Hi there, viewers! You can read an adapted text version of this video on Medium: medium.com/@quotidianwriter/the-complete-guide-to-writing-fiction-in-third-person-84907eb61df7
Your videos are great! It’s hard to find authors that talk plainly about these things like you do. They always speak indirectly about everything. They take writing and put it high on top of some mountain and suggest it’s unreachable (except by them of course). What they say is absolutely useless unless someone is completely stoned. You, however, walk into the room and turn the light on. You lead your viewers by the hand like a mother leads her scared child around the room, looking under the bed, in the closet and in every dark corner - to prove there is no monster in the room. Thank you for your work.
Really well stated, Wu. I think writing is terrifying, because it's so difficult. Diane, your videos do, indeed, provide a much appreciated guiding hand, but doggone it, telling a story is still horrifying!!!! :-)
Stephen King is one author who always seems to try to give advice that is actually useful and clear, rather than trying to make himself appear sage. But yes, this video series is very good, I'm on the 4:th video now. BTW, strictly speaking there are 9 perspectives in GoT, the ones mentioned here and the Night Watchman who is killed off in the prologue. Every book starts with a prologue told from the PoV of someone who is never seen again (at least not as viewpoint character, I'm not sure if any of them appear in passing), contributing to the epic scope feeling.
Thank you thank you for doing a whole video on 3rd person, including Omniscient! This is the deepest dive I’ve seen on the subject. I’m always begging creators to go into the differences
This is the type of video that makes me love writing and reading even more. It also articulates why I like 3rd-person omniscient. I've read so many of those books growing up. I know it has fallen out of favor, but I hope it makes a come-back soon.
thank you for this insight. i find myself challenging all the rules though. i am writing 7 books, simultaneously. 3rd person, present tense, omniscient. 200+ characters over a spans of 4 months. i write with the idea that i have a camera on my shoulder and run from moment to moment building tension. the worlds will collide. the actions of one, will inevitably affect others. 800K words and building. absolute zero "he said/she said" ( i hate that form of dialog) i build mine more like reality. position character to speak, then release. it could be a slight gesture of ponder, or a intense reach for a holstered weapon. we naturally react before speaking. this is my form. In a charcoal grey pin striped suit and shiny loafers, Kevin walks toward Harry with a swagger of confidence and a brash attempt to establish his alpha position. “If you’re here to start trouble, you picked a bad day.” Harry tightens his fists as he looks Kevin dead in the eyes with contempt. “You’re not safe here. We need to leave. We need to get to the kids right now.” “What? Come on Harry. What are you up to?” “You need to leave with me. We need to get to the kids. No one is safe.” A relaxed smile creeps across Kevin’s face as he projects a calm demeanor to his fellow company staff. “Harry, Harry Harry…the kids are fine. I dropped them off this morning. I don’t know what you’re up to, but this needs to stop. Let’s give Rita a call and get to the bottom of this.”
@@adarshachatterjee493 writing this massive event is pretty tricky. like camera work, the more characters that enter the scene, the further back you pan the narration. less dialog, more descriptive. as the crowd gets smaller, i zoom in and describe nuances and small talk dialog.
Do excuse my language, but YES FUCKKINNGGGG YESSSSS!!! Why are you so good at this kind of analysis. It's like you're born to do this or something. If that is the case then do continue what you're doing. We absolutely appreciate it!
Still fumbling if i want to write in first person or third person. Planning to write a romantic tragedy, then again, i still have YEARS before writing the actual book, so, more research! Thanks for these video’s, they help a bunch.
I am writing my memoirs and this was very helpful since I knew much later what everybody was thinking....what was happening in their lives...bits and pieces of everyone THANK YOU....you've made my writing so much easier...
Fantastic video with very helpful advice! Can't way to see next week's video ;) The way I think about it is that you use third person when you want to put the characters into context and comment on the things they aren't aware of. For instance, although modernist works like Ulysses or To the Lighthouse use stream of consciousness to give a very detailed account of their character's subjectivity, the fact that they do so in third person distances the reader from the character. If Leopold Bloom were given the chance to tell his story, he probably wouldn't give any significance to the trivial moments of his life. The obsession with trivial thoughts and feelings of third-person modernist novels doesn't come from the characters themselves, but is an artificial constraint imposed by the narrator in order to make a point that no character understands. In a similar way, the narrator of Harry Potter wants to portray the world as a complex and interconected network of fun details, so the reader can immerse him/herself in the world. However, the characters don't experience the world in such a way; each of them is focused in his own little problems and lives and really do not care much for understanding the omnipresent cultural complexity of the world. So, the narrator's vision and the character's vision don't ever coincide in third person, usually because the narrator is trying to say something about the world at large that the characters do not entirely grasp. (sorry for my english)
Yes, that's an excellent analysis! You expressed it wonderfully. The objectivity of third person definitely lets the narrator add layers of characterization, world-building, and atmosphere. The stream-of-consciousness examples are very illustrative. Thank you for watching and for your thoughtful comment! :)
Finally another awesome video! I’m a huge admirer of your other videos. They’re always so professional, so well-made, so interesting, and are just awesome to listen to! I was so damn excited to click on this video when it showed up and I wasn’t disappointed at all. Keep it up you legend! 🙂
First off, THANK YOU SO MUCH for these videos! I find your approach incredibly thorough, super accessible and easy to understand, and seriously educational AND thought-provoking. I LOVE that you provide so many examples of what you mean, they add so much. As for books, one of my favorite ever written in third person is a book by Guy Gavriel Kay entitled ‘Tigana’... ohhhhhh what a masterwork of fantasy that one is..
One of the characters in my series, one who has his own book, has just been through something taxing and is lying in his room to recuperate for a few days to a week when we start reading. As the story goes on the book constantly shifts from the present day into several, out of order flashbacks from this characters' life, with the title of each chapter being the date in which each flashback takes place. As you read you realize that our main character has a pendant once belonging to his now deceased brother. This pendant means the world to MC as it represents his promise to live for both his brother and himself. It represents who he is. However, as the story goes on, certain things happen, and the MC's memory begins to fade and he slowly loses emotional control. He can no longer remember what his brother was like and as the MC feels like he keeps letting everyone down, he slowly grows to resent the brother that meant so much to him. At the same time he started writing in a journal in order to be able to reread any moment of his past in case he forgets about it. That journal contains the flashbacks we're reading. As such, when we read the flashbacks, they're in 3rd Person Limited (Past Tense), yet when we read through the here and now, the events are explained in 1st Person (Present Tense). In the end, our MC ends up discarding the pendant and clinging to his journal. A way to symbolize that the man he once was is now gone, discarded, as he clings to the new him. This is also almost when we read the last of the flashbacks. So, yeah, probably a bit more out there in terms of tense, but I'm going for it. It jumps around in the timeline and shifts between 1st and 3rd person, but I doubt it'll be too confusing if I present it correctly.
That's a cool use of different narrative POVs! In the future, I'm going to make a video about unconventional POVs (second person, collective, and mixed), which will hopefully include books that use a combination of first and third, as in your story. "The Fifth Season" by N.K. Jemisin mixes third person and *second* person, I think, which is extra weird but creates an interesting effect. I'm drawn to books that use mixed perspectives like that. Thank you for watching! :)
@@QuotidianWriter That sounds like my bread and butter! I can't wait to see that video. Well, I mean, clearly I have to, but I'm still really excited for it. The use of second person in a narrative outside of choose your own adventures already intrigues me, but meshing it with third person only makes me more interested. I appreciate your response by the way. Ever since I found your channel I've considered it the penultimate TH-cam channel for writing advice, and have recommended it to my friends. I don't believe this is the first time you've responded to me, (albeit my memory is almost as bad as MC's, so who knows,) but it's still nice to be granted your time, so I thank you. (The compliment felt pretty nice for my ego too. Haha.)
Re head-hopping: I'm relieved to know that it's not totally taboo. I think switching POV can add depth to your characters, as long as it's not treated like dialogue. A clear paragraph break and limiting the switch to, say, two characters in a scene should be fine. Readers aren't stupid and picking up the switch is intuitive.
Thanks! I love your vids and play them on repeat a couple times a month. I'm new to this writing thing and I still need a refresher on all the buttons, dials, warning lights; as well as altimeter, airspeed, vertical speed, attitude, heading and turn indicators and gyroscope thingies. This is a less writing more thinking phase so I've been binge reading. I'm way faster at recognizing pov. Thanks again for all the time and effort you put into this work.. it works for me.
Ooohh... I am definitely going to break that head-hopping one... I think it gives great opportunities to play with tension. The example you gave of Dune showed the page setup of the novel, and I am glad to see that I can use paragraphing to signal those changes of POVs. I remember reading (well, trying to read) Dune as a teenager. The tension was just too much for me. Even distilled as a movie script, you can feel it.
Well worth the wait, Diane! This is the best explanation I've found on the 3rd person perspective. So glad you found some more arms and a way to create more hours, to be able to make this. We appreciate you so much! 😊
This made me think over a lot of a story im on and just some of these suggestions of yours expands a lot, thank you, definitely watching this a second time, thanks!
Thank you, thank you, thank you! My novel used to be third person limited, but I had trouble making the different storylines feel connected. So I changed it slightly to omniscient, but I still delve deep into the character's thoughts at times. I have honestly never thought about putting a third-person POV novel in present tense. I really liked the excerpt you read, and I wonder if my novel would be easier to read in present tense. It has many sections where a character will remember something, but it gets annoying to write the word "had" over and over again when you're trying to convey that something happened in the distant past. I'll give it a go and see how I like present tense.
I first read Mary Renault at fourteen who wrote in the first person. Yet she managed managed to convey as much as if she wrote in third person, she remains my favourite author.
I love the fact that you use books I've actually read as examples. Easy answer for me, H2G2, as I know the dolphins quote off by heart. Far too many YT channels only focus on American literature.
Thank you for this video...it helped me understand 3rd person in detail. Its clear you done your research on these literary devices. Thanks for teaching in such away were one understands. I loved all the examples you gave. This is my go to video meaning, I will be playing it over and over again as a study guide. I appreciate all the work you put into this video. 👍🏽👍🏽👍🏽👍🏽
I needed some direct advice and examples. fortunetly found your video. it was a masterclass in third person pov and im so glad you covered tenses as well. All this had been immmensely confusing for me as a beginner 2 years ago when I started working on my novel. Wish I watched this sooner. Either way, Thank you a great deal in helping me figure this out!
i feel like rick riordan does a good job in executing the multiple third person pov thing in his heroes of olympus series, it's usually not too many perspectives, mainly around 4 or 5 per book-
I wrote my first novel in 3rd person limited with a floating narrator, if you will, that jumps from one pov to another and stays a while with them, usually at the end of a chapter but not necessarily, so sort of a controlled and very aware head hoping. From A to B, briefly C, back to A, to D, to E, back to A, and that's the first five chapters for you, linking the narration without abrupt cuts, because a theme of the story is that sequentiality of life. Wow, sounds great. Thanks, it is.
Thanks for the video. I'm working on a historical fiction with a dark comedic element that uses third person objective. I know it's not common, but I've read some crime novels that have such a light touch when it comes to entering any character's heads, they might as well be 3 POV objective.
_The Maltese Falcon_ by Dashiell Hammett is always the first book to come to my mind when it comes to third-person objective, so I can definitely see what you mean! Personally, I find omniscient and objective POV to be fairly similar, which is why I didn't bother to distinguish them in the video. Keep writing! :)
Great video [insert an applause emoji here]. I especially liked the parts on "distance". I need that, both as a writer and as a reader. I may be a bit unusual when it comes to this but it's the lack of distance that almost always throws me off in first-person narration. All people are different, that's sort of the point, and I never think in the way the narrator thinks. Hence the abundance of first-person cringe moments that break my immersion. In third-person, there's a comfort of understanding the POV character without being forced to pretend to be them. For a similar reason, I'm also more likely to hate the first-person POV character than the same character written in the third person. The visceral emotional response isn't always what you want if you're writing a flawed or morally grey character who is likable at the same time. Depends on the genre and what you want to achieve though. A quick note on the present-tense narration. I think it lends itself well to so some scenes and settings. Thrillers, action scenes, and erotica, for example, wherever the pacing needs to be fast and in-the-moment, the tension high. I like present-tense a lot, even if I haven't yet mastered the subtle art of changing scenes without it feeling like a chop of an ax to the reader's head.
Wow. I just found your videos and I really like them! It’s hard to find writing videos that I personally like. You’re voice is calming but not boring and they’re so educational and not just your personal opinion on things. I also want to write better in 3rd person for the book I want to publish and knowing the difference between each one of them is really helpful. I’m still a little unsure which one I think I write in personally. I mean I think I write in an omniscient style of the “all knowing” but still follow one character in a chapter like Limited does I’m still a little confused when it comes to my writing but that is something I need to work out for myself but I also head hop… a lot. I need to fix that now that it is pointed out to me >.
Thank goodness head-hopping is okay on a limited basis. I have one scene where the two main characters are descending the stairs side-by-side. Neither one of them reveals by word or facial expression that they are developing feelings for the other. The intimacy would be lost if I stayed in one character's head throughout the scene, and then switched to the other character in the next scene, because that would be a memory and not the moment. As for POV, I prefer 3rd person, unless it's nonfiction, e.g., When Breath Becomes Air. Thank you for this excellent summation of POV.
My book, "When the Wood Is Dry: An Edgy Catholic Thriller," is written in third limited with multiple POVs. As the theme, stated overtly in a vision in the first chapter, is "sometimes we must suffer if we're are to save souls," there is a need to not only show the suffering but the saving of souls. So getting inside multiple souls makes a difference. I also changed to present tense when presenting visions and dreams. This change is a clue that we are now in a dream and makes the dream experience more immediate. The approach yields a layered structure with multiple characters experiencing dramatic character arcs each reaching a moment of truth in a series of climaxes. I included a rather long recapitulation at the end, because I felt it important for the main character, who suffers terribly, to see the good coming from her experiences. It is rather like the television series "Lost" in this structure. I call it a character intersection study. Most characters are introduced from another character's perspective, then later zoomed into from their perspective. I used a trick I discovered for getting close to the characters in third person that may be helpful. I wrote many of the inner thoughts in first person, then converted them to third person. I found it strange to write inner thoughts in third person. I worried a bit about all this complexity, but I must have pulled it off pretty well since no one has complained about being confused and the Kirkus review, while generally positive, cited a desire for more complexity. They did put the book on their "recommended" list despite this observation, however. The EBook for When the Wood Is Dry is available for free on Amazon and other online stores. Feel free to check it out.
Lady Macbeth It's a good read for lent and Easter, if you are Catholic. There are many parallels to Christ's passion and resurrection. There is also a bit of a Shakespearean allusion a Lady Macbeth might enjoy. The villain compares the star-crossed lovers to Romeo and Juliet, and says what he likes about that story is that everybody dies at the end, his kind of ending...
He watches this video years after it was posted, finds it incredibly useful and inspiring, and knows at once that he will be watching it again for years to come.
I actually find 3rd person narrative easier as my stories have several characters and the fluidity of what happens as the story develops makes better sense to me, like looking at a maze from above, I can see al its intricacies and connections in one big picture instead of trying to get myself inside it and try to find the right path. Thank you for this video.
I feel like 1st person should be a lot less formal because it refers to someone telling their own story. I know all the rage is to not use many or filler words to describe something but 1st person perfectly narrated feels very artificial to me.
Funny that most people point to Dune as their go-to example for 3rd Person Omniscient. And also a great example of head-hopping. I am using that style myself, just in a fantasy setting.
Tyrion, Arya, John, Ned, Bron, Jorad. Those were all the characters I ever cared for in the series. At the beginning, I cared for Danny, but that quickly started to fade and by the time she burned down King's Landing full of innocents and powerless people despite the bell of peace ringing, that was when I just couldn't bother anymore. Boy did that ending differ from what I imagined. Don't really see why people disiked this season so much though. Here's to a second series detailing Arya's adventures west of Westeros! Which I always pictured being in the east, for some reason.
Thank you for this. I'm beginning to see why my very first chapter (I've only managed 3 so far) sounds totally off. The amount of head-hopping is almost illegal. :( Again, thank you so much! Greetings from Indonesia!
Omg this video is absolutely amazing. You gave amazing examples and made it very easy to understand. Not to mention you also talked about third person multiple, which is exactly what I wanted. Ghshuqiakndye thank you so much!! I’m subscribed.
As a writer I am pretty good at coming up with good stories, mostly short stories cause novels scare me. But after watching your videos, I have come to realize that I am way out of my depth as a writer and probably should throw in the towel. Love your videos by the way. 😀
I hope you don't feel too discouraged! One of the wonderful and harrowing things about writing is there's always more to learn. It's a skill that can never be mastered. To me, the sheer act of creation is fulfilling, regardless of whether or not someone else reads it or publishes it. So, keep following that passion and write for the joy and through the frustration. You'll grow with every story you write. :)
Don't worry about what sells...I like this advice so much as I have worried about this...to be honest, this story is trapped in my head and I need it out...I can't worry about the money anymore...😄
Love the Video. Pity I can't switch between first and third person limited from one chapter to another. Multiple POV in my current project. Oh, by the way anyone interested in beta reading or editing an adult Fantasy novel about women's rights and freedom? I've got one brewing about a witch fleeing inquisition....
Thank you for watching! That's a great topic, but it's perhaps a bit too technical for the average writer, to be honest. Myk Eff has a good piece on the subject, though: soundand.design/interactive-narrative-4-focalization-d1e2420e17b3
I have a question please, for anyone who can and is willing to help. I'm considering third limited or omniscient. I'd like the narrator to occasionally address the reader and, or, chime from time to time with his own commentary. He's not a character in the story - just a narrator. Can this be done in limited and omniscient or just omniscient? Thanks! Also, when a narrator is describing the setting, such a beautiful spring morning, but the characters aren't around to know that yet, or are sleeping still, is that ok? I am confused because, if third person limited follows a character closely, then what allows a narrator to talk about the setting? Lastly, in omniscient, if it's the narrator's perspective that colors the text and not the character's voice, can the author inject some character voice through thoughts and feelings of the character? Also, I'm curious how come third person omniscient can't be intimate or achieve that closeness with a character that first and third limited can? It seem doable, unless I'm not understanding third person omniscient. Can't the narrator say the thoughts that the character is thinking, as well as show emotions and describe actions just like in third limited? In the Harry Potter example, he thinks, why would Filch need a kwickspell? Isn't that the same kind of thinking that he'd do in third limited? Please help explain, someone.
Sorry if this is reallllllyyyy late but I feel limited could work its sort of like the narrator is a close friend or enemy of the MC who can add little asides about the character that no one else would know like 'I work out every single morning actually.' He says flexing his arms. Though the young children saw muscular prowess I can assure you the meat would be a meagre meal even to a worm. I don't I just came up this that now. Anyway, have you tried it yet?
@@ajmalaika1287 Hi! Thanks for responding. I am still (and forever, it seems) in the process of researching. I appreciate your example, but I was under the impression that narrator's opinions, asides, comments, observations, personal stance, etc, are only able to be given in omnificent narration, or, that the story becomes omnisciently narrated when a narrator who is someone separate from the story and/or not the main/narrating character provides his or her own thoughts - then story is being told from the narrator's point of view instead of the point of view of the character. Am I wrong? I think what you wrote would be considered third person omniscient because the narrator is telling the story from his point of view. Please correct me if I'm mistaken or misunderstanding. 'I work out every single morning actually.' He says flexing his arms. -This sentence is the narrator reporting a character's speech and action - it could be either omniscient or limited narration so far. Though the young children saw muscular prowess I can assure you the meat would be a meagre meal even to a worm. - This is the narrator's asides and reporting, it is the narrator's personal opinion and comments, not thoughts of the character. So I believe this sentence would make the story being told from the omniscient narrator's point of view. Please correct me. I am still learning, but I think if it were limited it might be like this; "I work out every single morning, actually," he said, forcibly inflating his biceps like two balloons. The wide eyed youngsters stared, unblinking! While their wordless praise filled him with confidence, his physique was a long way off from where he wanted..and if the children knew what actual bodybuilders looked like, they'd probably not even notice him, or worse, think his physique was meagre meal to even a worm. Please let me know what you think. I am so lost, but always trying, haha..
@@snugdream2307 Hi, yeah I think you've got it and I get it too now. You have a good narrator's voice where they sound like another person telling the story instead of an omniscient god-like being. Like Hitchhikers buttoned down to a more one to one conversation where the narrator is aware of secular truths and fact instead of like every single aspect of the universe. Also love your version soo much better than mine, glad you haven't given up cause you're really good and the better the research the easier it is to write in the end :-)
I finished reading the third book in the Dune series this summer while I was still writing my WIP. No wonder my beta reader pointed out the head hopping. While it took a while to get used to it in Herbert's work, apparently it became second nature when I started writing. Time to go back to the drawing board.
Greetings ma'am , i really like to write my novel in third person view but i have trouble on how i use third person limited and third person omniscient in one story and i don't know how to use them effectively , please help me with this one.Thankyou very much
POV question - I'm writing a book with two point of views. It will be one of those where I flip between the two characters after each chapter like Jesmyn Ward's Sing Unburied Sing if you have read that. House of Sand and Fog also does this. My question is can I have one POV be first person and the other be third person? I don't think I've ever read a book with a first person that then switches to a different character in third person. Usually books like that have everyone as first person. (Sing Unburied had three first person POVs.) I ask because I really want to tell the story from the one character's POV but need to tell the other character's story as well, but I don't want such an intimate relationship with the second character. I want more of an outsider omniscient POV for that one and the intimacy of first person for the other.
Yes, you can absolutely do that! The Bartimaeus Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud, which is a young adult fantasy series, features both a first-person POV and a third-person POV. The thriller novel _Tell No One_ by Harlan Coben has a primary first-person POV with minor characters in third for one-off chapters. It's an uncommon structure, but with chapter breaks, it doesn't usually feel too jarring. Keep writing! :)
I would like some more advice...when writing about my scooter or pick up or cars should I write about it what it was what it was like? Or just say scooter instead of It was a cross country racing Vespa Grand Sport 150. 150 meant it had a 150 cc engine etc?
Either approach works. Some writers like to emphasize the details, which can help the reader clearly visualize the scene. In the case of a memoir, I'd say that those details add depth and capture your specific experience. Keep writing! :)
My favourite book written in 3rd person is kiss the girls by James Patterson I also love misery and Gerald's Game by Stephen king I like a couple of erotica authors to jenika snow is my favourite I always prefer story's written in 3rd person because I feel you get a better visual in your head
This is nice... do you do mentoring? I am writing a romance novel known for their multiple POV...very challenging trying not to head hop...I'm going for a combo of cinematic and limited 3rd pov...any specific advice? Thanks
Thank you, Shelly! A multiple POV romance novel sounds fun. It can be challenging to portray several perspectives like that, but I think having separate chapters for each character is the easiest route. I also recommend reading some recently published novels that use a mix of cinematic and limited POVs, like "Little Fires Everywhere" by Celeste Ng and "Where the Crawdads Sing" by Delia Owens. Both of those novels often flit between tight POVs, sometimes within the same scene. I offer a writing coaching package called "Write Your Damn Novel," which involves four two-hour video chats where we discuss and outline your novel. You can find more details on my website: www.quotidianwriter.com. Keep writing! :)
I think it can work in some cases, but I feel that "head-hopping" is just the pejorative way of labeling POV-switching that some readers (not all) find jarring or confusing. To avoid those complaints, having a cohesive narrative voice (i.e., more omniscient than limited) or making the transitions clear from paragraph to paragraph or scene to scene is helpful. I noticed that the novel "The Beautiful Ones" by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (published in 2017) uses third-person limited head-hopping, and I enjoyed the effect.
With multiple POVs, I generally advise planning out each individual character's storyline as a separate sequence and then interweaving them. You could use note cards, an Excel spreadsheet, or Scrivener to organize your scenes. Switching POVs within the same scene can be hard to pull off. It's easier to dedicate one POV per chapter, but if you have two or three POVs per chapter, make sure you have two or three distinct scenes separated by scene breaks. I also recommend reading a published multiple-POV novel and outlining the POV for each chapter or scene, just so you can look at how another author has achieved it. How many chapters do they dedicate to each character, and why do you think that is? Where do they begin and break off each chapter? How do the storylines intersect? Why did they choose that POV character, and what does that character add to the story that other characters couldn't? I hope that helps! :)
your fake example on head hopping i was like "actually i really like stuff that does that, probably because dune does it so much" and then you are like "dune" and im like "nice" honestly i think frank herbert really influenced my writing style because i can't stand not knowing the mind state of important characters in a scene. like why are they present if they aren't going to be adding some perspective? it could also be my autism
Ive got to be honest. I'm completely confused by this. I am currently writing a novel through the PoV of the main character. The whole novel is seen through this person's PoV. So when he talks and does things, I refer to "I" and when someone else does things, I refer to them as he, she, they, etc. *e.g. I climbed the tree but she didn't attempt it.* But i have since been told I can only refer to them as he, she, they if the PoV character in present in the scene. If the PoV character is not in the scene, then i can not describe the scene at all because the PoV character is not there to witness it. Is this true?
That's not necessarily true, but it depends on the context. The POV character doesn't need to be present in the scene in order for you to show it. However, you usually need to use a chapter break to indicate a new POV, rather than switching within the same scene or chapter. This is what differentiates novels from movies: instead of going where the "camera" goes, you typically stay with one character for the duration of a scene (third-person omniscient can be more camera-like, but it's difficult to execute and not normally used with first person unless the character is all-knowing, like Death in The Book Thief). In addition, most novels either *only* use a first-person narrator (or multiple first-person narrators, like in The Female of the Species) or *only* a third-person narrator (sometimes following multiple characters, like in A Song of Ice and Fire). So, that might be one reason your readers have felt the shift between a first-person protagonist and third-person secondary characters is jarring. Using both in the same novel is definitely an option, though! I have read novels that effectively use a primary first-person POV for the protagonist and then third-person POV for chapters from other characters' POVs. Check out Tell No One by Harlan Coben (thriller) and The Amulet of Samarkand by Jonathan Stroud (fantasy) to see what I mean about switching between first and third perspectives. Hope that helps! :)
Hi there, viewers! You can read an adapted text version of this video on Medium: medium.com/@quotidianwriter/the-complete-guide-to-writing-fiction-in-third-person-84907eb61df7
Do you plan to make a video on second prson narratives?
I fell like the use of present tense in The "Hunger Games" made it feel more immediate and caused me to doubt the safety of the protagonist/Narrator.
Amateurs. I write in 5th person:
I write my characters and story from the perspective of someone else's book.
i thought i could wrap my head around this, but alas, i've only mastered 4th person
Your videos are great! It’s hard to find authors that talk plainly about these things like you do. They always speak indirectly about everything. They take writing and put it high on top of some mountain and suggest it’s unreachable (except by them of course). What they say is absolutely useless unless someone is completely stoned. You, however, walk into the room and turn the light on. You lead your viewers by the hand like a mother leads her scared child around the room, looking under the bed, in the closet and in every dark corner - to prove there is no monster in the room. Thank you for your work.
Really well stated, Wu. I think writing is terrifying, because it's so difficult. Diane, your videos do, indeed, provide a much appreciated guiding hand, but doggone it, telling a story is still horrifying!!!! :-)
Man that analogy! 👏🏾
No monster in the room. Except for the child herself . . .
Stephen King is one author who always seems to try to give advice that is actually useful and clear, rather than trying to make himself appear sage. But yes, this video series is very good, I'm on the 4:th video now.
BTW, strictly speaking there are 9 perspectives in GoT, the ones mentioned here and the Night Watchman who is killed off in the prologue. Every book starts with a prologue told from the PoV of someone who is never seen again (at least not as viewpoint character, I'm not sure if any of them appear in passing), contributing to the epic scope feeling.
6:20 In the first book, a game of thrones, there's a stark difference in what Ned, an honorable lord and Sansa...
Oh you! XD
_Why on earth did Filch want a Kwikspell course?_ is such a great _free indirect speech/thought_ slipping through.
Thank you thank you for doing a whole video on 3rd person, including Omniscient! This is the deepest dive I’ve seen on the subject. I’m always begging creators to go into the differences
My favorite third person novel is “The Giver” by Lois Lowry, and it was actually a book we just finished reading in English class.
So great, you get to read dystopian fiction in your English class we are still fed the old shit,
why are you guys ending the sentence with a comma,
@@SnoBlobber cuz its a chain dont’t break it,
This is the type of video that makes me love writing and reading even more. It also articulates why I like 3rd-person omniscient. I've read so many of those books growing up. I know it has fallen out of favor, but I hope it makes a come-back soon.
thank you for this insight. i find myself challenging all the rules though. i am writing 7 books, simultaneously. 3rd person, present tense, omniscient. 200+ characters over a spans of 4 months. i write with the idea that i have a camera on my shoulder and run from moment to moment building tension. the worlds will collide. the actions of one, will inevitably affect others. 800K words and building. absolute zero "he said/she said" ( i hate that form of dialog) i build mine more like reality. position character to speak, then release. it could be a slight gesture of ponder, or a intense reach for a holstered weapon. we naturally react before speaking. this is my form.
In a charcoal grey pin striped suit and shiny loafers, Kevin walks toward Harry with a swagger of confidence and a
brash attempt to establish his alpha position. “If you’re here to start trouble, you picked a bad day.”
Harry tightens his fists as he looks Kevin dead in the eyes with contempt. “You’re not safe here. We need to leave. We need to get to the kids right now.”
“What? Come on Harry. What are you up to?”
“You need to leave with me. We need to get to the kids. No one is safe.”
A relaxed smile creeps across Kevin’s face as he projects a calm demeanor to his fellow company staff.
“Harry, Harry Harry…the kids are fine. I dropped them off this morning. I don’t know what you’re up to, but this needs to stop. Let’s give Rita a call and get to the bottom of this.”
Well all the best... Just to ask isn't just way too tough?
@@adarshachatterjee493 writing this massive event is pretty tricky. like camera work, the more characters that enter the scene, the further back you pan the narration. less dialog, more descriptive. as the crowd gets smaller, i zoom in and describe nuances and small talk dialog.
Do excuse my language, but YES FUCKKINNGGGG YESSSSS!!!
Why are you so good at this kind of analysis. It's like you're born to do this or something. If that is the case then do continue what you're doing. We absolutely appreciate it!
Still fumbling if i want to write in first person or third person. Planning to write a romantic tragedy, then again, i still have YEARS before writing the actual book, so, more research! Thanks for these video’s, they help a bunch.
This was super helpful. I also really appreciate the tone and speed of your videos . Thank you.
I am writing my memoirs and this was very helpful since I knew much later what everybody was thinking....what was happening in their lives...bits and pieces of everyone THANK YOU....you've made my writing so much easier...
Fantastic video with very helpful advice! Can't way to see next week's video ;)
The way I think about it is that you use third person when you want to put the characters into context and comment on the things they aren't aware of.
For instance, although modernist works like Ulysses or To the Lighthouse use stream of consciousness to give a very detailed account of their character's subjectivity, the fact that they do so in third person distances the reader from the character. If Leopold Bloom were given the chance to tell his story, he probably wouldn't give any significance to the trivial moments of his life. The obsession with trivial thoughts and feelings of third-person modernist novels doesn't come from the characters themselves, but is an artificial constraint imposed by the narrator in order to make a point that no character understands.
In a similar way, the narrator of Harry Potter wants to portray the world as a complex and interconected network of fun details, so the reader can immerse him/herself in the world. However, the characters don't experience the world in such a way; each of them is focused in his own little problems and lives and really do not care much for understanding the omnipresent cultural complexity of the world.
So, the narrator's vision and the character's vision don't ever coincide in third person, usually because the narrator is trying to say something about the world at large that the characters do not entirely grasp.
(sorry for my english)
Yes, that's an excellent analysis! You expressed it wonderfully. The objectivity of third person definitely lets the narrator add layers of characterization, world-building, and atmosphere. The stream-of-consciousness examples are very illustrative. Thank you for watching and for your thoughtful comment! :)
This was hella helpful. I've always loved writing in first person, and had really difficult time with third person.
All the light we cannot see is one of the best books I have ever read. The moment I finished it, I wanted to start reading it again.
Finally another awesome video! I’m a huge admirer of your other videos. They’re always so professional, so well-made, so interesting, and are just awesome to listen to! I was so damn excited to click on this video when it showed up and I wasn’t disappointed at all. Keep it up you legend! 🙂
First off, THANK YOU SO MUCH for these videos! I find your approach incredibly thorough, super accessible and easy to understand, and seriously educational AND thought-provoking. I LOVE that you provide so many examples of what you mean, they add so much.
As for books, one of my favorite ever written in third person is a book by Guy Gavriel Kay entitled ‘Tigana’... ohhhhhh what a masterwork of fantasy that one is..
One of the characters in my series, one who has his own book, has just been through something taxing and is lying in his room to recuperate for a few days to a week when we start reading. As the story goes on the book constantly shifts from the present day into several, out of order flashbacks from this characters' life, with the title of each chapter being the date in which each flashback takes place. As you read you realize that our main character has a pendant once belonging to his now deceased brother.
This pendant means the world to MC as it represents his promise to live for both his brother and himself. It represents who he is. However, as the story goes on, certain things happen, and the MC's memory begins to fade and he slowly loses emotional control. He can no longer remember what his brother was like and as the MC feels like he keeps letting everyone down, he slowly grows to resent the brother that meant so much to him. At the same time he started writing in a journal in order to be able to reread any moment of his past in case he forgets about it.
That journal contains the flashbacks we're reading. As such, when we read the flashbacks, they're in 3rd Person Limited (Past Tense), yet when we read through the here and now, the events are explained in 1st Person (Present Tense). In the end, our MC ends up discarding the pendant and clinging to his journal. A way to symbolize that the man he once was is now gone, discarded, as he clings to the new him. This is also almost when we read the last of the flashbacks. So, yeah, probably a bit more out there in terms of tense, but I'm going for it. It jumps around in the timeline and shifts between 1st and 3rd person, but I doubt it'll be too confusing if I present it correctly.
That's a cool use of different narrative POVs! In the future, I'm going to make a video about unconventional POVs (second person, collective, and mixed), which will hopefully include books that use a combination of first and third, as in your story. "The Fifth Season" by N.K. Jemisin mixes third person and *second* person, I think, which is extra weird but creates an interesting effect. I'm drawn to books that use mixed perspectives like that. Thank you for watching! :)
@@QuotidianWriter
That sounds like my bread and butter! I can't wait to see that video. Well, I mean, clearly I have to, but I'm still really excited for it. The use of second person in a narrative outside of choose your own adventures already intrigues me, but meshing it with third person only makes me more interested. I appreciate your response by the way. Ever since I found your channel I've considered it the penultimate TH-cam channel for writing advice, and have recommended it to my friends. I don't believe this is the first time you've responded to me, (albeit my memory is almost as bad as MC's, so who knows,) but it's still nice to be granted your time, so I thank you. (The compliment felt pretty nice for my ego too. Haha.)
Re head-hopping:
I'm relieved to know that it's not totally taboo. I think switching POV can add depth to your characters, as long as it's not treated like dialogue. A clear paragraph break and limiting the switch to, say, two characters in a scene should be fine. Readers aren't stupid and picking up the switch is intuitive.
When talking about head hopping then mentioned sci fi novel, I knew it was going to be about Dune. Late to the party but am enjoying these.
Thanks! I love your vids and play them on repeat a couple times a month. I'm new to this writing thing and I still need a refresher on all the buttons, dials, warning lights; as well as altimeter, airspeed, vertical speed, attitude, heading and turn indicators and gyroscope thingies. This is a less writing more thinking phase so I've been binge reading. I'm way faster at recognizing pov. Thanks again for all the time and effort you put into this work.. it works for me.
I'm so glad to hear that my videos have been helpful! That's a great analogy, too, haha. Keep writing. :)
Love you for all the content you put out.
Ooohh... I am definitely going to break that head-hopping one... I think it gives great opportunities to play with tension. The example you gave of Dune showed the page setup of the novel, and I am glad to see that I can use paragraphing to signal those changes of POVs. I remember reading (well, trying to read) Dune as a teenager. The tension was just too much for me. Even distilled as a movie script, you can feel it.
Well worth the wait, Diane! This is the best explanation I've found on the 3rd person perspective. So glad you found some more arms and a way to create more hours, to be able to make this. We appreciate you so much! 😊
Thank you, Joel! I always appreciate your kind comments. I hope you've been writing more!
This made me think over a lot of a story im on and just some of these suggestions of yours expands a lot, thank you, definitely watching this a second time, thanks!
Thank you, thank you, thank you! My novel used to be third person limited, but I had trouble making the different storylines feel connected. So I changed it slightly to omniscient, but I still delve deep into the character's thoughts at times. I have honestly never thought about putting a third-person POV novel in present tense. I really liked the excerpt you read, and I wonder if my novel would be easier to read in present tense. It has many sections where a character will remember something, but it gets annoying to write the word "had" over and over again when you're trying to convey that something happened in the distant past. I'll give it a go and see how I like present tense.
The Book Thief, in the 3rd Person Omniscient viewpoint of Death. It was the first book I’d ever read that told a story like that and it blew me away.
Thank you so much for these videos, I have recently started to write, and all these videos have been extremely helpful and valuable.
lovely video
This video was incredibly helpful. Thank you.
I first read Mary Renault at fourteen who wrote in the first person. Yet she managed managed to convey as much as if she wrote in third person, she remains my favourite author.
I love the fact that you use books I've actually read as examples. Easy answer for me, H2G2, as I know the dolphins quote off by heart. Far too many YT channels only focus on American literature.
Thank you for this video...it helped me understand 3rd person in detail. Its clear you done your research on these literary devices. Thanks for teaching in such away were one understands. I loved all the examples you gave. This is my go to video meaning, I will be playing it over and over again as a study guide. I appreciate all the work you put into this video. 👍🏽👍🏽👍🏽👍🏽
I needed some direct advice and examples. fortunetly found your video. it was a masterclass in third person pov and im so glad you covered tenses as well. All this had been immmensely confusing for me as a beginner 2 years ago when I started working on my novel. Wish I watched this sooner. Either way, Thank you a great deal in helping me figure this out!
I'm so glad to hear it was helpful! Thank you for watching. Keep writing! :)
When I started I used first person because I thought I understood the rules better. That made a fairly easy transition to third person limited.
My focus is usually very psychological. Head hopping has become essential for my writing style.
i feel like rick riordan does a good job in executing the multiple third person pov thing in his heroes of olympus series, it's usually not too many perspectives, mainly around 4 or 5 per book-
this was a fantastic listen! thank you very much.
I really like the background music.
I wrote my first novel in 3rd person limited with a floating narrator, if you will, that jumps from one pov to another and stays a while with them, usually at the end of a chapter but not necessarily, so sort of a controlled and very aware head hoping. From A to B, briefly C, back to A, to D, to E, back to A, and that's the first five chapters for you, linking the narration without abrupt cuts, because a theme of the story is that sequentiality of life.
Wow, sounds great.
Thanks, it is.
Awesome video!! Loved it
I enjoy how well referenced these videos are.
Your videos are always so helpful and they're just nice to listen to as well, love this 😍
Thanks for the video. I'm working on a historical fiction with a dark comedic element that uses third person objective. I know it's not common, but I've read some crime novels that have such a light touch when it comes to entering any character's heads, they might as well be 3 POV objective.
_The Maltese Falcon_ by Dashiell Hammett is always the first book to come to my mind when it comes to third-person objective, so I can definitely see what you mean! Personally, I find omniscient and objective POV to be fairly similar, which is why I didn't bother to distinguish them in the video. Keep writing! :)
Great video [insert an applause emoji here]. I especially liked the parts on "distance". I need that, both as a writer and as a reader. I may be a bit unusual when it comes to this but it's the lack of distance that almost always throws me off in first-person narration. All people are different, that's sort of the point, and I never think in the way the narrator thinks. Hence the abundance of first-person cringe moments that break my immersion. In third-person, there's a comfort of understanding the POV character without being forced to pretend to be them. For a similar reason, I'm also more likely to hate the first-person POV character than the same character written in the third person. The visceral emotional response isn't always what you want if you're writing a flawed or morally grey character who is likable at the same time. Depends on the genre and what you want to achieve though.
A quick note on the present-tense narration. I think it lends itself well to so some scenes and settings. Thrillers, action scenes, and erotica, for example, wherever the pacing needs to be fast and in-the-moment, the tension high. I like present-tense a lot, even if I haven't yet mastered the subtle art of changing scenes without it feeling like a chop of an ax to the reader's head.
Wow. I just found your videos and I really like them! It’s hard to find writing videos that I personally like. You’re voice is calming but not boring and they’re so educational and not just your personal opinion on things.
I also want to write better in 3rd person for the book I want to publish and knowing the difference between each one of them is really helpful.
I’m still a little unsure which one I think I write in personally. I mean I think I write in an omniscient style of the “all knowing” but still follow one character in a chapter like Limited does I’m still a little confused when it comes to my writing but that is something I need to work out for myself but I also head hop… a lot. I need to fix that now that it is pointed out to me >.
Thank you so much for your kind and thoughtful comment, Megan! Keep writing! :)
Thank goodness head-hopping is okay on a limited basis. I have one scene where the two main characters are descending the stairs side-by-side. Neither one of them reveals by word or facial expression that they are developing feelings for the other. The intimacy would be lost if I stayed in one character's head throughout the scene, and then switched to the other character in the next scene, because that would be a memory and not the moment.
As for POV, I prefer 3rd person, unless it's nonfiction, e.g., When Breath Becomes Air.
Thank you for this excellent summation of POV.
The background music cured my writer's block
Vindsvept is the best!
My book, "When the Wood Is Dry: An Edgy Catholic Thriller," is written in third limited with multiple POVs. As the theme, stated overtly in a vision in the first chapter, is "sometimes we must suffer if we're are to save souls," there is a need to not only show the suffering but the saving of souls. So getting inside multiple souls makes a difference.
I also changed to present tense when presenting visions and dreams. This change is a clue that we are now in a dream and makes the dream experience more immediate.
The approach yields a layered structure with multiple characters experiencing dramatic character arcs each reaching a moment of truth in a series of climaxes. I included a rather long recapitulation at the end, because I felt it important for the main character, who suffers terribly, to see the good coming from her experiences. It is rather like the television series "Lost" in this structure. I call it a character intersection study. Most characters are introduced from another character's perspective, then later zoomed into from their perspective.
I used a trick I discovered for getting close to the characters in third person that may be helpful. I wrote many of the inner thoughts in first person, then converted them to third person. I found it strange to write inner thoughts in third person.
I worried a bit about all this complexity, but I must have pulled it off pretty well since no one has complained about being confused and the Kirkus review, while generally positive, cited a desire for more complexity. They did put the book on their "recommended" list despite this observation, however.
The EBook for When the Wood Is Dry is available for free on Amazon and other online stores. Feel free to check it out.
Lady Macbeth
It's a good read for lent and Easter, if you are Catholic. There are many parallels to Christ's passion and resurrection.
There is also a bit of a Shakespearean allusion a Lady Macbeth might enjoy. The villain compares the star-crossed lovers to Romeo and Juliet, and says what he likes about that story is that everybody dies at the end, his kind of ending...
Thanks, I will try the exercise, sounds very fun.
He watches this video years after it was posted, finds it incredibly useful and inspiring, and knows at once that he will be watching it again for years to come.
I'm a new writer. I needed this.
Loved this. So well done. Great content!👍🏻😀💗
A game of thrones is like a fantasy soap opera kekeke good stuff
Ken Follett's The Pillars of the Earth is my favorite!
I find 1st person perspective jarring. I don't know why, I just don't like it much. I think I find some comfort in narrative distance.
Beautiful
I like the anchor analogy for third person limited...thank you for this video.
I actually find 3rd person narrative easier as my stories have several characters and the fluidity of what happens as the story develops makes better sense to me, like looking at a maze from above, I can see al its intricacies and connections in one big picture instead of trying to get myself inside it and try to find the right path. Thank you for this video.
I feel like 1st person should be a lot less formal because it refers to someone telling their own story. I know all the rage is to not use many or filler words to describe something but 1st person perfectly narrated feels very artificial to me.
THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I NEED LETS GOOOO
This is so helpful, subscribed!
Many romances I read are 3rd person PoV. My favorites are Linda Goodnight’s A Very Special Delivery & The Substitute Wife by Dallas Schulze
Best video I ve seen on POV.
Funny that most people point to Dune as their go-to example for 3rd Person Omniscient. And also a great example of head-hopping. I am using that style myself, just in a fantasy setting.
A “Stark difference.” I see what you did there😎
Thank you for this :)
I’m going to be writing a book for fun, I may or may not try to publish it but either way I just want to make it :)
Tyrion, Arya, John, Ned, Bron, Jorad. Those were all the characters I ever cared for in the series. At the beginning, I cared for Danny, but that quickly started to fade and by the time she burned down King's Landing full of innocents and powerless people despite the bell of peace ringing, that was when I just couldn't bother anymore. Boy did that ending differ from what I imagined. Don't really see why people disiked this season so much though.
Here's to a second series detailing Arya's adventures west of Westeros! Which I always pictured being in the east, for some reason.
Thank you for this. I'm beginning to see why my very first chapter (I've only managed 3 so far) sounds totally off. The amount of head-hopping is almost illegal. :( Again, thank you so much! Greetings from Indonesia!
Excellent! Thank you.
A new video!!! Yasssssssss!
And on my favorite POV nonetheless.
Great video with demonstration and examples for this newbie - Thank you. Subscribed to get more notifications.
Omg this video is absolutely amazing. You gave amazing examples and made it very easy to understand. Not to mention you also talked about third person multiple, which is exactly what I wanted. Ghshuqiakndye thank you so much!! I’m subscribed.
love your videos as always!
As a writer I am pretty good at coming up with good stories, mostly short stories cause novels scare me. But after watching your videos, I have come to realize that I am way out of my depth as a writer and probably should throw in the towel. Love your videos by the way. 😀
I hope you don't feel too discouraged! One of the wonderful and harrowing things about writing is there's always more to learn. It's a skill that can never be mastered. To me, the sheer act of creation is fulfilling, regardless of whether or not someone else reads it or publishes it. So, keep following that passion and write for the joy and through the frustration. You'll grow with every story you write. :)
dolphin narration got me intrigued
Don't worry about what sells...I like this advice so much as I have worried about this...to be honest, this story is trapped in my head and I need it out...I can't worry about the money anymore...😄
Gosh this video was good! Thank you, thank you, thank you
Love the Video. Pity I can't switch between first and third person limited from one chapter to another. Multiple POV in my current project. Oh, by the way anyone interested in beta reading or editing an adult Fantasy novel about women's rights and freedom? I've got one brewing about a witch fleeing inquisition....
Hye Diane, thanks so much for your videos! Is there any way you plan to delve into the topic of focalisation vs perspective?
Thank you for watching! That's a great topic, but it's perhaps a bit too technical for the average writer, to be honest. Myk Eff has a good piece on the subject, though: soundand.design/interactive-narrative-4-focalization-d1e2420e17b3
how do you post exactly what I need at a time when I struggle to get it?! I love your videos and I enjoy every moment of it.
I have a question please, for anyone who can and is willing to help. I'm considering third limited or omniscient. I'd like the narrator to occasionally address the reader and, or, chime from time to time with his own commentary. He's not a character in the story - just a narrator. Can this be done in limited and omniscient or just omniscient? Thanks! Also, when a narrator is describing the setting, such a beautiful spring morning, but the characters aren't around to know that yet, or are sleeping still, is that ok? I am confused because, if third person limited follows a character closely, then what allows a narrator to talk about the setting? Lastly, in omniscient, if it's the narrator's perspective that colors the text and not the character's voice, can the author inject some character voice through thoughts and feelings of the character?
Also, I'm curious how come third person omniscient can't be intimate or achieve that closeness with a character that first and third limited can? It seem doable, unless I'm not understanding third person omniscient. Can't the narrator say the thoughts that the character is thinking, as well as show emotions and describe actions just like in third limited? In the Harry Potter example, he thinks, why would Filch need a kwickspell? Isn't that the same kind of thinking that he'd do in third limited? Please help explain, someone.
Sorry if this is reallllllyyyy late but I feel limited could work its sort of like the narrator is a close friend or enemy of the MC who can add little asides about the character that no one else would know like
'I work out every single morning actually.' He says flexing his arms. Though the young children saw muscular prowess I can assure you the meat would be a meagre meal even to a worm.
I don't I just came up this that now. Anyway, have you tried it yet?
@@ajmalaika1287 Hi! Thanks for responding. I am still (and forever, it seems) in the process of researching. I appreciate your example, but I was under the impression that narrator's opinions, asides, comments, observations, personal stance, etc, are only able to be given in omnificent narration, or, that the story becomes omnisciently narrated when a narrator who is someone separate from the story and/or not the main/narrating character provides his or her own thoughts - then story is being told from the narrator's point of view instead of the point of view of the character. Am I wrong?
I think what you wrote would be considered third person omniscient because the narrator is telling the story from his point of view. Please correct me if I'm mistaken or misunderstanding.
'I work out every single morning actually.' He says flexing his arms. -This sentence is the narrator reporting a character's speech and action - it could be either omniscient or limited narration so far.
Though the young children saw muscular prowess I can assure you the meat would be a meagre meal even to a worm. - This is the narrator's asides and reporting, it is the narrator's personal opinion and comments, not thoughts of the character. So I believe this sentence would make the story being told from the omniscient narrator's point of view. Please correct me.
I am still learning, but I think if it were limited it might be like this;
"I work out every single morning, actually," he said, forcibly inflating his biceps like two balloons. The wide eyed youngsters stared, unblinking! While their wordless praise filled him with confidence, his physique was a long way off from where he wanted..and if the children knew what actual bodybuilders looked like, they'd probably not even notice him, or worse, think his physique was meagre meal to even a worm.
Please let me know what you think. I am so lost, but always trying, haha..
@@snugdream2307 Hi, yeah I think you've got it and I get it too now. You have a good narrator's voice where they sound like another person telling the story instead of an omniscient god-like being. Like Hitchhikers buttoned down to a more one to one conversation where the narrator is aware of secular truths and fact instead of like every single aspect of the universe.
Also love your version soo much better than mine, glad you haven't given up cause you're really good and the better the research the easier it is to write in the end :-)
Finally another video!!!
I finished reading the third book in the Dune series this summer while I was still writing my WIP. No wonder my beta reader pointed out the head hopping. While it took a while to get used to it in Herbert's work, apparently it became second nature when I started writing. Time to go back to the drawing board.
This video made me want to read All the light we cannot see.
Victor Hugo's omniscience in Les Miserables.
Greetings ma'am , i really like to write my novel in third person view but i have trouble on how i use third person limited and third person omniscient in one story and i don't know how to use them effectively , please help me with this one.Thankyou very much
POV question - I'm writing a book with two point of views. It will be one of those where I flip between the two characters after each chapter like Jesmyn Ward's Sing Unburied Sing if you have read that. House of Sand and Fog also does this.
My question is can I have one POV be first person and the other be third person? I don't think I've ever read a book with a first person that then switches to a different character in third person. Usually books like that have everyone as first person. (Sing Unburied had three first person POVs.)
I ask because I really want to tell the story from the one character's POV but need to tell the other character's story as well, but I don't want such an intimate relationship with the second character. I want more of an outsider omniscient POV for that one and the intimacy of first person for the other.
Yes, you can absolutely do that! The Bartimaeus Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud, which is a young adult fantasy series, features both a first-person POV and a third-person POV. The thriller novel _Tell No One_ by Harlan Coben has a primary first-person POV with minor characters in third for one-off chapters. It's an uncommon structure, but with chapter breaks, it doesn't usually feel too jarring. Keep writing! :)
Got it...thanks.
I am working my way through Dune so that's probably my favorite 3rd person.
I would like some more advice...when writing about my scooter or pick up or cars should I write about it what it was what it was like? Or just say scooter instead of It was a cross country racing Vespa Grand Sport 150. 150 meant it had a 150 cc engine etc?
Either approach works. Some writers like to emphasize the details, which can help the reader clearly visualize the scene. In the case of a memoir, I'd say that those details add depth and capture your specific experience. Keep writing! :)
@@QuotidianWriter grazie mil A thousand thanks...
My favourite book written in 3rd person is kiss the girls by James Patterson I also love misery and Gerald's Game by Stephen king I like a couple of erotica authors to jenika snow is my favourite I always prefer story's written in 3rd person because I feel you get a better visual in your head
I love your videos
This is nice... do you do mentoring? I am writing a romance novel known for their multiple POV...very challenging trying not to head hop...I'm going for a combo of cinematic and limited 3rd pov...any specific advice? Thanks
Thank you, Shelly! A multiple POV romance novel sounds fun. It can be challenging to portray several perspectives like that, but I think having separate chapters for each character is the easiest route. I also recommend reading some recently published novels that use a mix of cinematic and limited POVs, like "Little Fires Everywhere" by Celeste Ng and "Where the Crawdads Sing" by Delia Owens. Both of those novels often flit between tight POVs, sometimes within the same scene. I offer a writing coaching package called "Write Your Damn Novel," which involves four two-hour video chats where we discuss and outline your novel. You can find more details on my website: www.quotidianwriter.com. Keep writing! :)
So, when using 3rd Limited, can you switch to another character then and have it not be “head-hopping?”
I think it can work in some cases, but I feel that "head-hopping" is just the pejorative way of labeling POV-switching that some readers (not all) find jarring or confusing. To avoid those complaints, having a cohesive narrative voice (i.e., more omniscient than limited) or making the transitions clear from paragraph to paragraph or scene to scene is helpful. I noticed that the novel "The Beautiful Ones" by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (published in 2017) uses third-person limited head-hopping, and I enjoyed the effect.
How do you organize multiple POVs? How do you manage the chapters and also within chapters?
With multiple POVs, I generally advise planning out each individual character's storyline as a separate sequence and then interweaving them. You could use note cards, an Excel spreadsheet, or Scrivener to organize your scenes. Switching POVs within the same scene can be hard to pull off. It's easier to dedicate one POV per chapter, but if you have two or three POVs per chapter, make sure you have two or three distinct scenes separated by scene breaks.
I also recommend reading a published multiple-POV novel and outlining the POV for each chapter or scene, just so you can look at how another author has achieved it. How many chapters do they dedicate to each character, and why do you think that is? Where do they begin and break off each chapter? How do the storylines intersect? Why did they choose that POV character, and what does that character add to the story that other characters couldn't? I hope that helps! :)
your fake example on head hopping i was like "actually i really like stuff that does that, probably because dune does it so much" and then you are like "dune" and im like "nice"
honestly i think frank herbert really influenced my writing style because i can't stand not knowing the mind state of important characters in a scene. like why are they present if they aren't going to be adding some perspective? it could also be my autism
Ive got to be honest. I'm completely confused by this. I am currently writing a novel through the PoV of the main character. The whole novel is seen through this person's PoV. So when he talks and does things, I refer to "I" and when someone else does things, I refer to them as he, she, they, etc. *e.g. I climbed the tree but she didn't attempt it.* But i have since been told I can only refer to them as he, she, they if the PoV character in present in the scene. If the PoV character is not in the scene, then i can not describe the scene at all because the PoV character is not there to witness it. Is this true?
That's not necessarily true, but it depends on the context. The POV character doesn't need to be present in the scene in order for you to show it. However, you usually need to use a chapter break to indicate a new POV, rather than switching within the same scene or chapter. This is what differentiates novels from movies: instead of going where the "camera" goes, you typically stay with one character for the duration of a scene (third-person omniscient can be more camera-like, but it's difficult to execute and not normally used with first person unless the character is all-knowing, like Death in The Book Thief).
In addition, most novels either *only* use a first-person narrator (or multiple first-person narrators, like in The Female of the Species) or *only* a third-person narrator (sometimes following multiple characters, like in A Song of Ice and Fire). So, that might be one reason your readers have felt the shift between a first-person protagonist and third-person secondary characters is jarring.
Using both in the same novel is definitely an option, though! I have read novels that effectively use a primary first-person POV for the protagonist and then third-person POV for chapters from other characters' POVs. Check out Tell No One by Harlan Coben (thriller) and The Amulet of Samarkand by Jonathan Stroud (fantasy) to see what I mean about switching between first and third perspectives. Hope that helps! :)