What is a Persona?
The persona of a story is the ‘voice’ of the story – the ‘main character’ of your composition. It is the lens through which your reader looks at the world of your story. The persona has to be interesting so that readers would be able to identify or even sympathise with him/ her.
Personas can be generally divided into two different types – the first person persona and the third person persona.
The first person persona (character-narrator) - ‘I’ and ‘We’. This is a standard choice for beginners, because handled well it locates your reader firmly in the mind of one character. Its success depends on your ability to find a convincing voice and stick to it. The wonderful thing about using the first person persona is that it gives your story the personal touch. The reader is able to sympathise with you, the writer, and feel personally involved in your story. The feelings you write about would seem more real. You can even express thoughts and questions without dialogue punctuation marks.
Eg. I was devastated when I heard the tragic news. I shook my head as hot tears coursed down my cheeks.
How could this have happened ?
Limitations
Despite its popularity, using the first person persona has some drawbacks. It is obviously very difficult to end with the death of a first person persona. One very important limitation is that you lose omnipotence as a writer. Omnipotence is the writer knowing what every character in the story is thinking, feeling or doing. When you use the first person persona, you, the writer, becomes a character in the story. As a character, it is impossible to know what other characters are thinking and feeling at the same time. So you can only limit what you write about the feelings of others as you cannot ‘enter the minds' of other characters. A writer who uses the first person persona and dwells too much on the thoughts and feelings of others would risk readers asking the question: “How do you know he is feeling that way ?”
The other important limitation is that you as a character in the story can only be at one place at any one time in the story. It is impossible- in fact- illogical that a persona can be everywhere and know everything at any one time. For example, if your persona returns home after reporting a crime at the police post, your persona would not be able to witness the events at the police post from then until the criminal is caught. More crucially, it is hard to describe the narrator’s appearance, or any important change of expression, or anything else that he cannot see for himself. There are, however, ways of overcoming this handicap. Another character may comment on the narrator’s looks; or else you can resort to the traditional method of having him look in the mirror.
The third person persona- When writing the third person persona, the ‘I’ is not present in your composition, except in direct speech. In fact, the personal pronouns in your composition would mainly be ‘he’ and ‘she’. The best thing about writing with the third person persona is that you, the writer, have omnipotence. You can be everywhere at the same time, and you know what everyone is thinking or feeling. You can inhabit the mind of any character you wish, describe their pasts and predict their futures. This is good as your story can progress even without the main character’s presence. You are able to know what other characters are thinking and feeling. In fact, it is your duty to write about them! Eg. After Jack went home, the police were able to track down the suspect and place him in custody. The guilt and regret etched on the suspect’s face showed deep remorse. But it was too late.
Limitations
Like the first person persona, there are limitations to the third person persona too. As you are more objective in your writing, your story becomes less personal. This means you lose the ‘personal touch’ in your composition. However, this can be countered. If you choose to write mainly on one character, the personal touch would be present. You should name your characters. If not, your composition becomes a confusing mish mash of third person pronouns, ‘he’ and ‘she’. It would be especially confusing if there are too many characters of the same gender in your composition. A confused reader would not be bothered to finish reading your story. A confused marker would never give a good grade. Do not have too many characters at the same time. Once again, you risk confusing the reader. You, as the writer, might get confused too!
Different personas – People/ objects. It is easy to pick an interesting persona. Different personas allow the reader to ‘see’ the picture from different viewpoints- living and non-living things alike. Just as each person has different character traits and different reactions to situations, picking an unusual persona would make your story so much more interesting for the reader and your teacher.
