11. Third Person Perspective
Writing a novel in the third person is very different from writing in the first person. What’s more, there are several different versions of third person perspectives. Let’s start by way of an example - in third person neutral:
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.
Gosh, this is easy. Any person can write a story in the third person, can’t they? In a lot of ways, writing in this fashion is easier than writing in the first person. You just have to keep everything in the present as much as possible. Boring. Why am I reading this essay, you ask? I can do this.
And I’m sure you can. But there’s one thing that’s really missing from the conversation snippet above, and that’s emotion. Stepping back from the story and writing in the third person can make some sections devoid of emotion. How about we rewrite the conversation, but this time from the perspective of Steve:
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?
As you can see, it’s basically the same words, but spoken as if you’re Steve. There’s a lot more insight here.
Wonderful, you think. I can do that. I can get inside my characters’ heads. Stop! One head at a time, please. One of the biggest mistakes authors make when they’re writing from a third person perspective, is they try to get inside everybody’s head. The result:
“How’s it going?” Tom asked, standing in the doorway. He didn’t understand why all the lights were off. It was so dark in here.
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?” Tom didn’t understand why. Of course, with all the lights off, Steve was going to feel 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?” He needed to find out if Steve suspected anything.
“Don’t know truthfully. I’m really not thinking straight.”
I’m not thinking straight either! It’s tough to work out who’s speaking and who’s thinking what. It’s information overload. Any one scene should only be written from the viewpoint of one person. But, hey, we’ve spoken about this before. All you’re interested in is writing your book. You don’t need any rules. You are God, and you certainly don’t care if you can’t get rid of your day job. He said; he did that; he did this; he went to bed; he got up. Third person perspective is easy.
Seriously? Practice writing scenes in the third person neutral perspective and then add some focus from one character’s viewpoint if the scene needs it. But stick to one character. Try it - but don’t tell anybody else - it might actually be helpful.
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