In storytelling, you have to make a lot of choices, and the success of your story depends greatly on making the right ones. And one of the choices you must make is deciding what perspective you intend to use to tell your story. This will determine which character is necessary and how you will portray them. Here, we will be looking at the two popular points of view — first person and third person — subdivided into five: omniscient, objective third person, close third person, objective first-person, and subjective first person.

Omniscient Point of View

This perspective is the most all-inclusive point of view, the omniscient third person. Also called the godlike perspective, this viewpoint gives the feel of an all-powerful, all-knowing deity who sees into the hearts and minds of its characters and unveils their most intimate secrets. Here, the author and the narrator look more like the same person, but that is not really the case. This narration style sees, knows, and usually exposes everything about the characters in the story. 

Objective Third Person Point of View

A step away from the all-seen eye of the omniscient point of view is the objective third-person point of view. A classic example of this viewpoint is Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon. In this story, we can see and hear everything every character does, but we can't get inside their minds. This point of view is more like a video camera, recording and reporting everything it sees. So, readers get to be viewers having access only to the physical aspects of the story and are left to deduce the rest. This is the most realistic point of view. It gives the feeling of moving around in the real world, trying to infer what someone else is thinking from what they say and what they do, but not really knowing what their thought process is like. On the downside, this is a cold perspective because it doesn't engage more deeply and intimately in the lives of its characters.

Close Third Person Point of View

Next to the photographic viewpoint is the close third-person point of view. Also known as the free direct discourse, this point of view narrates with third-person pronouns. And like the omniscient third person, it goes deeper into the mind and soul of its characters. As a minor difference, the whole story is often told from the perspective of only one character. But this close third-person point of view can often shift among several characters in the same narrative and quickly turn into the omniscient third person. George Eliot’s Middlemarch and Faulkner’s Light in August are written in this way. The main difference between the omniscient third person and the close third person is that the former is often more detached from its characters and can make extensive comments about society. While the latter is more intimate with its characters and tries to stay clear of passing comments about society. Free indirect discourse is the default style of most modern fiction.

Objective First Person Point of View

This narration style uses the first-person pronoun and tells the story through one of the characters — never the protagonist and definitely not a major character either and maintains a certain distance from the action of the narrative. He is likely absent in most of the scenes in the story or even in all of the story. A good example is Carraway's The Great Gatsby.

Subjective Person Point of View 

The farthest from a bird's eye view is the subjective first-person point of view. Here, the first-person narrator is the protagonist or one of the main characters in the story. For example, Huck Finn is both the narrator and the main character of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. We witness everything in the story through Huck’s eyes and ears and nothing more. Another example is Scout Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird. Here, the narrator is not the main character but one of the main characters in the story. These days, this point of view is becoming more prevalent.