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Fictional Narrative Basics - Point of View
Unit Completion Date: End of Week 5
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Perhaps no other writing decision affects the finished story as much as point of view choice. When I teach a traditional classroom-based course, point of view is usually the first topic I address because of its importance. I also find that issues of point of view are the ones that new writers tend to struggle with the most--perhaps because there are so many facets.
If you review the examples from "Beginning" Exercise 5 provided by your fellow students in the point of view section of the craftbook on the discussion board, you see terms such as "first person" and "past tense" being used to describe aspects of point of view. In addition to possibly having the widest range of influence on a story, point of view probably encompasses the largest critical vocabulary.
In the introduction to the "Perspective, Distance, and Point of View" section of What If?, Pam Painter and Ann Bernays quote Henry James' description of point of view in fiction as the "central intelligence" of the story. It is, they say, "the eyes, ears, memory and understanding through which we receive the story or narrative."
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