To truly understand and practice the concept of how a story can be presented differently using different narrators, pick a scene from your writing –– or write a new short story just for the task if you're feeling ambitious! –– and then rewrite it from the point of view of different narrators. Examples of possible narrators:
First person of each of the characters in the scene
First person from a character that is observing the scene (as in, the other characters are not aware of this character's presence –– pretend they're staring in through the window or something of the sort)
Second person from each of the characters in the scene (remember, this would go something like, “You say 'hello' to me but I ignore you,” or “I say 'hello' to you but you ignore me.”)
Third person general (don't give yourself a specific character to write from, just write it)
Third person from the mother of one of the characters (would she have an approving tone of her child's actions or not?)
Third person from the sister or brother of one of the characters (would they find it cool or boring? Would they call their sibling in the story names or make fun of their actions?)
Third person from a prison inmate (don't ask how the prison inmate is seeing this event occurring, just write!)
Third person from an animal's point of view
Any other possible narrators you can think of
Now once you've rewritten the scene four or five times, all with different narrators, compare and contrast –– see how different they are? Pretty cool considering the same thing is happening in each version. This should help you keep in mind the necessity of keeping your narrator’s viewpoint focused.
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