There are three main perspectives in writing.
- First Person
- Omniscient
- Third Person
The First-person perspective is the perspective of a character or the author. It describes the scene from the character’s point of view and can only include what the character can see and know.
The Omniscient perspective is an outside view of the scene and can describe anything the narrator can see, know or choose to show but can not include any character’s thoughts.
The Third Person perspective is a combination of First Person and Omniscient. It is not as intimate as First Person but more so than Omniscient.
This exercise was to write 2 paragraphs in First Person and then again in Third Person.
Update 2023-02-27:
Feedback was minimal, apparently, I did this right.
You have done a good job on this.
It had been a typically brutal day at the office. Stressful and long but I was finally able to head home, albeit 3 hour’s later than I would have liked. It was a pleasant temperature so I decided to walk the 5 blocks home instead of calling for an Uber. Three blocks in I’m thinking it was the right decision as the walk was melting away the day’s stress. But then I turned the corner and nearly ran into Cheryl, former colleague, lover, and the last person I wanted to see. I considered turning around for a quick getaway, but she saw me and started to wave manically and calling out my name so loudly it echoed off the buildings and made it impossible for me to pretend I hadn’t noticed her.
“Cheryl. It’s good to see you. It’s been a while,” I said, putting on a fake smile and trying to act happy at this unfortunate encounter. She approached me, arms outstretched, head cocked to the side, smile on her face, and hugged me. I reluctantly reciprocated, not wanting to hurt her feelings. It’s not that Cheryl isn’t a nice person. Quite the opposite, she volunteers, is there for her friends, and never says a bad word about anyone. It’s just that she’s very noisy. She likes to talk, loudly, mostly about irrelevant stuff like the latest reality show, or what was happening in some celebrity’s life. If she sees someone by themselves, she assumes they’re lonely and will “remedy” their loneliness with her presence. Even when she reads, she comments out loud about the story and will stop to share whenever there is something she liked. Which is usually every other paragraph.
After a long and stressful day at the office, Bill was finally able to head home. It was late, everyone else had already gone for the day and when he got outside he found the temperature to be pleasant and decided to walk home. The walk was doing him well. By block 3 of his trek, he was visibly more relaxed, his head bobbed from side to side to a tune stuck in his head, his arms were swinging freely and he had a spring in his step. But that all changed when he turned a corner. He suddenly stopped dead and tensed up, he started to turn back in the direction he came when a woman, walking down the street in his direction, started waving her hands wildly and calling out his name.
He sighed and started toward the woman. “Cheryl. It’s good to see you. It’s been a while,” he said. A forced smile on his face. She picked up the pace as she approached him and wrapped her arms around him, giving him a big hug. He stood there, arms at his sides but after a few seconds, he put his arms around Cheryl and hugged her back. Bill’s eyes were shut tight and his forced smile had transformed into a grimace as the hug dragged on.