: How do I tell my short story? Based on this outline, I'm not sure how to to best re-tell this story. In particular, I'm not sure if I should tell the story as a first person "narrator,"

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I once heard from a trusted teacher that first person should only be used when either (a) the main character is someone other than the narrator or (b) the narrator has a unique voice.

An example of (a) is A Prayer for Owen Meany, where the narrator, Johnny, is telling us about Owen. For (b), see Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn. ("You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter.")

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More detail about why you have this dilemma would help, but I can answer this question in a general sense. I'm assuming you're writing fiction based on the historical setting of World War II Europe.

When deciding between first and third person, you need to consider the needs of your story, and decide what information needs to be conveyed to the reader; that - combined with the mood you want to create - will help you make this decision.

Point of view is the place from which a writer listens in and watches. Choosing one place or another determines what can and can't be seen, what minds can and can't be entered. Tracy Kidder and Richard Todd. Good Prose. 2013.

First-person narration - "I did this, I saw that" - has the advantage of letting the reader live in the skin of a character. The reader experiences the story intimately. The main problems with first-person viewpoints are that it makes it hard to convey any information from any other viewpoint. You have to have other characters tell the viewpoint character things. Any exposition or background information the reader needs is harder to get across, as these can seem clumsy and forced when filtered through a viewpoint character.

Third-person narration - "Baby blue did this, she saw that" - can seem detached, but is more flexible than living exclusively in one character's head. It's easier to change viewpoints and convey information outside the flow of the story. Characterization and mood can be harder to get across, depending on the situation.

There are hybrids of both approaches, however, particularly well-suited for historical fiction and memoirs: Limited third-person, for example, can be helpful in giving the writer a bit more freedom while following the thoughts and dreams of a single character. You can also use the format of another person telling the story - a translator, perhaps, or an ancestor making sense of family stories or interviews. This can be clumsy at short-story length, as it takes up more space, and can introduce shifting viewpoints, which can be confusing if not handled carefully.

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