Romance Writing Exercise – Point of View – Who are you?
Time: 30-60 minutes
Action Step #1 – When you write a story, who are you? The point of view of a story is decided before you begin writing. The voice and the entire story change depending on who is speaking. There are basic point of view choices: First Person and Third Person.
Within the first person point of view, the narrator of the story (you) is either a participant or a peripheral character. You can be involved in the story or telling about what you are observing. Either way, the only motivations and feelings the reader hears is the narrator’s unless other characters speak through dialogue.
Write a story using the first person point of view. Remember that the only thing you can say about the other characters in the story is what the narrator observes with their eyes.
Action Step #2 – Third person is often used to tell a story. With third person point of view there is more leeway in telling the story. Within third person point of view, you can have limited omniscience. With this technique, you can observe all of the characters in the short story or novel with a godlike overview but you only know the inner feelings and motivations of your main character or characters.
Take the story that you wrote in Action Step #1 and rewrite it in the third person limited omniscience point of view. How does the story change now that you know more about the characters?
Action Step #3 – Writing, in different points of view, helps you to get comfortable and recognize each one. You will write your stories in the one that you choose as your favorite. For novels, there is one more point of view that works very well. It is third person full omniscience.
You can move freely from the head of one character to the head of another. This can be done in scene changes, chapter changes and the like to reflect a new character’s inner feelings. It is tricky for a shorter piece like a short story where it can get confusing if done wrong.
Use the same scene you first wrote and now show it from the view of two characters in the story. Since this is a short piece, the shifts can be confusing but the point of the exercise is to familiarize you.