Young Writers Society

I'm conflicted on which I should use. I'm really leaning towards limited but....I mean my story is dealing with witches and it's a young adult so what do you think?

Pros and cons to each person type:

First Person

Pros: You get 100% access inside a character's head.
Cons: You get absolutely 0 access to other characters' heads and must modify every scrap of description to reflect the fact you can't step outside your character's head for even a minute (You can't really say "I blushed" because people can't see their own blushes. You'd say "I felt heat in my cheeks". You also can't say things like "There was a man behind me"; you have to give other details that tell us why she knows this). You must also basically become a different person while writing.

Second person
Pros: It can be even more inclusive than first person, because you're telling everything with "you".
Cons: Rather difficult to pull off without sounding super simplistic and strange to write in.

Third person limited
Pros: You get a break from the character's head every once and awhile, you can use multiple PoVs much more easily, it's often easier to capture things like the scope of a story.
Cons: Sometimes it feels clinical and doesn't capture the nuance of the character's voice.

Third person omniscient
Pros: You're not limited to any heads at all and can bounce around, giving giant snapshots of the scene easily.
Cons: It can be hard for readers to feel attached to any one character.

This is a really small sample of pros/cons. But I hope it helps.

Personally, I consider third person limited one of the easiest to write in. It lets you get close to one person without being overwhelmed by their voice, and it also gives you space to give little extras that they might not be aware of; an absent gesture or things going on behind a character's back.

Second person
Pros: It can be even more inclusive than first person, because you're telling everything with "you".
Cons: Rather difficult to pull off without sounding super simplistic and strange to write in.

"If On A Winter's Night, A Traveller" by Italo Calvino. It's about you reading "If On A Winter's Night, A Traveller". I love it, with a mighty love. Haven't seen many others work though.

I think these days, there are a lot of books that are written with the hope that they will be optioned into filmed later on. One of the juicy things about fiction is you can have a complicated point of view, like the 'unreliable narrator', it can play with perspective, without it being obvious until you want it to be. I think if you are writing for something, a class or comp, and want to show off your chops as a writer, it is a good idea to show that you can write something that shouldn't necessarily be taken at face value, first person is a neat way to do it. It is also a good idea to use it for pacing and focus, if you tie it to someone's train of thought. I think Delillo has an interesting way of using this, one of my favourite lines of his follows the thoughts of one character who isn't quite paying attention, so he writes "He said something." Simple, but effective.
Part of it relies on your character of course, whether they would be comfortable narrating or not, how you want them to be seen. In any case, it is usually more effective if it seems like there is a lot more going on in the world you are creating, this goes for basically any genre. It is more funny, or more scary, or more intimate, if it seems the characters have a life without you.

If you are writing about witches, do you want it to be real or psychological? Do you want there to be a clear hero and a clear villain, or it to be more muddy than that? "The Moth Diaries" by Rachel Klein might be an interesting read if you haven't already. YA, supernatural themes, plays with whether or not it is all real or a delusion of the main character. This is done in diary entries which is part of gothic counterfeit and the unreliable narrator techniques typical to gothic/horror lit. If it is more fantasy, like Harry Potter, third person can help keep the action straight and help the movement between different scenes and perspectives.

Rose is right though, 3rd limited is probably the most flexible. Tell us more about your story though.