Third-person point of view feels like the default in the literary world. Many novels
refer to main characters using the pronouns “he,” “she,” or “they,” rather
than the “I/me/my” of first-person narration. In my video “All About Writing in First
Person,” I explored the ins and outs of that close perspective. Now, we’ll explore
the unique aspects of the other most popular POV.
As a thought exercise, imagine how different the Harry Potter series would feel if it had
been written in first-person instead of third-person POV. Here’s my rewritten excerpt from
The Chamber of Secrets:
“Fascinated, I thumbed through the rest of the envelope's contents. Why on earth did
Filch want a Kwikspell course? Did this mean he wasn't a proper wizard? I was just reading
‘Lesson One: Holding Your Wand (Some Useful Tips)’ when shuffling footsteps outside
told me Filch was coming back. Stuffing the parchment back into the envelope, I threw
it back onto the desk just as the door opened.”
And here’s the original version for comparison:
“Fascinated, Harry thumbed through the rest of the envelope's contents. Why on earth did
Filch want a Kwikspell course? Did this mean he wasn't a proper wizard? Harry was just
reading ‘Lesson One: Holding Your Wand (Some Useful Tips)’ when shuffling footsteps outside
told him Filch was coming back. Stuffing the parchment back into the envelope, Harry threw
it back onto the desk just as the door opened.”
Notice that I didn’t actually have to rewrite anything; I only changed four words.
Whereas first person involves immersing yourself in one individual voice, third person allows
for varying degrees of “narrative distance,” also known as “psychic distance”—that
is, how close the reader is to the characters’ thoughts. These levels of narrative distance
give rise to different classifications of third person, namely limited and omniscient.
In the Chamber of Secrets passage, we’re very close to Harry’s thoughts. With third-person
limited, you’re hovering over one character’s shoulder throughout the story. It’s similar
to first person in that the reader is given access to the character’s innermost thoughts—we’re
limited to that perspective for that given scene. That character serves as an anchor,
grounding the reader in the story.
Even though there is no “I” involved, the character’s opinions can intrude on
the writing style, in what is known as “free indirect discourse.” This is when the language
of the narration takes on the voice of the character.
We can see free indirect discourse at work in the internal questions that Harry asks:
“Why on earth did Filch want a Kwikspell course?” It almost sounds like dialogue
that Harry would speak aloud; the thought is phrased in his voice, despite the fact
that the author is narrating.
So why would a writer use third-person limited instead of first when they’re so similar?
The answer is flexibility and tone. You see, Harry Potter isn’t only written in third-person
limited; it slips into moments that feel more like third-person omniscient. With omniscient,
the audience is watching the events unfold from an aerial view. “Omniscient” comes
from a word that means “all-knowing” in Latin. The author and reader become god-like
figures, able to see what every character is doing at any point—past, present, or
future.
The Harry Potter series zooms out onto other scenes. In the Filch passage, first person
doesn’t sound too strange when we’re limited to Harry’s perspective, but when the camera
shifts to omniscient, it doesn’t quite fit:
“October arrived, spreading a damp chill over the grounds and into the castle. Madam
Pomfrey, the nurse, was kept busy by a sudden spate of colds among the staff and students.
Her Pepperup potion worked instantly, though it left the drinker smoking at the ears for
several hours afterward. Ginny Weasley, who had been looking pale, was bullied into taking
some by Percy. The steam pouring from under her vivid hair gave the impression that her
whole head was on fire.”
Harry may have observed these details, but the description is not directly filtered through
his perspective; it feels broader. The magical atmosphere of the Harry Potter series is due
in part to the third-person perspective, which blends both limited and omniscient styles.
We feel connected to Harry because we’re occasionally told what he’s thinking, yet
we’re privy to all the magical details beyond what Harry himself might describe. With third
person, the author acts as a mediator between the characters and the readers.
Third person also allows Rowling to feature a different perspective for one-off chapters,
such as in the opening of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, which is told from
the Dursleys’ perspective, during a time when Harry was a baby:
“Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly
normal, thank you very much. They were the last people you'd expect to be involved in
anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn't hold with such nonsense.”
Notice the free indirect discourse at work here, with the narrator “borrowing” language
from the voices of the characters. “Perfectly normal, thank you very much.” “They just
didn’t hold with such nonsense.” Those phrases sound like things the Dursleys would
say, yet the author is incorporating those word choices into the narrative voice.
Think of narrative distance like filming a movie: you can zoom the camera in or out,
depending on what the moment requires. That ability to adjust the level of closeness is
something you can’t do in first person; you’re stuck with a front-row seat for the
course of the story unless you add in another point of view. So, if you're trying to choose
between third person and first person, ask yourself whether your story calls for flexibility
of perspective or a limited but intimate view.
Let’s take a closer look at the advantages of third person. The ability to feature multiple
perspectives allows you to include a diverse range of characters and settings, expanding
the story to an epic scope. It’s also easier to kill your main characters and replace them
with new frontrunners without completely disrupting the story. If you have one first-person narrator
and you kill them off, the story is over.
George R.R. Martin is a master of the multiple-POV narrative. A Song of Ice and Fire switches
between different third-person limited perspectives, where the reader gets up close and personal
with each character while still not completely entering their viewpoint. Even though the
POVs are largely written in the same narrative style, what differentiates the characters
are the things they focus on—their dreams, their fears, their daily preoccupations. For
example, in the first book, A Game of Thrones, there is a stark difference in what Ned, an
honorable lord, and Sansa, his eldest daughter, care about in their lives. Here’s a passage
from Ned’s point of view:
“Ned stopped at last and lifted the oil lantern. The crypt continued on into darkness
ahead of them, but beyond this point the tombs were empty and unsealed; black holes waiting
for their dead, waiting for him and his children. Ned did not like to think on that.”
And here’s what Sansa, an 11-year-old girl, is thinking about:
“Sansa knew all about the sorts of people Arya liked to talk to: squires and grooms
and serving girls, old men and naked children, rough-spoken freeriders of uncertain birth.
Arya would make friends with anybody. This Mycah was the worst; a butcher’s boy, thirteen
and wild, he slept in the meat wagon and smelled of the slaughtering block. Just the sight
of him was enough to make Sansa feel sick, but Arya seemed to prefer his company to hers.”
Ned, being an older man and a father, has passing thoughts about his mortality and his
children, with the crypt setting contributing to that. Sansa, on the other hand, is concerned
about social status, friendships, and boys. What’s more, each perspective adds something
new to the story. In A Game of Thrones, there are eight POVs total, and they provide a window
into the different sides of the Stark vs. Lannister conflict, with a couple of the perspectives
being separate from the main storyline but still related. In addition, multiple points
of view allow for variety in terms of gender, age, and personality. By viewing the drama
from contrasting angles, the reader realizes that no one side is all good (although some
may be pretty close to all bad) because everybody's flaws are on the table. Martin is savvy enough
to make you root for players on every side, even though if you put your favorite characters
together, they'd kill each other. A Song of Ice and Fire could not be told in
first person because one protagonist, or even multiple first-person protagonists, would
be severely limited in what they could see and experience in this story world. Third
person allows for character exploration on an epic scale.
Multiple-POV stories let the writer switch between events as they’re happening. This
builds suspense by showing readers both sides of the plot; even if you know the characters’
plans, you don't know how they’re going to turn out.
That sense of dramatic irony is a delightful part of writing in third person. If the reader
has information that a character doesn’t—whether gained from the omniscient narrator or another
character’s perspective—that creates tension. Like seeing a snake enter a tiger’s cage,
we feel the anticipation of drama, and it compels us to pay attention. Dramatic irony
is often used in stage plays, such as Shakespeare’s Macbeth. When King Duncan decides to trust
Macbeth, the audience already knows that Macbeth plans to kill him.
In her fantasy novel Vicious, V.E. Schwab employs dramatic irony through multiple third-person
limited POVs. One is Victor, our anchor character, introduced first and sort of portrayed as
the lesser of two evils, although he’s not a good guy, either. His antagonist is Eli,
the holier-than-thou crusader type. The two friends-turned-enemies are bent on killing
each other. Because the reader has access to both their perspectives, we can see when
one has the upper hand and the other doesn’t know it. We can also witness them crossing
paths, yet not realizing it. Victor and Eli end up staying in the same hotel, unbeknownst
to each other. There’s even a moment when Eli eyes one of Victor’s associates, whom
the reader recognizes from his description, but Eli has no clue that his enemy is nearer
than he thinks. Using dramatic irony can be like sharing an inside joke with the reader.
From a style perspective, third person also allows your narrative voice as the author
to shine through. You can play with your prose without being accused of speaking for your
characters.
In his Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr uses third-person
omniscient to follow two characters, and his lyrical style remains consistent throughout.
The first sentences of each perspective introduce the two characters in a parallel fashion.
This is how the female protagonist is introduced:
“In a corner of the city, inside a tall, narrow house at Number 4 rue Vauborel, on
the sixth and highest floor, a sightless sixteen-year-old named Marie-Laure LeBlanc kneels over a low
table covered entirely with a model.”
And this is the male protagonist:
“Five streets to the north, a white-haired eighteen-year-old German private named Werner
Pfennig wakes to a faint staccato hum. Little more than a purr. Flies tapping at a far-off
windowpane.”
The author can quickly convey the characters’ backgrounds as a way to introduce them to
the reader. Physical descriptions are also easier to state in third person. A first-person
narrator wouldn’t be likely to say, “I’m a white-haired, eighteen-year-old German private.”
Likewise, Werner doesn’t know he’s “five streets to the north” of Marie-Laure; the
omniscient narrator is providing that information.
Third-person omniscient also allows the author to make sweeping observations about the human
condition or convey themes that the characters themselves might not recognize. Anthony Doerr
can write in his own poetic style because he’s not constrained by character voice:
“We all come into existence as a single cell, smaller than a speck of dust. Much smaller.
Divide. Multiply. Add and subtract. Matter changes hands, atoms flow in and out, molecules
pivot, proteins stitch together, mitochondria send out their oxidative dictates; we begin
as a microscopic electrical swarm. The lung the brain the heart. Forty weeks later, six
trillion cells get crushed in the vise of our mother’s birth canal and we howl. Then
the world starts in on us.”
The third-person perspective of All the Light We Cannot See creates narrative distance,
which in turn yields a lofty, romantic tone. Typically, you want closeness so that readers
can connect with your characters. But there are situations where it’s beneficial to
create a little distance between the audience and the characters. It almost gives the writing
a fairytale quality. Neil Gaiman’s Stardust is written in third-person omniscient as well,
and it’s told in “Once Upon a Time” fashion:
“There was once a young man who wished to gain his Heart’s Desire. And while that
is, as beginnings go, not entirely novel (for every tale about every young man there ever
was or will be could start in a similar manner) there was much about this young man and what
happened to him that was unusual, although even he never knew the whole of it.”
As with using multiple perspectives, third-person omniscient makes it easier for the action
to jump between timeframes and locations. Gaiman can cover the history of the town and
describe the various people within it across a single chapter. In a more limited perspective,
he’d have to stick with the anchor character, but here he can branch out as his heart desires.
This level of narrative distance is not only good for being poetic or generating a fairytale
feel, but it also works well when conveying humor. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
by Douglas Adams uses the distance third person creates to make funny statements about the
universe writ large:
“For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent
than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all
the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely,
the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely
the same reasons.”
Because the narrator is all-knowing, they have access to information no character would,
including the thoughts of dolphins. Hence, humor is born through the matter-of-fact tone
and the narrator’s awareness of what everyone—and everything—is thinking. In this way, the
author can turn the third-person narrator into a character themselves, with a distinct
voice and personality.
Those are some advantages of third person. It allows you to include more perspectives,
generate dramatic irony, write in your own style, and create tone via narrative distance.
Third person is not without its limitations, of course. There are three main drawbacks.
For one, there’s a loss of intimacy between the characters and readers. While third person
allows you to showcase your unique style as a writer, it doesn’t provide the immersion
that comes with inhabiting someone else’s head. That doesn’t mean readers won’t
feel attached to the characters in a third-person story, but writers might have to work harder
to forge and maintain an emotional connection with the audience. And if the reader can’t
connect with the characters, then they’ll have a hard time caring about what happens
in the story.
You can convey a character’s personality through actions and dialogue as well as descriptions
of their desires within the narrative. In Frances Hardinge’s The Lie Tree, which is
told in third-person limited, the protagonist’s defining feature is her hunger for knowledge.
However, Hardinge doesn’t simply state, “Faith was a curious girl.” Instead, she
shows that curiosity through hypothetical examples:
“It was the unexpected opportunities that she found hardest to resist. An unattended
envelope with the letter peeping out, clean and tantalizing. An unlocked door. A careless
conversation, unheeding of eavesdroppers. There was a hunger in her, and girls were
not supposed to be hungry. They were supposed to nibble sparingly when at the table, and
their minds were supposed to be satisfied with a slim diet too. A few stale lessons
from tired governesses, dull walks, unthinking pastimes. But it was not enough. All knowledge—any
knowledge—called to Faith, and there was a delicious, poisonous pleasure in stealing
it unseen.”
To create emotional connection in third person, you can use narrative flair that describes
the nuances of the character’s inner life.
We’ve talked about multiple perspectives being an advantage, but it’s also another
downside of third person—it can be overwhelming to write and read stories where you have to
keep track of too many POV characters. Any book can feature too many characters, but
since third person lends itself to creating more perspectives, it’s more at risk of
becoming confusing.
It can also result in unnecessary chapters where one character’s story drags down the
pacing of the entire novel, or the author repeats events from another character’s
perspective without adding any new information for the reader. Thus, it’s important that
each POV character has a distinctive identity—such as a blind French girl or a German soldier—and
moves the plot forward in some way.
When a writer is including multiple viewpoints, the story might balloon to a 500,000-word
doorstopper, given all the additional subplots tied to these secondary characters. It also
presents the writer with many creative avenues to choose from, which can be paralyzing. This
is easy enough to prevent—just choose an anchor character and let them guide the main
plot. In the TV show Lost, even though each episode shifts to a different focal character,
the series always comes back to Jack, whom we started with.
Before you begin writing, identify the story’s most essential POVs and cut any superfluous
perspectives.
Finally, we have the danger of head-hopping. This is when a writer switches between multiple
characters’ thoughts within the same scene. Say that a whole scene is happening from the
perspective of our main character, Bob, as he’s talking to his love interest, Mary.
But then this happens:
“Hello, Mary,” Bob said. He shifted from foot to foot, working up the nerve to ask
her on a stroll. Perhaps he’d even hold her hand.
Mary glanced at him. “What is it?” She hoped he wouldn’t try to invite her on another
endlessly boring walk through the gardens.
We switched over to Mary’s thoughts all of a sudden! This is a point of view violation
because the reader assumes the whole scene will be from Bob’s perspective, and it’s
jarring when the focus shifts to another character. But head-hopping isn’t inherently evil.
In fact, one of the most celebrated sci-fi novels of all time uses head-hopping as a
literary device: Dune by Frank Herbert.
Within one scene, we see into the minds of three different characters. Paul is our anchor
character for most of the novel and for the story’s opening scene. Yet this part isn’t
told solely from his point of view. We start off close to Paul: “He lifted his right
hand, willing the memory of the pain.” We’re clearly in his mind, since he’s trying to
tap into his own memory. But then, three paragraph breaks later, we’re inside the head of the
old woman he’s talking to: “She extinguished the excitement, reminding herself: ‘Hope
clouds observation.’” And then, on the same page, Paul’s mother, Lady Jessica,
arrives and it switches over to her: “The door felt hard and real against her back.
Everything in the room was immediate and pressing against her senses.” Then the scene switches
back to Paul: “He wanted to get away alone and think this experience through, but knew
he could not leave until he was dismissed.”
Some might call this third-person omniscient—which it is. But that doesn’t really distinguish
it from head-hopping, since most of the scene is from Paul’s POV, yet we occasionally
dip into the thoughts of these other characters. To prevent confusion, Herbert signals the
shift to the reader with a paragraph break; he states the character’s name and usually
includes a bit of italicized thought. The advantage of such head-hopping is that the
reader receives different characters’ reactions in real time. This is critical in suspenseful
scenes, because the author can show what information each character knows—or doesn't.
Granted, Dune was published in 1965, and publishing tastes have changed since then. But head-hopping
appears in more contemporary works, too, like Gabrielle Zevin’s The Storied Life of A.
J. Fikry, published in 2014.
Even so, be careful about switching perspectives in the middle of a scene. There needs to be
a clear marker of the shift, and it’s easier to pull off if your novel feels omniscient
from the start rather than having a tight third-person limited POV with one character.
Head-hopping isn’t as amateurish as some make it out to be; it just requires a lot
of skill to pull off and has largely fallen out of fashion.
As a rule of thumb, stick to one POV per scene or chapter.
If you choose to write in third person, be aware of that potential loss of emotional
connection, the overwhelming nature of multiple viewpoints in both writing and reading, and
the danger of head-hopping.
A side note about third-person present tense: although it’s not as marketable as past
tense, it’s not entirely uncommon. In this style, you’ll see sentences like, “The
painting is stolen the same week the Russians put a dog into space.” That’s the first
line of Dominic Smith’s The Last Painting of Sara de Vos. All the Light We Cannot See
is written in third-person present, too, and you might not have even noticed earlier.
Like in a movie or screenplay, you’re watching the action unfold before you. Chuck Wendig,
author of the writing blog Terribleminds, says his use of third-person present tense
in his novels contributes to his “thriller pacing”:
“It lets me write a story that feels all the more dangerous because its outcome isn’t
set—by making it now instead of in history, it becomes a living document. It’s an evolving
narrative… As such, it lends itself to urgency—and you read less to find out what happened and
more to find out what’s going to happen next. Every page feels like it exists only
because you turn it. Less an excavation and an archive and more an act of shared narrative
creation. The reader makes the story happen just by reading.”
Wendig captures the reading experience in a succinct sentence: “It’s not like looking
at a painting, but rather, like watching someone paint.” I’ve linked his article in the
video description.
In an interview for The Guardian, Kevin Barry, author of Beatlebone, similarly commented,
“I think it is a case of trying to plant a voice inside the reader’s head, to make
him or her hear the words as they read them … to make them read with their ears, essentially.
You’re aiming to mesmerise, and for me that’s the quality that the best fiction has. It’s
a mesmeric force.” See how you feel about the effect in Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall,
winner of the Man Booker Prize:
“It knocks the last breath out of him; he thinks it may be his last. His forehead returns
to the ground; he lies waiting, for Walter to jump on him. The dog, Bella, is barking,
shut away in an outhouse. I’ll miss my dog, he thinks. The yard smells of beer and blood.
Someone is shouting, down on the riverbank. Nothing hurts, or perhaps it’s that everything
hurts, because there is no separate pain that he can pick out. But the cold strikes him,
just in one place: just through his cheekbone as it rests on the cobbles.”
If the style appeals to you, and that feeling is what you’re aiming for, give it a try.
As John Updike said of his novel Rabbit, Run, “I don't know if it is clear to the reader
as it is to the person writing, but there are kinds of poetry, kinds of music you can
strike off in the present tense.”
At the start of every new project, a writer must ask themselves, “What point of view
do I want to use?” I’ve often wondered whether first or third person is more common
in novels, but I haven’t been able to find any solid statistics. So, I conducted an informal
experiment. I picked ten random novels from my bookshelf. When it came to point of view,
the selection was split down the middle: half were predominantly told in third person and
the other half in first.
Certain POVs are more popular in certain genres; it seems like more YA fantasy is written in
first person and more literary fiction in third person. Third-person omniscient has
fallen out of favor across the board in recent decades, with contemporary authors preferring
the emotional closeness of third-person limited.
But when choosing your POV, don’t worry about what will sell. Instead, consider the
demands of the story. Ask yourself a few questions:
• Whose perspective is needed to tell this story?
• What is the tone? Can I achieve that better through a distinct first-person voice or a
more distant third-person narrator? • Which option am I most excited to write?
As you consider third-person point of view, remember these key takeaways:
• When in third-person limited, see how you can “borrow” from the language of
the character within the narrative using free indirect discourse.
• Even in third-person limited, the character’s individual personality should come through
in what they notice and think about. • When using an omniscient narrator, know
what tone or atmosphere you’re trying to create.
• Bridge the emotional distance by ensuring your protagonist’s feelings are clear in
their dialogue, actions, and descriptions. • Don’t get carried away when it comes
to multiple viewpoints; make sure you know where each storyline is going and what it’s
contributing. • Avoid head-hopping and stick to one POV
per scene or chapter, unless you can establish a strong omniscient narrator.
• Third-person present tense is an option if you want to create a feeling of constant
motion.
As a simple writing exercise, try switching the POV of your work in progress. Take a scene
written in first or third person and flip it to the other. Reflect on the change. What
does it add? What does it take away? Which one better serves the story?
In the comments, I’d love to know your favorite book written in third person. Whatever you
do, keep writing.