The viewpoint character gives the coloring of the story. Whatever this characters says, we will believe. It may or may not be true, according to the main character, but because he isn’t there ‘physically’ to voice his opinions, we will have to take the viewpoint character’s word for it.
In a novel you can play around with viewpoint. You can have several viewpoint characters. In a short story it works best with one.
So your main character, whether he’ll be telling his own story or someone else will be doing it for him, has to be established at the start of your story.
Having said that, let’s see the reasons why the main character may not be telling his own story...
- Perhaps our main character is one that readers won’t sympathize or empathize with.
- Or the main character will not view highly with our readers
- Or the viewpoint character knows all the facts and can tell the story better
- Etc.
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Let me give you an example of a secondary character telling the story of a main character…
Let’s say your secondary character is a psychiatrist and the main character is the patient. Depending on what’s going to go on in the story, we’ll have to choose who’s in a better position to tell it. In this case, I will choose the psychiatrist.
I’ve done this because the patient is confused, being the one with the problems. The psychiatrist knows all the facts and his opinions will make things clearer to readers.
So, as the secondary character (the psychiatrist) unravels the story, we’ll become involved in the main character because it’s the main character’s story that is been told.
