First Person Narrative

PYCP adminEnglish & Literacy

What to do when your English teacher asks you to write a story using the first-person narrative. 

Firstly, you’ve got to know what a first-person narrative is. When people write stories, they can either do this in the first, second or third person. First-person means that when they’re writing, they’re going to be saying ‘I’ a lot. For example, ‘This morning, I woke up before my alarm went off. I let out a loud groan, turned over and tried falling back asleep again’. Basically, you are writing from your point of view. 

When you’re writing a story from a second-person or a third-person narrative. You’re writing from someone else’s point of view. More specifically, in the second-person narrative, you’ll be using ‘You’ a lot, for example, ‘You always told me that I should have become a Florist. You said that first, you’d teach me how to grow flowers but you’ll have to take me to the gardening shops for that”. 

The third-person narrative uses a lot of He, She, They etc. For example, ‘They parked their car outside their house late in the night. The weather was wild, and they hesitated to leave the car. They thought that they’d be there for too long if they didn’t try. So Geoff, who was sitting in the front seat, opened his door. He took a step out but pulled it back quickly and thought that maybe he should wait 5 minutes longer before trying again”.