Perspective

First person perspective can be see in this image of the popular videogame Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. The entire game is played out with the player seeing everything from that soldier's eyes.

This in essence is what First Person Perspective is. Everything is told from that character's point of view. They rarely ever use their own name and will often use “I did” or “I said”.

Third Person Perspective can be seen from this popular PS3 exclusive title, Uncharted 3: We see everything happening to the character from over their shoulder or around them like a silent film crew is following and documenting their actions. In this perspective, you will see writers use their character's name rather than “I”. So it will be “Drake moved towards the edge of the platform”. Though there are actually 2 forms of 3rd person perspective… depending on how much insight into the character's minds we get.

Limited Omniscience is when a writer only puts/mentions thoughts for characters they are writing for down. Other character's thoughts are never mentioned unless those characters specifically tell them. This is most commonly used for roleplay because each author only knows their own character's thoughts. And to try to know other character's thoughts is generally considered to be against the rules.

An example of this would be: “Drake moved to the edge of the platform. The only thought going through his mind was that he hoped the soft wood underfoot would hold. He spotted his friend Sully across the gap. Sully motioned Drake to jump but said nothing. Drake took a few steps back then ran forward and leaped and hoped the wood on the other side was sturdy enough to hold him. ”

Omniscient is when all characters thoughts are written down and are available to the reader. This is not used for roleplay but more so for fan fiction or novels.

An example of this would be: “Drake moved to the edge of the platform. The only thought going through his mind was that he hoped the soft wood underfoot would hold. He spotted his friend Sully across the gap. Sully motioned towards Drake though he couldn't help but nervously eye the wood and hope it held strong while his friend took a running leap.”