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Fictional Narrative Basics - Point of View
Unit Completion Date: End of Week 5
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Tense, person, and perspective serve to circumscribe the ways a narrative voice can behave and what information it can supply. Point of view is established in the story's opening passage, and a writer can generally narrow the point of view in subsequent passages, but rarely can he widen it after the initial contract is established without causing the reader to feel cheated. Occasionally a writer will step outside of the bounds of the narrative point of view he or she has established. For instance, when a story is predominantly told in the first person limited, and at a point the author includes some information the character could not possibly have known. This is generally spoken of as a "break" in point of view.
Examine your selected story from Best American and determine what the tense, person and perspective for the story are. Using the vocabulary developed in the preceding pages, provide a line or two from the story for each to support your case. Then, go back and examine the story to see if you can locate any places where the author breaks point of view by commenting on the action or providing information or some other action that varies from the point of view as established in the first pages of the story. Please post this exercise in the Point of View section of the class craftbook.
Point of View Exercise 4 (Req.) - Submit Response
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