A writer's choice in the narrator is crucial for the way a work of fiction is perceived by the reader.

There is a distinction between first-person and third-person narrative, which Gérard Genette refers to

as intradiegetic and extradiegetic narrative, respectively. Intradiagetic narrators are of two types: a
homodiegetic narrator participates as a character in the story. Such a narrator cannot know more
about other characters than what their actions reveal. A heterodiegetic narrator, in contrast,
describes the experiences of the characters that appear in the story in which he or she does not
participate.
Most narrators present their story from one of the following perspectives (called narrative modes):
first-person, or third-person limited or omniscient. Generally, a first-person narrator brings greater
focus on the feelings, opinions, and perceptions of a particular character in a story, and on how the
character views the world and the views of other characters. If the writer's intention is to get inside
the world of a character, then it is a good choice, although a third-person limited narrator is an
alternative that does not require the writer to reveal all that a first-person character would know. By
contrast, a third-person omniscient narrator gives a panoramic view of the world of the story, looking
into many characters and into the broader background of a story. A third-person omniscient narrator
can be an animal or an object, or it can be a more abstract instance that does not refer to itself. For
stories in which the context and the views of many characters are important, a third-person narrator
is a better choice. However, a third-person narrator does not need to be an omnipresent guide, but
instead may merely be the protagonist referring to himself in the third person (also known as third
person limited narrator).