents with them as they experienced the story. First-person is often found in mysteries or coming-of-age stories, as in first-person readers can only know what the character knows. This helps control information or provide some emotional beats that can't be used as easily in third person. So when do we want to use first-person? Since first-person puts your reader in your character's head, first-person can be good to use when character beats are the most important parts of your story. Basically any story were internal or emotional arcs are the main point, such as coming-of-age stories, redemption arcs, descent into madness, et cetera. Because of the readers location in the character's head, it's easier and more natural for your reader to identify with your character. First-person also allows for more voice, which is a unique way a character expresses themselves, turns of phrase and thoughts that are essential to that particular character. First-person stories are often single viewpoint, only one character telling the story. So you can also use limited third, if you don't want to be quite as close, you can have multiple characters using a first-person viewpoint, but this is harder because each character has to read different enough that readers can easily keep track of who's head therein. Since they're not getting cues from the texts, such as the character's name showing up with the actions. Another reason to use first-person is to control the flow of information to the character and by extension, the reader. This is why many modern mysteries use first-person. First-person. A character can only know what they know, so you can carefully dole out information and clues. First-person also allows you to use unreliable narrators. Unreliable narrators are characters who either purposefully or accidentally or feeding false information to the reader. This can add additional layers into the story, though you do typically need to leave clues throughout that all is not how it's being told. Because of reader more easily connects and identifies with the character when reading first-person, they also tend to instinctively trusts said character. So if done right, using an unreliable narrator can allow for more surprising twists. Think of the movie, The Sixth Sense, which has an annoyingly unreliable narrator and Bruce Willis is character. Unreliable narrators also make for interesting character studies. Why is the character line? Are they doing it consciously or subconsciously? Because they can't even admit the truth to themselves. Unreliable narrators can be tough to do, right? And there are rare cases of them being done in other viewpoints. So make sure you have a clear idea of why you're writing one and what your goals are. Let's look at an example of first-person by going back to our dear friend princes Eleanor. I leaned my head on my hand as my father's advisors drone on about who knew what. They never shut up, and yet they never said anything. We're saying. In theory, I had to be here to learn what went into running a kingdom. But all I picked up so far was that less advisors were better. The door to the throne room slammed open. I sat up. Please set the distraction. As a young man I'd never seen before injured. There was something about his movements. I didn't like something that reminded me of a snake or maybe a wolf. He strode up to where my father sat at my side, heading him a scroll. Your majesty, He said looking over at me, his eyes linger too long. I've come to S for your daughter's hand in marriage. His eyes did on mine as my father took the scroll, I stared back, unwilling to let him win as I waited for my father to throw him out. But he didn't and steady open the scroll and began to read. The young man stared at me the whole time. It would be a good match. My father unbelievably said, What do you Same idea. What did I say? What did I say here in front of all the advisors and this young man whose name I didn't even know, who looked at me like he was somehow winning something. I finally broke by contact with this stupid brown eyes and looked to my father. Know. As you can see, first-person tightly follows a single character, showing a reader their thoughts and emotions as they happen. In the next section, we'll look at second person. 5. Second Person: Finally, before we move on to the tenses, let's look at these second-person point of view. The third and least used point-of-view is second person. Second person is where the reader is directly addressed, telling them their own actions and thoughts. Actually, well, second person is little used in fiction. It's fairly common in non-fiction, especially when attempting to establish a rapport with the reader. Second person is denoted by using you pronouns, you, your, Etc. Have you ever considered switching your cell phone service provider? Or you've two can save money on car insurance. Like first-person. Second-person only has one form. Second person tells the reader what they're doing. So in fiction, it's best used in shorter writing samples or throughout a longer work that primarily uses another viewpoint, such as addressing the reader. Addressing the reader is less common in modern storytelling, but you'll find it quite often in books from the 1800s and early 1800s. Something like now, dear reader, you might be wondering Why would have ever done such a stupid thing. The use of u encourages the reader to stay as themselves, rather than identifying with a character in a story. Which is why it's difficult to use for fiction, but great for nonfiction and marketing. Okay, let's summarize when we want to use second person. Because it's hard for readers to imagine themselves as doing something they're not, or being something they're not. This is a hard, though not impossible viewpoint to use for an entire story. Still, it can be used when you want to directly address your reader. If you want to bring your reader into the action. Second-person can also be used to establish rapport or trust with your reader, which is why it's often used in advertising, nonfiction, and marketing related writing. Though this can also be done in fiction. For our second person example, we're back to Princess Eleanor, except now you, the person taking this class are princess Eleanor. You lean your head on your hand as your father's advisors drone on about who knew what? They never shut up and yet they never said anything we're saying. In theory, you have to be here to learn what goes into running a kingdom. But all you've ever picked up was that less advisors are better. The door to the throne room slams open. You sit up as a young man you've never seen before enters. There's something about his movements. You don't like something that reminds you of a snake or maybe a wolf. He strides up to where your father sits by your side, handing him a scroll. Your majesty, He says to your father, though he looks at you, his eyes lingering too long. I've come to S for your daughter's hand in marriage, his eyes stay on yours as your father takes the scroll, you stare back, unwilling to let him when you wait for your father, throw this upstart out, but he doesn't. Opening the scroll. Young man stares at you will your father reads, it would be a good match. Your fathers is finally with two same idea. You can't believe this, that your father was suggests such a match with a man who knew nothing about and had never before met here in front of all the advisors. What could he be thinking? No. To things to note here. You might have noticed that I've switched into present tense for this example, where all the other ones are in past tense. This is because second person is often paired with present tense, which we will talk about more in the following sections about tensors. Since second person already stretches reader believability by asking them to agree with whatever you are saying about them. Asking them to believe something they've potentially already done adds in another hurdle. The other thing to note here is whether or not reading or hearing this section felt awkward to you. Well, second person technically does not have different forums such as limited or objective. You can vary how much information you are providing in the text and hence how much you are asking the reader to believe. If you're telling the reader what they're feeling or thinking, it may be harder to maintain over longer works. Not impossible. Of course, nothing is ever impossible. But you will probably eventually hit a point where a reader says, I would never do that and loses interest in the story. Did this section make you feel that way? Different readers are more or less sensitive to that. In the next section, we'll define our tenses. 6. What is Tense?: Now that we've defined and looked at what viewpoints are and what types of viewpoints exist. Let's combine them with tenses. In this case, we're talking about verb tenses. And verb tenses connect what is happening in a story to a time period. Just make sure we're all on the same page of verb is an action word, a word that tells what the characters are doing. Words like ran, walk, or dreaming. There are three main verb tenses. Past, present, and future. Of these past and present are used most often when telling a story. And we'll explore these in more detail in future sections. Just as a note, English actually has 12 different verb tenses. But for our intents and purposes, we're just going to focus on the major ones. Now a story often uses many different verb tenses, dialogue, we'll touch on all of them. And depending on your viewpoint, you may have flashbacks, which is where a character remembers things that have already happened to them or ascites to the reader, or where the character reflects on something outside the action of the story. When we talk about the tense of the story, we talk about what the majority of the pros, the part outside the dialogue that describes the action of the story isn't. So e.g. in our viewpoint examples, most of them were in past tense, retelling events that have already happened. Well, our second person example was in present tense, which tells events as they happen. Let's explore our tenses in more detail. 7. Past Tense: In this section of the class, we'll look at past tense. Past tense is simply actions that have already happened. Actions that are in the past, if you will. This is the most common verb tense used in storytelling. Alright? Basically you can use past tense for almost every type of story. Because readers are used to past tense, they will automatically accept it and not find it distracting or hard to get into. If you're unsure what tense you should be using or if you're just beginning past tense is a good starting point. Past tense can also be used with greater control because the implication is that the story has already happened, hence the past tense. You can weave in other elements. You have the reader sides we talked about in second person, something like little did I know that my troubles were just beginning. You can have frame stories where a character is looking back on events that happened earlier in their life, such as in To Kill a Mockingbird. Past tense can also be useful if you're using multiple timelines as you can control the flow easier than with other tenses. We talked earlier about there being 12 different verb tenses. There are actually four different past tenses. But for all intents and purposes, you don't need to know this unless you're a super nerd like I am. When you write in past tense, you will use a combination of all four of these. Simple past is someone having done something that has finished. I danced in the moonlight. Past continuous is someone having done something ongoing in the past. I was dancing in the moonlight. Past perfect is something that happened in the past that was related to another event. Past perfect is a verb combined with has, had or have. Before that night, I had danced in the moonlight. Past perfect continuous is like past continuous and ongoing action. But this one is related to another event like past perfect. I had been dancing in the moonlight when Damien appeared. As I said, it's not necessary to know the breakdown of the past tense types. But it's good to be aware that you will use all of these when writing. I've seen people get confused with past perfect in particular. So make sure you're using the proper head have or has that makes the events date in the past where it belongs. We're going to let princess Eleanor go and do a new example for our tenses. It was a dark and stormy night. The night I came home to find my front door is skew and my family missing. Aside from the door, nothing else had been touched. I moved through the house so afraid of what who I would find. But there was nothing. No one. George's sheets, whereas unmade as ever, Charlotte's toys laid scattered across the floor like always. If not for the door, I would have assumed Laura had taken the kids to her mother's. She did some times when I was out too late or when the thought of me out doing what I did became too much for her. But the door was new. The doors book does something sinister, something violent. I crept through the darkened house, heart hammering in my chest. Nothing, no clues. At least not until I entered the kitchen. There, a note laid on the table reflecting what little light shone in through the window. I swallowed and reached for it. This Peston section gives the impression that the story has already played out. That the character is telling the story of what happened rather than going through it for the first time. In the next section, we'll look at present tense. 8. Present Tense: Now, let's look at present tense. Present tense is when you tell things as they are happening. Think of a reporter live on the scene reporting everything that's going down around them as they speak. Because of this, the action feels more immediate, like it's really happening for the first time. Present tense is the second most common storytelling tense and is more common in some genres than others. Literary fiction and young adult, e.g. however, some people do find present-tense distracting and have a hard time reading stories written this way. Think about whether or not you're using present tense because it fits the story you're trying to tell. Or just because, just because ones are often the ones that bothers sensitive people. Another thing to take note of is whether or not you accidentally switch tenses will reading. If you're not used to writing in prison tense, sometimes you can mess up and end up back in past tense. So when do we use present tense? Because present tense gives the impression of things being experienced as they happen. It can add a sense of urgency or make the action more engaging. This can be useful for genres such as thrillers or Mysteries, though these genres can also use past tense. Present tense is also often paired with first or second person. With first-person where the reader is in the character's head. Using present tense can give the impression of the reader experiencing the action as it happens to the character as well. Second person, as we discussed, is little Houston fiction, but used often in marketing and other nonfiction uses. So it too is often used with the present tense, where the reader is being directly addressed, which gives the impression of the writer having a dialogue with the reader. This is not to say that you can't use present tense with third-person, you absolutely can. And many stories have been written using this combination. It's just less common than the third person past tense combination. Like past tense, present tense also has four different types. Again, not necessary to know this. You probably already know this honestly, just by speaking English. You'll notice that the types are more or less the same as the past tense ones just now taking place in the present. Simple present is someone doing something. I dance in the moonlight. Present continuous, is someone doing something ongoing? I am dancing in the moonlight. Present perfect is something that has happened before and is continuing to happen. Present perfect is a verb combined with has or have. I have danced in the moonlight. Present perfect continuous is an ongoing action that started in the past. I have been dancing in the moonlight. Again, this is purely for information sake, and you don't need to memorize this. Like with past tense. You'll use a combination of these when using present tense, present perfect and present perfect continuous can be a bit tricky. Make sure you're using has or have. Never had. Alright, going back to our person with the missing family, it is a dark and stormy night. I come home to find my front door askew and my family missing aside from the door and nothing else has been touched. I move through the house afraid of what, who I will find. But there is nothing. One. George's sheets or as unmade as ever. Charlotte's toys lay scattered across the floor like always. If not for the door, I would assume Laura has taken the kids to her mother's. She does sometimes when I'm out too late or when the thought of me doing what I do becomes too much for her. But the door is new. The doors speaks to something sinister, something violent. I creep through the darkened house, heart hammering and my test. Nothing, no clues. At least not until I enter the kitchen. There, a note lays on the table reflecting what little light shines in through the window. I swallow and reach for it. Though I mostly went through this and just change the tenses and each sentence. Compare this passage to the past tense one. See how this one no longer gives the impression of the narrator already knowing the outcome of the scene. This is a new experience now, they don't know where their family is or how this plays out. In our next video, we'll look at other tenses. 9. Other Tenses: In this section, we'll look at other tenses and when you would use them. There's really only one other type of tense. And it's not necessarily something you're going to want to use for an entire story. I mean, you could, but quite frankly it would be weird and come across as gimmicky. This tense is more for emphasis or specific uses. Future tense tells what is going to happen in the future. I will open the door and go for a walk, or he will rue the day he crossed me. Like past and present tense. Future tense has four types, which are essentially the same as past and present four types, except, you know, in the future. They are simple. Future, future continuous, future perfect, and future perfect continuous in case you really wanted to know. Future tense is not often used in storytelling, but it can be used if the character is attempting to predict how something is going to go. It should not then go the way the character predicts. Let's say, oh, our character Jane needs to confront her boss about someone stealing things at work. We can use future tense for Jane to run through a theoretical encountered before the actual encounter happens. When future tense is used, It's most often found in dialogue. I promise I'll get you the money, e.g. it can also be found in internal monologues, like our previous example of Dane running through an encounter in her head before it happens. Let's put some future tense in to our missing family example. It was a dark and stormy night. The night I came home to find my front door skew, I paused outside wondering what I would find inside. My imagination run wild. I could see myself walking in the door. Things would be strewn all over. Perhaps the dishes would be broken all over the floor. And my family, I could only hope they were gone, perhaps Dolores parents, like they sometimes did. But my mind is applied the worst. Blood would be pulled on the floor and in the bedrooms. When I would push the door is open. No, I couldn't think like that. Facts first, conjecture would get me nowhere. Taking a deep breath, I pushed open the door. As you can see, the story is still in past tense with some future woven it. Next we'll introduce our project for this class and wrap everything up. 10. Recap and Project Introduction: Alright, thanks for taking the class with me. I hope you better understand what point of view and tense are and feel like you can use it in your own work. So just to recap, for points of view, we had third person, limited, omniscient and objective, second-person and first-person and intense as we went over past and present tense, as well as when you would use future tense. Our project for this class is to write a short piece, two to 300 words. Have it be someone doing something, not just thinking or internal monologue, but actually physically moving through the space and doing something. And it would also be helpful if there had some sort of emotion they were going through. They're frustrated or they're angry or they're sad. So write the piece first and third person past tense. And you can use any of the three types of third person that you want. And then using what you've learned from this class. Rewrite the piece in first-person past-tense, then second person past tense. Once you've done all three points of view in past tense, go ahead and do them in present tense. You can also try additional combinations such as trying future tense if you so choose. But take note how changing the points of view and the tenses changes the feel of that piece of writing. In theory, it's the same piece of writing. The character is doing the same things and feeling the same things. But by changing your point of view and you're tense, it changes the piece. Which combination is do you feel work best for the piece which shows the emotion the best or which best conveys the feeling that you want from that piece of writing. Once you've worked through this exercise, go ahead and take what you feel is the best combination, as well as what you feel is the worst combination. And post them here in the project section. Also, please note why you chose these two samples. Alright, I look forward to seeing what you come up with.