“I am an invisible man.”

“Mrs. Dalloway said she would 
buy the flowers herself.”

“You are about to begin reading 
Italo Calvino's new novel.”

These three opening lines, 
from Ralph Ellison’s "Invisible Man,"

Virginia Woolf’s "Mrs. Dalloway,"

and Italo Calvino’s 
"If on a winter’s night a traveler,"

each establish a different point of view.

Who is telling a story, 
and from what perspective,

are some of the most important choices 
an author makes.

Told from a different point of view, 
a story can transform completely.

Take this fairytale:

"Rapunzel, Rapunzel,"
the Prince called, "let down your hair."

Rapunzel unbraided her hair 
and slung it out the window.

The prince climbed her tresses 
into the tower.

Rapunzel is typically told like this, 
with the narrator outside the story.

This point of view is called third person.

But Rapunzel can also be told 
by a character in the story—

a first person narrator.

The tail end of Rapunzel’s locks 
plopped down at my feet.

I grabbed on and began to climb… ugh!

I couldn’t untangle myself.

Strands came off all over me, 
sticking to my sweat.

In a first person narrative, the story 
can change dramatically

depending on which character
is the narrator.

Say Rapunzel was narrating 
instead of the prince:

I hope he appreciates how long it takes 
to unbraid 25 feet of hair, I thought.

OUCH! I'll be honest; I thought my scalp
would stretch off of my skull.

"Can you climb any faster?" I yelled.

In second person, the narrator addresses 
the story to the reader:

He calls your name. He wants you 
to let your hair down.

You just finished braiding it, but hey–
you don't get a lot of visitors.

Third person, first person, 
and second person perspectives

each have unique possibilities
and constraints.

So how do you choose a point 
of view for your story?

Constraints aren’t necessarily 
a bad thing—

they can help focus a story 
or highlight certain elements.

For example,

a third person narrator is necessarily
a bit removed from the characters.

But that can be good for stories 
where a feeling of distance is important.

A third person narrator 
can be either limited,

meaning they stick close to one 
character’s thoughts and feelings,

or they can be omniscient, 
able to flit between characters’ minds

and give the reader more information.

A first person story creates closeness 
between the reader and the narrator.

It’s also restricted 
by the narrator’s knowledge.

This can create suspense

as the reader finds out information
along with the character.

A first person narrator 
doesn’t necessarily

have to represent the character’s 
experience faithfully—

they can be delusional or dishonest.

In Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel 
"The Remains of the Day,"

Stevens, an aging British butler in 1956, 
recounts his many years of service,

but fails to acknowledge the flaws 
of the man he serves.

The cracks in his narrative eventually 
draw the reader’s attention

to the under-acknowledged failings 
of the culture and class system

he inhabits.

Justin Torres’s novel, "We the Animals,"

begins with a plural 
first person narrator:

“We were six snatching hands, 
six stomping feet;

we were brothers, boys, three little kings
locked in a feud for more.”

Partway through the story, 
the point of view shifts

to first person singular,
from we to I, as the boys come of age

and one brother feels alienated
from the others.

Second person is a less common choice.

It requires the writer to make the reader
suspend disbelief to become another “you.”

Placing the reader 
in a character’s perspective

can build urgency and suspense.

Sometimes, though,

second person is intended to distance 
the narrator from their own story,

rather than bring the reader closer 
to the story.

In these cases,

second person narrators refer 
to themselves as “you” rather than “I.”

Writers are constantly experimenting 
with fresh variations on point of view.

New virtual and augmented 
reality technologies

may expand the possibilities
for this experimentation.

By placing people at a particular 
vantage point in virtual space,

how might we change the way 
we tell and experience stories?