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| Photo courtesy of graur razva ionut on FreeDigitalPhotos.net |
By the way, if you find any typos in here, I am blaming them
on my cat, who decided that my lap belongs to her, not my laptop. I am typing
with the cat pretty much on my hands, and she is purring quite contentedly.
So, let’s talk a little about third-person POV. You already
know the basics – you use third-person pronouns. But let’s break it down a
little further. There are three types of third-person narrative: omniscient,
objective, and subjective. Since subjective
is a lot like first-person, and we just talked about that last Wednesday, let’s
do a quick comparison and contrast between the two.
Third-Person Subjective (Limited)
I will just straight up admit that this is my favorite
narrative POV to use and to read. For whatever reason, writing first person
doesn’t come naturally to me, and I tend to have a harder time getting into
books written in first person. This isn’t to say that I dislike first-person
narrative, it’s just not my natural inclination.
A lot of the ‘rules’ of first-person narrative apply to
third-person limited as well. A lot of the reading that I have done, however,
seems to indicate that third-person limited allows for a little more leeway
when describing your character. It’s easier to slip that kind of stuff in there
without disrupting the narration – the reader is already in a mindset of
observing this character rather than seeing through his/her eyes, so it won’t
seem jarring.
HOWEVER.
It won’t seem as jarring,
but it is way, waaay to easy to abuse this. You only get a tiny bit more leeway
than you do in first person. Character description is like an energy drink:
it’s awesome in just the right amount, but too much will make people want to
steer clear of you (yes, I speak from experience here).
If you want your narrative to be rich in description (and
why wouldn’t you?), the key is not to focus on the POV character. Focus on
landscapes and rooms, focus on the other characters, focus on the sounds and
sights and smells and sensations your POV character is experiencing. This is
what will make your narrative seem more real to the reader.
The benefit of third-person limited, as I have said before,
is that you immediately give the reader a person to latch onto – sort of a
companion that they can follow through the story. The drawback? It’s…well,
limited.
Third-Person Objective
This is the narrative point of view that almost all theatre
and film is told from. It’s sometimes called “camera lens” or “fly-on-the-wall”
narrative. I say ‘almost,’ because any film where you ‘hear’ the thoughts
inside the character’s head is not strictly fly-on-the-wall. Plus, some movies
and shows have the main character narrating them (such as the excellent show Burn Notice).
Basically, when you write from this POV, you have to write
the narrative like it’s a movie. No peeking into people’s heads. You don’t get
to know how the character feels. All you get from your character, in order to
indicate that, are facial expressions. Think of how actors portray characters. That
is what your narrative voice needs to do. This mode of storytelling, more than
any other, relies on showing, not telling. You can’t say, “She was sad.” You
have to say, “She frowned,” or “She wept.” So, it’s definitely one of the more
challenging ways to tell a story. Now, “show, don’t tell” is really important
no matter what, but it’s crucial for third-person objective.
The benefit of third-person objective is that you really
allow your reader to draw their own conclusions. Books intended to be very
thought-provoking work well with this type of narration. It’s an artful form of
storytelling. The drawback? It’s hard to write.
Third-Person Omniscient
Have you ever taken an open-book test and discovered that it
was almost harder than taking a multiple choice test?
That’s kind of what third-person omniscient is like. You
have so much freedom, and so many things to cover, that sometimes you have to
pick and choose what to relate. This can be really challenging, sort of the way
that when you take an open book test, there are a couple of things that might
answer the question, but you’re not sure which one your teacher is looking for.
On the other hand, because you get to choose what to tell or
what not to tell, you have to ability to make your reader think one thing when
something else is the way things actually are.(This is known as the untrustworthy
narrator.) It’s actually pretty fun, but it requires a lot of planning to pull
it off.
One of the most important things to remember is that your
narrator still is, in a way, a character of the story. This means that your
narrator needs to have a consistent voice. Just the way that in first-person or
third-person limited POVs you need to use a consistent vocabulary and style of
telling things, this applies for an omniscient POV. This means that if you do
explore people’s feelings and thoughts, you need to do it in a way that sounds
like the unique voice of the narrator, not the voice of the character whose
mind you are exploring. (Unless you have the thoughts in italics or quotation
marks. Current style favors italics, but both are acceptable.) If you just slip
into something like third-person limited anytime you jump inside somebody’s
thoughts, you are no longer following an omniscient POV. You are doing
something called ‘head-hopping,’ and it’s considered a rather egregious error
by the writing industry.
That being said, third-person omniscient really has the
benefit of freedom. While you can’t get
away with everything, you don’t have
limitations the way you do for the other narrative POVs. The drawback? You need
to be careful. Your readers don’t want
to know every single detail, and some details will just bog the story down. As
with real life, freedom frequently comes with its own set of limitations. The
tough part is that you have to set them down.
So, there’s your crash-course in third-person narrative
POVs. This is far from comprehensive, but it’s a little bit deeper of a look
into the concept. If you’re enjoying this series of Word-Craft Wednesdays (or
Friday, as the case may be today), you’ll probably really like Character and Viewpoint by Orson Scott
Card. It’s a comprehensive look at this very topic, and he really tackles the
nitty-gritty details.
Next week’s Word-Craft Wednesday will touch on tense in
storytelling (and yes, it still has to do with POV and narrative). I mentioned
this briefly when I talked about first-person POV, but it’s certainly worthy of
its own blog post.
What thoughts do you
have on third-person narrative forms? Sound off in the comments.
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