narrative voice and point of view

third person omniscient narrator

A narrative voice that knows the thoughts and feelings of all characters and knows everything connected to the story. refers to characters as he or she.

free indirect style

a characters thoughts and feelings seem to be directly expressed through a third person narration, freely taking on the views and often the language of the character. narratives often slide between conventional third person narration and this style, moving from a more detached voice to one that is more intimately connected to a character.

inadequate narrator

a narrator who doesn’t seem to understand as much as what’s happening as the reader

unreliable narrator

a narrator who is perhaps self-deceiving or who cannot be trusted to give a version of events that is to be believed

self conscious narrator

reminds the reader that what they are reading is fiction, dispelling any illusion that the characters are real people etc

intrusive narrator

a narrator who, telling the story in third person, intervenes in the narrative, with a comment in the first person

multiple voices

more than one narrative voice used in a single text, can be first or third person or a mixture of the two

first person narrative

a narrator who speaks as I, often a character who plays a role in the story although it may not be his or her story

focaliser

in the third person narrative, the character from whose perspective the action is seen

stream of consciousness

a narrative style that imitates the qualities of thoughts and feelings, making the reader feel as if they’re inside someones head. the grammar and structure suggest the random and fragmentary nature of the thought. in the third person its an extreme version of free indirect style. in the first person its an extreme version of interior monologue.

second person address

a narrative voice that directly addresses the reader as you. its rare for a whole text to do this as its very hard to maintain.

interior monologue

first person as though the narrator is verbalising their thoughts as they occur.