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The narrator of a piece of writing is very important. The narrator is the voice telling the story and can be thought of as another character; although, most of the time you will not know who they are and they will never physically appear in the story. The writer can give them a personality that will show through the writing style; for example, a narrator may be humorous or perhaps judgemental. You may get asked to write in a specific form of narration in the exam or you may get the choice to choose. There are three different types of narration: first person, second person and third person.
First Person Narrator
A first person narrator is a specific character in the story that tells the story from their point of view. They are normally the protagonist (main character) in the story but don’t always have to be – they could be telling the story of a different character but from their point of view. Because the story is told from their point of view the reader will tend to sympathise and relate to them more.
First person narration can be easily recognised through the use of first person personal pronouns in the writing: ‘I’, ‘me’, ‘we’, ‘us’.
The first person narrator may be sharing events that he/she is experiencing or has previously experienced. Alternatively, they may be sharing events about other characters. The experiences of other characters could be told through the point of view of the first person narrator. On the other hand, incorporating direct speech from other characters in the narrative will allow for the other character’s point of view to come from their own perspective. There will be more explanation about direct speech, its effects and how to use it after we have discussed characterisation later in this unit.
Here is a short extract of a first person narration:
The sample paragraph above would make a great opening scene. This is because the reader is hooked on what ‘Jane’s news’ is. We know that the first person narrator is a character in the story but we do not yet know his/her name. The beginning has not quite come to a close because of this. If developing this story further you could jump to a scene of a flashback, something directly related to the news where you could introduce the name of the first person narrator – this flashback could act as Plot Point 1.
If you show the examiner that you are capable of jumping from scene to scene in your narrative, then this will give depth to your story and gain you extra marks. However, the tense needs to remain consistent. The above paragraph is kept simple, as everything, even when going on to develop the flashback scene, will be told from the past tense. If the above extract was told from the present tense and then it jumps to the flashback in the past, there is a risk that you may mix up your tenses. Setting everything in the past tense means there will be no confusion when jumping from present to past.
Second Person Narrator
A second person narrator is a very rare form of narration to find in a narrative. Second person means using the ‘you’ personal pronoun. It is common in persuasive and argumentative writing (speeches, advertisements etc.) but is very difficult to apply to narrative writing. Below is the extract we have previously looked at but this time the narrator has been changed to a second person narrator.
The expression is almost awkward. The writer is telling the reader that they have done something – they are putting the reader in the position of the main character in the story. It is a complicated form of narration and much harder to accomplish than you might think. For your exam, it is advised that you do not attempt writing a piece of narrative writing in the second person.
Third Person Narrator
A third person narrator is common in narrative writing. It doesn’t limit the character’s perspectives like first and second person does. It can be recognised through the use of the character’s name and using the third person personal pronouns: ‘he’, ‘she’, ‘him’, ‘her’, ‘it’, ‘they’, ‘them’. Take a look at the extract below that has been written in the third person.
As you can see from the above, the third person narration has allowed us to introduce another character’s name ‘Ashley’. We have also had the opportunity to find out the protagonist’s gender and include Jane’s perspective ‘Jane didn’t even register his amazement as she stood beside him …’ rather than it just being limited to Ashley’s, like in the first person narrator extract.
