First Person Narrator
First Person Narrator: The narrator is one of the characters who tells the story using first person pronouns such as I, me, and my.
"Moving Mountains" or "Guess What? I Almost Kissed My Father Goodnight" are told in the first person.
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"I've got to get to the bottom of it all somehow and maybe this is the best way. It's about my father."
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"I grab my little brother and dash into the living room."
Omniscient Narrator
Omniscient Narrator: The story is told by the author using third person pronouns such as he, she, they, their. The narrator is all-knowing: the narrator's knowledge and choices are unlimited.
If the same event is told by a narrator who knows everything that happens in the story, it might read this way:
| Mike
had to get to the bottom of it all somehow and maybe this was the best
way. It was about his father; (although his father would never imagine
Mike was so suspicious). |
Quinn grabbed his little brother Ben and dashed into the living room. "I have to take care of my brother," he told himself.
Ben felt scared as the heat blistered the paint around him but he knew his big brother Quinn would protect him.
Limited Omniscient Narrator
Limited Omniscient Narrator: The story is told from the point of view of one of the characters in the story using third person pronouns. The storyteller knows all about the character telling the story, but he or she has no knowledge of other characters.
The same event told from the perspective of one of the characters might read as
follows:
| Mike had to get to the bottom of it all somehow and maybe this was the best way. It was about his father. |
Quinn grabbed his little brother Ben and dashed into the living room. "I have to take care of my brother," he told himself. He could only imagine how scared Ben must be without his parents.
Objective Narrator
Objective Narrator: The author tells only what he sees and hears. He or she cannot enter any character's mind.
The same event told in a news report using objective narration could read as follows:
| James is a forty-five year old office manager of computer equipment. He is five ten, weighs 160 pounds.... |
The
wood was charred and twisted grotesquely. The painted blistered and
peeled. Quinn grabbed his little brother Ben and dashed into the living
room.