First Person Narrative Point of View

To get the most from this article on understanding First Person Narrative Point of View, you first need to read the one on Third Person Narrative.

Still here? That means you are already familiar with the roles of four different people in a third person novel:

• The Author
• The Narrator
• The Viewpoint Character
• The Protagonist

I now want to talk about these same people in respect to first person narrative point of view...

The Author and the Narrator

Just like in a third person novel, every reader understands that a first person novel is written by the author - the man or woman whose name appears on the cover.

But in order to better imagine that the book is in fact an account of a real person undergoing real experiences, the reader will conveniently ignore the author's name and pretend that the words are written instead by the narrator.

Unlike in a third person narrative, where the narrator is this invisible, godlike witness to the events, the narrator in a first person narrative is an actual character in the story - the one whose eyes we see the events through and whose thoughts we have access to.

So in The Catcher In The Rye, for example, the author is J. D. Salinger and the narrator is Holden Caulfield. We know on a logical level that Salinger wrote all the words and dreamed up Holden Caulfield in his imagination. But when we read the book, it feels like Holden is real and that he is speaking to us directly.

As a matter of fact, if Holden Caulfield's name had appeared on the cover in place of Salinger's, and if the book had been marketed as an autobiography, it would have made perfect sense.

If a third person narrator's job is to be as unobtrusive as possible, keeping their voice neutral and non-opinionated (except when they are standing in the viewpoint character's shoes, when they can allow their words to become coloured by the viewpoint character's voice), the narrator of a first person novel clearly has a very different job to do.

Imagine if Holden Caulfield kept his attitudes and opinions to himself and told the story straight. Imagine if Huckleberry Finn did. If that was the case, there wouldn't be a lot of heart and soul left in either of those wonderful first person narrative novels.

The Viewpoint Character

If a first person narrator is the character whose eyes we see the novel's action through and whose thoughts we hear, does that also make them the viewpoint character? Yes, it does.

And does that mean that there is no difference whatsoever between a narrator and a viewpoint character in a first person narrative? Sorry, but no - not exactly. The difference is subtle but crucial, and understanding it (and putting it into practice) will set you head and shoulders above the competition when the time comes to sell your novel.