Choosing a point of view is one of the most important decisions you will make when designing your novel, short story, or film. This class teaches you the differences between each of the points of view, addressing both their strengths and weaknesses and alerting you to potential challenges.

What will you learn in this course?

• Identifying your audience: Who is the narrator talking to? Why do you need to know?
• Unreliable and reliable narrators
• Different ways narrators share information: what to reveal, what to conceal?
• First-Person Perspective
• Third-Person Limited Perspective: Following one character
• Third-Person Omniscient: Don't get overwhelmed by the all-seeing eye
• Multiple-Person Perspective: How it is different than omniscient 
• Objective vs. Subjective Narration: How much personality do you want your narrator to have?
• Second Person
• How your narration looks on the page
• Making your own point-of-view "rules."

My goal is for you to have a solid understanding of how point of view functions in a story as opposed to just giving you rules. This allows you to make decisions for yourself.

I have included a print-out of the 'What Maisy Knew' excerpt discussed as it is rather lengthy.

Course Project:

If you want to put these lessons into practice, your class project is to write a paragraph or a scene of your choosing three different ways:

1. First-person
2. Third-person limited
3. Third-person omniscient

This will mean that your scene or paragraph must contain more than one character. Use the advice given throughout the course. This will teach you the nuances of each. You will be surprised what it tells you about each of these points of view and the ways the limitations of each change your narrative!