First person, part the first

As I've said before, the term "viewpoint" gets used to mean both the person who is seeing the action (viewpoint character) and the way in which everything is written (viewpoint type). This is going to be about the latter sort of viewpoint. Specifically, it's about first-person.

First-person viewpoint is the "I" viewpoint: "I hate pickled beets. I've always hated them. But Ma thinks they're good for what ails you, so whenever I'm sick, I get pickled beets."

A lot of people jump straight to...