Perspective

Personally, I hate it when someone asked, "What perspective do you write?" It's seriously cringe-tastic.


 
Because, really, the answer is mine.  It's the only perspective I have.  But that's not what they want to know. They want to know if you write in the 1^st person or the 3^rd person.

And the answer there is both. I prefer the 1^st person for short works. It delivers a more powerful experience, and allows me to lie to the reader using the narrator.

What? You thought you could trust a 1^st person narrator? They're the last person you should trust in the story. No, really. Read Turn of the Screw or Fight Club to see what I mean. 1^st person narrators are liars because it's their story, and they want you to be on their side. They want you to like them, and believe their side. And like real people, they should be willing to misrepresent the truth and outright lie to get that.

I also write in the 3^rd person for longer works. While I can't lie to the reader using the 3^rd person, it does allow me to misdirect their attention, jump narratives, and most importantly, jump in time and space. You see, a 1^st person narrator is limited to what they could see or know. A 3^rd person is a voice of God. They can travel through time. They can be anywhere. They can know the inner most thoughts of others. They can accurately report the story to the reader. It's also easier to maintain tension with the 3^rd person, because you can always jump away to another part of the story. Like the camera cuts to a different scene in a movie or tv show. It's easy to maintain tension when no argument is ever finished, just interrupted.

Invariably, someone is thinking, "Why can't a narrator lie to the reader?" As soon as the narrator lies, the reader has to question who that narrator is. Wonder about their motives and personality. Which then brings on questions about how does this character (who has motives and personality) have these god-like powers to see into the minds of others and why are they telling me this story?

And while having an omniscient telepath tell us a story is an interesting meta concept, it would make for really boring reading.

So, no, don't have your narrator lie to your audience, unless it's a person telling their story and then lie away.

But what makes that questions so cringe worthy for me is the inevitable crazy responses you'll hear from people. Things like, "I write in limited 3^rd person omniscient with forward leaping abilities."

What? 
No, seriously, I saw that once and I still have no idea what it actually means. How can you be limited and omniscient at the same time? That doesn't even make sense. If I had to break that down, I am willing to bet that author writes in the 3^rd person, and the other stuff at the end is how they describe their voice. You know, follow a limited number of protagonists, occasionally peeks into a head when it's dramatically appropriate and limits the use of foreshadowing.

That's if I had to guess. Which I don't, thankfully, as I think it would drive me mad. Mad, I say!