Watch a soccer match from one player's helmet-cam and you only know what they see; watch from the blimp and you see the whole field. Point of view is the camera a story uses — and it decides how much you, the reader, are allowed to know.
The lens on the story
Point of view is the perspective from which a story is told. First person uses 'I' and limits us to one character's knowledge. Third-person limited follows one character closely; third-person omniscient knows everything, including all characters' thoughts. The choice controls what the reader knows and feels.
A narrator whose account we can't fully trust — through bias, naivety, or deception — is unreliable. The gap between what they say and what's true becomes part of the story's meaning.
A first-person narrator who insists they're calm while describing frantic actions signals unreliability — the reader sees past their words.
- A story reports the private thoughts of several different characters.
- Recall which perspective has access to everyone's mind.
- Name the point of view.
What you should see: Access to all characters' thoughts is third-person omniscient narration.