I've got an artist's view of point-of-view. I think it has to do with how an image gets recorded and transmitted to the viewer. It's partly about the location of the camera lens and partly about the type of camera and the printing of the image.
I think we can talk about genral ways of handling POV but each story has it's own point-of-view.
Sometimes a part of how the image got recorded(identity of narrator and how he got the info) is never directly stated but is implied by word choice, sentence structure, and so on.
As I see it pronouns are grammar, not point of view. A person speaking from personal experience usually but not always uses first person. The Little House books by Ingals Wilder are a good example of personal experience written as third person. Fiction can imitate this syle ans how a narrator, presumed to be speaking from personal experience who is using third person.
Oh dear this is getting to complicated.
I'll try to give a different way of classify point of view. I'm looking instead at the relationship between the narrator and the story.
imaginary--the narrator is the author who made up the story out of whole cloth. This style can be completely omnsicient. The narrator knows everything because he/she is god.
autobiographical--the narrator appears to be telling his or her own life story. She/he can use either first or third, but usuallly uses first person.
folk/fairytale/epic--The story appears to have been developed by the oral tradition. The narrator has compiled the oral storys into a written account. An example is the Lord of the Rings. This point of view is usually written as third-person omniscient.
historical--the story appears to have been compiled out of historical documents. It's usually written as third-person omniscient.This is the POV of Dune.
posted 1 month ago. ( reply )
