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Narrative Composition: Question 3

Syllabus W4

Multiple choice 1 mark

Which of these four extracts keeps to a single, consistent narrative viewpoint throughout, staying inside Sana's perspective without slipping into another character's thoughts or feelings? [1]

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Worked solution

Assessment focus

This tests the ability to recognise a genuinely consistent narrative viewpoint, reporting only what the viewpoint character could observe or infer from outside, as distinct from extracts that slip into another character’s private thoughts or cut away to a different scene entirely.

Why B is correct

Option B stays inside Sana’s perspective throughout: everything reported about Marcus (his knuckles going white, his face staying “carefully blank”) is external, observable detail that Sana could plausibly notice from across the deck, not a claim about his private inner feelings. Nothing in the extract requires the narration to have left Sana’s head.

Why the others are wrong

  • A reports Marcus’s unstated inner feeling (“felt a flicker of worry he didn’t want her to see”). Information Sana cannot observe, so the narration has silently hopped into his head.
  • C states both characters’ feelings directly, including Marcus’s, which is still head-hopping even though it is blunt and evenly balanced between the two characters.
  • D cuts away entirely to a different character and location (Sana’s mother, at the harbour), abandoning Sana’s viewpoint rather than merely extending it.