There are a couple of ways to relate a story that I thought you all might find them interesting and perhaps useful in forming magic presentations.

First person stories are told using "I" and are told from the personal point of view.

Second person narration use "you" form and is most common in interactive fiction. Role-playing games could also be considered second person fiction.

Third person uses the "he-she-it" point of view and the narrator is not usually a character. The speaker records what was seen and heard like a camera or a fly on the wall.

Excerpts from:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narrator

Great observation, Jaz.

I've used all three types and I've also told the same story at different venues with a different POV. For example, there's one that I tell in my Ren Faire performances in the first person. When I've told it at other venues, it's in third person.

Mike

I love the fact that you've delved into this idea, Jaz. Being a self-proclaimed Bard, I spend a lot of time looking over the different aspects of storytelling. I try to use all three views throughout my show.

But one particular effect is my story that I put with my "Wicker Man" effect. I start out telling a third person story, going into a first person narrative combined with the second person narrative. So in one effect, I use ALL THREE! I believe strongly in Eugene Burger's idea of texture in a show. Little things like changing the point of view of a story told can add that texture.

Huzzah to you for bringing it up.

Swooshing brooms
scatter the clinging
pronouns

Alright... I bow to the pain of my brain exploding... I didn't get it. Please feel free to explain.

I'm sorry..may you assuage your brain. I was quoting from my book CropCircleSecrets. Not being attached to the pronouns of your story allows you the freedom to experiment and see what the audience responds best to rather than what you might favor personally. Is so?

Really depends on the story.
When the magic happens TO someone in the story, I'll usually use first person.
When the magic happens BECAUSE of someone, or for historical stories, I'll go with third.

It depends on whether the story happened to me or to someone else.

Isso's sorry. May he assuage your brain. He was quoting from my book CropcircleSecrets. Not being attached to the pronouns of his story allows him the freedom to experiment and see what the audience responds best to rather than what he might favor personally. Is not so? And what about Ferlinghetti's 4th person singular of which nobody speaks? --Amanuensis

I'm not sure how the audience would understand 4th person singular. This is one of Ferlinghetti's concepts with which I am completely unfamiliar.

It carries a sense of duende.

My brain, properly healed, is ready to jump back into this one.

I think you can experiment with different forms or narrative when you're creating. When you perform it for paying people, you should have it worked out (and scripted and rescripted and rescripted again) And even after that, you may wish to change it (because we so often wish to) but when it comes to storytelling, I think ther point of view should be decided fairly early on in the process. That helps decide the overall feel of the story, along with who your character is.

Is so.

There is an interesting situation with stories and children. Children learn stories quickly. If you deviate from the way they learned them, they will call you on it. Adults may do this, but are less likely to. Perhaps part of the experience of growing up exposes us to different versions of stories, so we know they exist.

There are stories in our culture that exist mainly as "office stories" (largely unprintable) which have undergone various changes. Most of these are not suited to posting on the Café, but I think you may get the drift.

If you have Final Curtain you will see that many of Borodin's stories are in the third person. Some are told in the first person, then shift into third when necessary to give the background information of a piece. Done skilfully, you don't really feel the shift.

The main thing is to avoid shifting perspectives if there is no reason to shift them.