7. Writing in the Third Person (Writing for Success)

Note: This is part 7 in a series of 25 articles from my upcoming 'Writing for Success' series.

7. Writing in the Third Person
Previously we wrote about how difficult it is to write a successful novel in the first person and in this article we are going to discuss an alternative: writing in the third person. What is writing in the third person? Well it’s actually how most novels today are written. It’s a viewpoint that’s taken in the book that allows the author to take a step back from everything and describe what’s happening from an alternate viewpoint than the first person (like a sort of god perspective). By way of an example let’s start by re-writing the scenes we had in the first person essay into the third person:

Steve was sat alone in the living room of his house later that afternoon, sipping on a glass of whiskey and contemplating the events of the previous day. He put the glass down and looked up as he heard the living room door open. 

“How’s it going?” Tom asked, standing in the doorway. 

Steve shook his head a little. “Alright. Just a little tired, you know.” 

“Tired?” 

“Well you know, after the last couple of days. The police and everything.” 

Tom wandered across the room and sat in the chair opposite Steve. “So, what are your plans now?” he asked. 

“Don’t know truthfully. I’m really not thinking straight.” 

“Yeah, I guess it is a little worrying,” Tom said, reaching out and taking a hold of Steve’s hand as he spoke. 

Steve reached out for his whiskey, drained it and slammed the empty glass back down on the table, pulling his hand away from Tom as he did so.

As you can see, this version has lost some of the emotion of both of the first person examples, but it conveys the scene well enough. The reader understands what’s going on and can relate to both people. Tom has come around to see how Steve is doing and he’s obviously not coping very well. Is this enough? Does the reader need to know more? Does the scene convey everything that you wanted as an author? If it does, then move on. If not, then there are other tricks we can employ.

This sample piece is written from a neutral third person viewpoint. You are neither in the head of Tom or Steve, but merely reading the scene as it plays out from a distant third person viewpoint (the god perspective). But what if there were a couple of points you wanted to get across about Steve’s frame of mind? How can you do this if you’re writing in the third person? Let’s rewrite the passage a little:

Steve was sat alone in the living room of his house later that afternoon, sipping on a glass of whiskey and contemplating the events of the previous day. He put the glass down and looked up as he heard the living room door open. 

“How’s it going?” Tom asked, standing in the doorway. 

Steve shook his head a little. “Alright. Just a little tired, you know.” He fought back a tear. What did Tom know about how he felt? It had already been the shittiest couple of days of his life. 

“Tired?” 

“Well you know, after the last couple of days. The police and everything.” Was everyone going to ask him the same questions over and over? 

Tom wandered across the room and sat in the chair opposite Steve. “So, what are your plans now?” 

“Don’t know truthfully. I’m really not thinking straight.” 

“Yeah, I guess it is a little worrying,” Tom said, reaching out and taking a hold of Steve’s hand as he spoke. 

Steve reached out for his whiskey, drained it and slammed the empty glass back down on the table, pulling his hand away from Tom as he did so. Worrying? It was frickin’ frightening. He had basically been accused of murdering his own wife by the police. Just how could Tom relate to that?

In this example which is clearly written from a third person viewpoint, the reader is allowed inside Steve’s head during the scene and certainly gets a better understanding of how he is feeling. And if this is important to get across, this is how to do it! Writing in the third person allows the author to show the reader different viewpoints and different scenes that are crucial to the reader’s understanding and fuller enjoyment of the story. With these third person techniques you now have the tools available to explain the evidence the police are sifting through at the station and the affair that Tom was having with Steve’s wife. These are both things that you could not easily do if you were writing the story from a first person perspective!

Practice writing scenes in the third person and then revisit them to see if you need to focus in on a particular character to add more definition. Just be careful. Do not jump from the head of one person to another within a single scene. The reader will get confused and they will lose the flow. Pick a viewpoint and stick to it for the complete scene.