Tips for Writing Third Person Limited
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- Опубликовано: 31 май 2024
- How do you write third person limited? Third Limited is one of the most popular POVs to write in these days, but it has a few things to consider before jumping right into it. To save yourself a headache while editing later on, decide how close the narrator is to the perspective character. You'll also want to decide how you're going to switch perspectives. Once you're in the editing phase, you can play with your chapter order to control the pacing with ease.
How to Choose a Point of View:
• How to Choose a Point ...
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-Video Chapters-
00:00 - Introduction
00:43 - Closeness Spectrum
02:56 - Consistency
04:17 - Multiple Perspectives
07:50 - Switching Perspectives
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Thank you 🙏
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I really like the description of Third Person as a spectrum, cuz I've always felt like I'm more in the middle than at either end, but I'd always thought of it as two distinct camps, so it felt like I was doing something wrong.
Sanderson does tell you who the perspective character is in The Stormlight Archive. There are symbols on the front of each chapter that correspond with the major characters, and different symbols used in chapters that will have multiple viewpoints
@7:55 perspective switching. Ya, I totally agree that there are two main approaches, but there are a lot of other sub approaches that can be used. For instance, a military drama i read once, used the name of the location, time & maybe PoV character name. The reason for this choice was to constantly keep track and plot out troop movements as the story heavily focused on maneuvering and strategic positioning of forces rather than the combat itself.
I always apprentice how well delivered and edited these videos are! 👏 And I love that last tidbit of advice on getting the story out first before overthinking every minor detail.
Thanks! I particularly appreciate that comment on this video since this sucker was supposed to go up at the end of January, but I had multiple file corruptions that led me to filming this thing twice and editing it three times 😬
@@AroundTheCampfire Oh no!! That's THE WORST. Glad you were able to push through and get this put out. It was so helpful! I'm starting a new story which happens to be my first third-person project, so this was perfectly timed for me!
Dune did catch me off guard with that head hopping.
Going to talk about Dune in my video on 3rd Omni, but yeah, it's definitely something you have to get used to 😅
HAPPY BIRTHDAY to a brilliant creative who's genuinely made my life more enjoyable this last year. I have a tendency of finding something, using the product, and staying for the community. The whole Campfire Team deserves some love, and it's easy to see Levi as someone who fosters the interaction you see in Discord and the livestreams.
Y'all are the best, and a super Happy Birthday to you Levi :p
Happy Birthday, Levi!
On Stormlight Sanderson does tell you who the chapter will (mainly) focus on. The way that he does it is with the art. Kaladin is the spears and the moon, Dalinar with the tower, Shallan with the lights and so on
i was always under the impression that 3rd person omniscient implied that we could hear many characters thoughts and 3rd person limited means only hearing one persons thoughts. omniscient means "all knowing" after all
I love reading 3rd person limited, so I chose that for my book. There are many reasons, but mainly I enjoy feeling inside the characters' heads, getting close to them, empathizing and understanding what drives them. I've made it a rule that I will not reveal information or even perspective that doesn't make sense for the current POV.
But this allows some really fun stuff when it comes to building your characters: If you describe the same thing from 2 character perspectives, you can reveal A LOT about those characters. For example, in my book, the MC [peasant] goes into the Capital, gushing and awed by the incredible structures and technology. Shortly thereafter, the MC [elite] rolls by the same buildings etc and thinks about how boring it all is.
I've read well-executed 3rd person omniscient as well. Choose wherever on the spectrum serves your story best!
This is exactly why I choose 3rd person limited as well (up until now, still the first draft). One of my characters is very cynical, while another is optimistic, which shapes the way these characters view the new world they will enter later. Cynical character sees bad sides to everything and questions the logic of certain locations, while the optimistic one is in awe and wants to interact with the world as much as possible
I was so confused by the different narrator perspectives and didn't really know where to start with my story's perspective! These videos are a windfall, thankyou so much! 🧡
If it hasn't already been done, perhaps a video on narrative voice could be interesting!
Thanks a LOT for this. I've watched countless hours of pacing video's and I didn't fully understand until you explained it to me so simply! I think the basic thing is that people are often talking about controlling the pacing while failing to establish what that means or why it's important, or they fail to do so. Even when they try I've always considered it this nebulous force until you brought out that piece of paper and moved the events of the story around it. It's still a lot more complex than that, but this is why education systems tend to use simple and more clear cut methods of exploring complex issues. The complex reality of history I can handle but it would blow everyone's minds if that was the standard curriculum.
tl;dr: Sometimes I need to be explained to like a 5 year old. :)
This was helpful. I was concerned with third-person boundaries just the other day. In my case, I wanted to make a reference to a tangential character in a different place but had an impact on the 'close' characters. I felt this was akin to head-hopping, but I was describing her actions rather than thoughts.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LEVI!!!!!!!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY LEVI!!!
Hapyy Birthday Levi!!!!!
Happy Birthday Levi!
Happy birthday, Levi!!
I love third person, and enjoy books in both third limited and omniscient. I'm writing my current work in omniscient, which has been a real challenge but a worthwhile one.
This is the clearest and most concise way I have EVER heard this described!
Sanderson has never kept me up late but, i understand.
Happy birthday~! 😊🎉
I’m sure you’ve heard this already but I can’t resist: on Brando Sando’s character switches, he uses the crest on each to signify POV. Dalinar is that castle chapter you were on, Kaladin is a sword, etc
Nice tips about POV!... the drums' sound background was distracting to me.
Most helpful explanation I have found.
Happy birthday! Thank you :)
Thank you. I needed this.
No problem!
This was really helpful 😊
Great video.
Totally agree on getting the story out first, before nitpicking the details. My only problem is, since I can't write an entire novel in a single sitting, and my writing brain doesn't turn off, I inevitably start nitpicking ideas in between writing sessions😅 #writerslife
Short stories/flash fiction though...😁
Anyway, enjoyed the video and will check out more.
Oh my gosh!! I had to laugh so hard at your video. I am a funny based person, so this video will stick in my goofy brain a LOT longer than boring videos. The information was very easy to understand, and showed your knowledge, without showing OFF. I love your technique!! THANK YOU.
Totally agree! Algorithm kicked this into my path and I’m sooo happy it did! This is my first video of this channel but certainly won’t be the last!
Like you said great detail, concisely delivered, with tons of personality to make it enjoyable on what I consider to be a super important topic that somehow doesn’t get much coverage in general - at least as far as I’ve seen in my journey.
I was going to choose omniscient months ago until I read somewhere that it was somewhat passé; but that limited was the most popular. Once I understood the difference I knew I wanted my writing to be more immersed in the characters.
I thought I understood before watching this video but this added to my understanding. I will now start binging this channel because I like this guy’s style of communication.
Happy Birthday (and April Fools Day) Levi!!
This video is so good, I watched it twice.
Happy Birthday TO YOU!
Thanks!
Happy birthday! April 1st is also my hubby's b-day. So surprise!
HAPPY BDAY!!!
Thank you
Can you have one character who is very open to the reader. Hes very expressive and doesnt know how to mask his thoughts or feelings well. While the love interest is basically walled off. I want him to open up narratively as the story progresses. Id make it clear through the story his walls are coming down both from the main characters point of view but also when the pov swaps to him.
Hm. Interesting video, thanks for sharing. I'm struggling a bit to apply your pov affecting pacing advice to my big novel project, which does feature pov shifts, but it's a high school interpersonal drama (in both the funny teen drama sense & the as-opposed-to-comedy sense) where there isn't anything like a battle in play. Which isn't to say "nothing happens," or even that it's low stakes-- compared to high fantasy sure, or even my adult life, but these kids feel like their grade is worth everything, the whole teen mindset and all. So it's a bit difficult to picture how (or if) the pov switch could be utilized for pacing specifically, rather than "just" seeing the blossoming & curdling of romance from all sides. 🤔
First off, the switching rapidly between perspectives isn't something you should use all the time. It's best used during intense moments, and battles are the only time where things get intense! Any time where there are high stakes on the line, it's intense, and as long as the stakes are high to the characters, that's what's important. Someone's life doesn't have to be on the line. If you have a crucial plot point with major characters all doing different things, that's a perfect time to do it.
In terms of pacing on a chapter to chapter basis, like you say, each character has their own series of struggles their going through. It might help to identify each step of a character's personal story then strategically switch chapters around those steps.
For example, let's a say a character's ultimate goal is to get into their favorite college. Let's call them Sarah. The series of obstacles Sarah faces could be: Do well on this test so I can keep my grades up -> Work my way to the top of an extracurricular group to look good -> Do well on the *insert your local standardized test which colleges judge you by* -> Apply to schools -> Get scholarships
So let's say the first chapter is about the test. We spend time exploring that struggle, but you don't want to resolve it right away. You want to leave people wanting more to propel them forward, so you switch to a different perspective before the big test. Then when we return to Sarah, we resolve the big test arc and incite the struggle with extracurriculars. Ideally, you've already hinted at the extracurricular arc in the first chapter so that it doesn't feel like it comes out of the blue (but sometimes it can! totally fine to throw an unexpected obstacle at a character, just can't do that every time). Then you make progress on extracurriculars, but again, don't resolve it just yet.
So then you can repeat that process over and over again where you chain these smaller conflicts together but break them up between perspectives switches. Ideally you never conclude a section in one perspective without some kind of conflict or question to keep people wandering about what happens next, and some chapters will just make progress on a conflict. If you have three chapters in a row from the same character, usually that middle chapter will just be about progress.
If you stay in a character's perspective for a long time, the reader will be focused on that character's struggle, and the other characters will fade a bit. In that case, you depend wholly on what's happening in that perspective to guide your pace. When you start switching perspectives faster, it creates the sense that a lot of stuff is happening since the audience has to keep up with multiple plot lines. That increased intensity makes the pace feel faster.
Let me know if that helps!
I’m writing my novel and I’m at odds about how I am writing it because I was told I write in third person limited omniscient and I’m currently trying to fix my head hopping and am frustrated because I’m going to have to write it all over again so could you help me I can’t seem to get it right
I hope it has been made clear to all those concerned that the position I’ve been given is a responsibility and not just a favour.
I have a question. So, I'm doing 3rd person limited as close to the character as possible. Normally, from what I've seen, MC descriptions are kept decently brief, so you can have an idea of what they look like, but still have your own image. I'm writing very specific characters in an mm romance. All MCs are husky men. The first one is 5'10" and 280 lbs, and the other is 6' and 300 lbs. I straight up say this for the characters as they are comparing themselves to those around them (the first one is in a dance club, and the second is in a grad course when we first meet them.) They'd know this, and I also describe how uncomfortable they are in these spaces, both physically and psychologically. I've read not to do this, but these characters are hyper-aware of their size. The point of this is that in the 'bear' community within mm romance, we get mainly muscle-bears or muscle-bears with a little belly. Any guy of significant size that isn't muscular needs to find a fit guy to make him feel worthy of love. I'm trying to move away from that and show two chubby men can find love without the need of someone who is in great shape to show them love, or to feel they have to lose weight. I've had a few people read the first chapter, and none of them seemed bothered by the fact I detail the first MC in a way that feels further away than deep 3rd, but at the same time, this person would know these things about themselves. And, no mirror reflection. I don't mention his eyes until the 2nd MC says something. :) I guess what I'm asking is it okay to go deep 3rd person and describe the character's physical attributes that they would focus on themselves.
Can we transition from Omniscient to Limited when introducing the 2 protagonists? For example, page 1 begins Omniscient to introduce the female protagonist and switches to Limited for the rest of her intro scene. Page 3 is a scene change and introduces the male protagonist in Omniscient before playing out the rest of the story in Limited from his perspective, as he is the main protagonist.
There's no rule against that! I'd say give it a shot and run it by some people to see what they think. It's going to come down to *feel* I think, and how natural that shift comes across.
But more importantly, I'd make sure this kind of transition is something the story really needs. Because my first thought is-why not just start with each character already in limited POV if that's where you'll end up so soon anyway? 🤔
@@AroundTheCampfire I suppose it might also be that I'm not extremely clear on what is considered Omniscient. From what I understand, it means that the narrator has access to everyone's thoughts, whereas Limited only has access to the main characters thoughts. From what I can see, the narrator does indeed only get one characters thoughts. But I had a beta reader tell me he stopped at page 5 because I had a severe POV issue.
To me it just seems like a brief introduction to each character and then their story plays out in Limited. I'm very confused lol Maybe the play then would be to omit the female characters introduction and start with just the main male character. Though I do feel it's the female characters scene that adds urgency to the first 10 pages. Thank you for the response, btw!
@@PabloGonzalez-dm3xma peer editor told me 3rd person omniscient is out of style, yet when I don't use it people complain I have issues with characterization. Seems their's no winning these days 😕.
This is good! I don't like omniscient. In Dune it was annoying to me. I would have preferred to have one on one time with each of the characters in their own chapters.
I'm currently working on a 3rd Person Omni video that talk about exactly this!
Martin - Switching on new chapter better for large cast.
Sanderson - Switching on new scene mid-paragraf better for smaller cast.
DUNE - ....
Well put over. I use third person omniscient. I just don't call it that.
Switching the focus character can be important for dramatic irony. After all, if you're writing in Third Limited, you can be inside the head of a character, but you can't describe something they can't see. It's helpful to switch focus for this purpose. But you have to tread carefully because it can be jarring if not executed well. For my part, I do this in the first chapter of my novel and no one ever notices it happening.
For sure! There's always exceptions to the "rules" and in the right situations they can work wonders. :)
Is that true though? I thn that it depends sort of like how it was described how close to whatever end of the "spectrum" youre on, like- you might be able to describe something the character can't see, since it's "omniscient with boundries" where you draw the boundaries will vary/is a spectrum.... no?
@@ar4203 *EXAMPLE1:* Cletus stirs the grits, his mind submerging into the swirl. The egg rolls toward the edge of the table.
Are we seeing from Cletus' POV? i.e. is he the one noticing the egg? We can only know that based on his reaction if the egg falls from the table. _However...._
*EXAMPLE2:* Cletus stirs the grits, his mind submerging into the swirl *as* the egg rolls toward the edge of the table.
So, joining the sentences could give some indication of dramatic irony. But it's still a bit ambiguous. In any case, in this example it doesn't really matter since his reaction would make it crystal clear, but again it depends on his reaction, and it doesn't work as well with an action without such immediate implications.
I'm open to learning something new, tho. Do you have an example where it'd be 100% clear that Cletus isn't seeing the egg roll?
New to writing so thanks in advance for your patience. You say that Cletus’s reaction will make clear whether he’s aware. I agree. So why is that not a sufficient solution to the issue you raise? Maybe I’m not understanding the issue?
“He reached out and corralled the renegade egg, placing it back in the tight circle with the others.” Means he saw it rolling.
Versus
Nothing else sounds like an egg cracking and splattering when it hits the floor. “Damn!” Cletus shook his head and pursed his lips together. There were no more eggs in the fridge. Anticipating his Mother’s disappointment when he served her breakfast without the omelette he’d promised her, he sank even farther down into his foul mood.
“What next?” he asked out loud. He jumped when his Mother’s weakened voice answered him. “Clean up that damn mess! That’s what’s next!” Then she laughed, which brought on another coughing fit. Cletus abandoned the grits on the stove and reached his mother just in time to catch her on the way down to the floor. -She’s gotten worse!-
“Ma you gotta let me take you to the “ “Don’t start Cletus! It’s just a bad cold. Now help me back to bed. I’ll feel better after I eat” she lied. Her voice was weak but her tone had him regressing to his childhood. His mother had ruled her household with an iron fist, both demanding and earning her four sons’ unending respect. “Yes Ma’am” he relented.
Once he had gotten his mom settled back in bed, Cletus returned to the kitchen to find the grits had congealed into one huge smoking clump. He could hear his mother’s persistent wet cough even though she was all the way upstairs. Cletus turned off the stove, grabbed the boiler and slammed it down onto the back burner. The grit clump didn’t move. His mother was going to be furious that he had ruined her broiler.
“What’s next?” he had asked before. -Enough!- He stomped over to the kitchen wall and plucked his mother’s old corded phone out of its cradle and rotary dialed 911. - She can curse me out if she wants to, but she’s GOING to the hospital.-
👀👀👀👀👀What just happened?? I went into a trance and started riffing off your example 😂😂😂. Apologies.
I can’t italicize on my phone so I used - in pairs to indicate internal thoughts (3rd person limited).
Corny prose but the reaction tells the tale. And if it’s immediate then the one or two seconds of possible ambiguity from the first sentence is negligible imo.
What I’m asking is would it be worth the ten minutes I might spend to find a way to word the first sentence to make clear whether the egg rolling is an omniscient or limited pov event or would it be acceptable to just make it clear in the next sentence?
No snark intended. I’m legit trying to get a feel for the exact “correct” way to write in third person and for what kinds of aspects are not written in stone but more open to author’s individual style.
@@yapdog on example 1 add after the word table “and almost falling off before Cletus captured it.” Or say “…table and fell off.”
It’s implied he didn’t see it because he would have tried to stop it. ???
I was once berated by a beta reaxi who said that I had broken the third person limited rule. I hadn't realized that I was writing in third person limited. It seems that I was and for the rest of the book, I will be.
Abbie Emmons I don’t need an explanation. Just look at the facts and numbers and come to a decision based on your true nature.
For mid-chapter perspective switching, would it be entirely inappropriate to put a header or tag to establish the switch. Like this:
Perspective one
line break
header
perspective two. For example:
Jack, finally finished with his homework and chores, was now allowed to have his girlfriend come over. Hopefully, she wasn't busy.
------------------------------------------------------------
Meanwhile, Tabitha's house:
Tabitha stood over her baby brother's crib. She couldn't believe her parents had stuck her with taking care of the child today. That completely ruined her plans.
If you're switching perspectives quickly, it might be a bit odd to have headers every time, and if you spend quite a bit of time in each perspective, I might just start a new chapter at that point. Not using headers feels more elegant to me, but that doesn't mean they're off limits by any means. If you want to try it that way, go for it! That's a relatively simple fix if it ends up being awkward since you can just get rid of the heading and edit the first sentence or two.
@@ikaza1320 It's really hard to give advice without reading your entire piece outright. If we aren't spending enough time (especially towards the beginning) with each character to really connect to them, then the audience might not feel very connected to them. So you might start out by switching less often then gradually start switching faster!
@@AroundTheCampfire My thought was that whenever a scene is "finished" and what comes next for the character is some the dull stuff that's never included anyway, this would be a good time to switch characters. It serves the purpose of keeping the story focused on the interesting parts AND it works to pass the time for the previous character.
For example, I have a scene where a character is in a museum and her actions in the museum are important, but after that, she travels home uneventfully. Of course, I don't want to describe her unimportant walk home, so if I switch to what the other character is doing, it allows time to pass without the useless parts. Then I come back to character 1 once 2's stuff is finished.
A good example of this is in Stranger Things. Each group (the kids, the teens, and the adults) worked on their own part of the mystery and the story would cycle through the groups, transitioning once one group's scene was wrapping up.
Thank you for your advice. I understand that it could be difficult to give without specifics.
Rapid POV switching is acceptable in TV or movies, which is why your example looks more like a screenplay, it looks more technical and instructive. You also mentioned Stranger Things, which is a TV show, so I can see why you are inclined to it. This is because TV/Film can get away with it since they already show everything; you don't need to imagine anything.
Novels need to take some time with a POV because there are no pictures or sounds. It's all just words in prose. You need to imagine them to life to be immersive and that takes time. I would suggest watching Game of Thrones season 1, then reading Book 1 to see how multi-POV translates to a novel format.
@@studiojapfilms7305 First off, excuse my very late response. I never meant that I wouldn't immerse and include settings. What I meant was that if I have multiple characters doing different (but related) things, having to "time-travel" back to show the next character would be weird and annoying (to write and read). An example of what I mean is David Weber's "A Beautiful Friendship." Each chapter, he switches from the human society to the alien one, rather than telling the human one in its entirety and then telling the alien one. They're so intertwined that you have to keep them flowing concurrently for the story to make sense. It's just that I'm not cutting the story into "chapters" in the traditional sense. So in leu of that, I wanted to know if a line break and header was appropriate. Think of it this way, instead of giving a chapter number at a new section, I'm giving a time and location.
The production quality of this vid is insane. It could have been just you talking to the camera but you went OFF
You look like iDubbbz older brother.
Campy scene was hilarious!
Thanks so much....always looking for help, and tips especially from fellow storytellers 💭✍🎶📗🪶🎭🃏🧩
Glad you found it so helpful!