How to Use the 3rd Person POV

everyone its Jalen and I'm here today with you last video in my series on point of view and in today's video we're going to be talking about third person third person is a point of view loved by many and when I first set out to embark in the world of writing and third-person I made some major mistakes that I hope you can avoid because I really did some poorly done things in my first-person adventure but I've learned and I have things to share with you to start off this video is going to get a little grating englishy I'm sorry narrator and the character are two separate entities personal Anna story is not the main character and I do find it interesting to consider who that narrator is like is it some sort of narrow your spirit is it me am I supposed to be the narrator I don't consider myself the third-person narrator like when I'm writing in third person I don't think I'm the narrator I feel like the nair is just like third person spirit that's kind of like hovering over the story why are they there I don't know these are questions that bother me because I don't have answers to them there's three different types of third-person I'm going to explain them all on started this video but I'm really only going to be focusing on one throughout the video so the first one is Cooper Creek an objective this is when the narrator is kind of like a camera it can see everything that's going on but it cannot get you any mind or thought of any of the characters you really don't use serials and because it is to go it's quite disconnected you lose the capacity to see anything happening internally the second bonus 10% is called third-person omniscient it's not really used anymore means that the narrator can see everything that's happening and it can look into the mind of every single character that's a lot now you really don't see it very often it's not something that's commonly used in modern literature I think really carefully before you use it it's very difficult to write and I personally think it has a lot of disadvantages because it removes the mystery of characterization for every character it can cause protagonist confusion where we don't actually really open the protagonist is because we're in every mind at once and it can also just be really jarring to be head hopping like sentence by sentence if you want to use it look into it on your own I'm not really going to be discussed me in this video because it's kind of a weird thing that I don't really know anything about the last type of third-person and the most common one is the one that I because most benefits is third person limited this means that we can go into the mind and thoughts of only one character at a time now it's a story that has multiple point of views alternating by chapter but each chapter is a third-person aloma to that filter impersonal limited it's not omniscient because we're still only in one line at a time just cuz you have multiple point of view does not make animation so we're only in the mind of one character at a time the reason I see benefits to this it's clear to the protagonist is we won't be head hopping with jarring easier to some sizes in a character I personally think it has the most advantages and that's why it's the most commonly used because it is the most advantageous let's talk about some of the characteristics of third-person so your person allows for a broader scope it also has a more cinematic feel you feel like you're watching the story like it's a movie and you also have the ability to withhold character information without the character coming across is unreliable it just means that the narrator's not sharing that it doesn't necessarily mean that the character is choosing onto so you can maintain more mystery around your protagonist so is it right for your story do you have a story that is too hard or complicated for first-person a lot of information that cannot be organically conveyed in first-person do you have a protagonist who might not be useful as a first-person narrator that is maybe they have qualities that would make them a poor first person perhaps they're heavily self-absorbed and it would just be so annoying to be in their head all the time or maybe they would be highly unreliable in a story that doesn't warrant an unreliable narrator and II you as the author have the ability to convey characters without constant access to voice and internal fault the third person sounded like the right choice for your story what are some of the do's and don'ts of this point of view first of all watch out for shifting psychic distance play distance is how close we as a reader feel to main character it's generally very close when you're in first person because the narrator and the protagonist are one entity but when you're in third person you can have it shipped so we can be very far or we can still be very close some stories are going to be farther for most stories it is advantageous to be closer to your main character and you want to be making sure you're not really zooming in and out that is a bit jarring to read so some examples of what would shift the psychic distance would be using vocabulary definite character when used for example if the main character refers to their mother as mama but in the narrative mother is referred to by her first name that's just a psychic distance filtering just the psychic distance which is when you describe the main character experiencing something rather than simply describing the thing for example if you said he heard fireworks in the distance instead of saying fireworks sounded in the distance or this could be something like he felt the chill of November wrap around him instead of saying the children were wrapped around him that increases your psychic distance showing things that the name character can't see for example describing something happening in another room but they are aware out of holes your psychic distance from the main character another thing you need to watch out for is head popping this is if you're running in third person limited but you mess up and start using through premonition so we're in a main character's head and it's third person from his point of view but now we're accidentally sharing thoughts other characters are having now we're head hopping from sentence to sentence we're in point of view as we shouldn't be in we're telling things we shouldn't know and that is quite jarring to read so make sure that if you are in third person limited that you stay confined to the mind that your end yes is third person but we are still in a mind if you are writing a third person just does not give you the excuse to not have to create voice for each point of view I know that it is much easier to write a multi-perspective story from third person because the one seemed to have to be a drastically different but it's still used to be there and you should have your own voice for each protagonist kind of what I was saying earlier about using go calculated that character with use things like that just to stay closer because if you're really far and if you're using the same voice for every character then you're you have a part of this I could distance now let's talk about tents I discussed this in my first person video and again you're probably unique and either present or past now present you do not see very often with third person and the reason is because in first person the advantage of presents is that it allows the detention abundant outcomes but in third person you still have detention of unknown outcomes even in past tense and the reason is because the narrator is telling the story from the point where the story has already ended but the main characters don't know the main characters don't know what is going to happen so you still have tension of unknown outcomes even from the past ten generally you do see the past tense prior to the third person because the advantage of present tense isn't really there so you might as well just ease past and it's generally easier to write I spend it in all my point of view videos so far but make sure you avoid the overuse of he or she or whatever pronoun your character goes by this seems strange how am I supposed to avoid using pronouns well it's kind of the same as in present tense and I think the thing that is not intuitive about third-person is that even though the narrator is separate from my character we are still we've seen the story kind of through the eyes of the protagonist and because we are in their mind you do not need to remind us that things are happening in relation to that character I'm going to use the fireworks example again if fireworks sound we don't need to be told that the main character hears it they're being told in the narrative we know they're being heard by the main character because we are not main characters head just in a different way the last thing I want to say is to be seen what's with the thoughts now a lot of the time in third-person we do the saying that I did when I wrote my novel in third person which is where we bright first-person thoughts and we just italicize them this isn't technically incorrect like it is okay and I wouldn't say to never do it but for the vast majority of the time you don't need to do that I get a flip through this book and I'm going to find anything with it here in my book I found an example of myself as the writer italicized he thoughts that were written in first person it says then I guess I'll have to walk until I'm an old woman and spend only my dying days and not say forest with eyes that see blackness and a - he's like this could have been written with no italics in third person simply as she would have to walk until she was an old woman and so and spend only her dying days in that state forest with eyes that saw blackness and - always I think I just tend to jump like five times because I didn't providing there was absolutely no reason for that to be first-person from arrest point of view like I could have just smoothly integrated it into the narrative but I didn't because I was stupid again here's another one he could hear and it's cool being him from within his head you have to keep your senses sharp heya he took another step he schooled it Dana and his consciousness back no one eternity needs a back something and I'm pretty sure I'm no bathroom that could have just been an ax at school with him from within his head we can cut the CBC Express filter you got to keep your senses sharp task he took another step he scolded the ANA in his conscious back not drinking is a bad thing and he was no actress it's so much more seamless it's so much worse smooth and in 99% of cases it's the better way to convey thought it's less jarring because you're not jolting through point of views so it's better and you also don't even need to say he thought like I didn't need to tack on and see the no veteran he thought I would recommend just integrating thoughts into the narrative because again that just keeps you closer to the main character even in third person it is generally such a great stencil of third person at distancing from Mary earth and protagonist but if you do it well you can keep them pretty close and you can be very close to that may hurt so that is my video today on third person I hope this was helpful if you are embarking into the world of third person I know I really should have learned all of this before I wrote an entire book in third person and screwed it up because it I was doing so thank you so much for watching if you have any questions because I'm an ask on tumblr and I'll see you in another video [Music] hi and [Applause] [Music]

Channel: ShaelinWrites

Views: 49,460

Rating: 4.951807 out of 5

Keywords: writer, writing, author, novelist, creative writing, writetube, writetuber, writing advice, how to write a book, how to write a novel, aspiring writer, teen writer, writing vlog, teenager author, creative writing degree, books, nanowrimo, third person, 3rd person, point of view, POV

Id: 5KoqK5UYuLE

Length: 10min 51sec (651 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 10 2017