Comment. Information provided using the “I” character as narrator. Note (1) the character could be used so the information is not necessarily the narrator’s, and (2) the direct address of the reader, which is a technique now archaic.
Principle-narrations
* Narration is the telling of the story and not a venue for admirable prose.
* In a memoir (or a partial memoir or creative nonfiction), authors describe personal events. They cannot alter events, and the injection of imagined events to augment drama and meaning are not possible. As a result, story intensity is often dependent on word description of the action rather than adjustments in the action that are available to the fiction writer.
* In fiction, authors create stories in the mind of the reader through a narrator telling the story with techniques chosen to provide the most reader enjoyment. Intensity is mainly dependent on imagined conflict and action.
D. Point of view
Definitions of point of view
1) A particular position in space, time, or development from which something is considered or evaluated
2) A particular manner of considering or evaluating something
3) A particular reasoned mental attitude or opinion about something
The term “point of view” in writing is usually used in a positional sense. First-person point of view means the “I” gives story information to the reader. Third-person uses a “he” or “she” pronoun. Narrators also give story information directly to the reader. But the “manner of considering” and “reasoned opinion” aspects are also always implied in writing from a point of view, and thus can be confusing. These aspects may not be within the character purview, and can confuse the reader as to who is really telling the story and how honestly it is being told.
Often the analogy of a camera position is used for point of view. A character (or sometimes a narrator) is thought of as a camera lens through which the reader is told the story. But when a character gives story information to the reader, it is often not exclusively in the role of a camera. The character selects details within that character’s voice, intellect and experience, and the character also tells unique thoughts and feelings—neither is something a camera is capable of. Authors must consider these complexities in order to get the most out of storytelling and to avoid restrictive rules about point of view that deaden the vitality of the story.
