3rd Person Narrators Finally Uncovered
Everything you need to know about 3rd person POV
How do you start a story? Is it with description of the pristine environment? Is it exposition of the protagonist’s past or of the war that had destroyed the land twenty years prior? Is it a few lines of dialogue that mirror the key themes of the novel?
They all sound like good options. But for me, there’s something more fundamental still: POV.
Point of view will not only determine the sorts of modes a novel can start in, but also help establish the voice of the narrator. And this matters, because voice is often what gets us to stick around as readers.
So let’s take a look at some of our options for 3rd person.
Who’s on 3rd?
3rd person narrators are often thought of as narrators who use 3rd person pronouns. And this is true. But there is something that underlies this. Namely, 3rd person narrators are narrators who are not characters. That is the base of this style, and the pronouns are simply how it is applied on page.
Is this the only thing to know about 3rd person? No, of course not. But it does matter in understanding what any given 3rd person narrator is capable of.
What they know
One way to think of 3rd person styles is to think of what their peculiar constraints are. In particular, the constraints on what they can know and what they cannot know.
Think of narrators as having particular kinds of minds with particular kinds of properties. And as such, on the page, there are things they can do and things they cannot do.
Omniscient
Omniscience: knowing everything.
This narrator is sometimes referred to as the god narrator, for like some gods, this narrator knows everything a conscious entity could possibly know.
Minds
The omniscient narrator is probably most recognisable by its knowledge of other minds. If you see a narrator hopping from head to head, they are likely an omniscient narrator of some kind.
And by “mind” here, we don’t just mean thought. We really mean experience. They have access to every first person experience of every conscious entity.
Space
The omniscient narrator knows what is going on next door. They know what is going on in Antarctica. They know what is going on in the centre of the Earth. They even know what is going on in the centre of the universe’s largest black hole (it’s a party exclusively for inter-temporal pixies, by the way).
Time
Omniscient narrators don’t only know what is in characters heads right now, but also what has been in their head at any point in time in the past. Likewise, they know everything that will be in their head in the future.
And it’s not only heads they know. They also know literally every event in the past and in the future, mental or physical.
Facts
They know what the capital of France is. They know what the etymology of the word “ridiculous” is. They know the hidden forces that control the interactions between electrons at a distance, even though no living entity does.
Degree
However, as much as fully omniscient narrators know literally everything, not all omniscient narrators are fully omniscient. Yours may never tell the future. They may head hop only between certain characters. But whatever the case, they certainly know much more than a single person could know.
Limited
The knowledge a limited narrator has is, well, limited. But what sort of limit? One way to think of it is that they are stuck in one character’s head. And as such, they are limited to what that head can experience.
They can see what they see, feel what they feel, and know what they think.
Not the Same
Many people make the mistake of thinking that a limited narrator is simply a 1st person narrator with 3rd person pronouns. This is not the case.
Think of it instead like a little person riding around in the mind of another person. They have their own way of speaking, and the may even make their own judgements and observations.
Unknown
Arguably, a limited narrator might even be able to know things the POV character doesn’t.
They may recall information from the character’s past that they have forgotten.
They may be able to access a character’s unconscious mind, where the character can’t.
They may notice and understand things in the world that the character sees but doesn’t themselves truly notice.
Two Voice
One of the interesting features of this style is that there are actually two voices. The narrator has their own voice of course. But the character’s voice sometimes emerges into the prose seamlessly, as if the character’s way of speaking is taking over.
Example: He strode past her and bumped her harder than necessary. Arsehole!
Notice how arsehole is her voice, not the narrators.
Switching
It is true in limited style that you can’t head hop. It gets pretty confusing for readers if they have gotten used to one person’s mind, and then simply shift to another.
But it’s perfectly reasonable to swap heads when you change chapter or section. The reader has already understood there is a break in the flow of narrative, so a head change can work here.
Objective
If you think about what the word object means, it cannot truly be understood without the word “subject”.
Objects are those things in the world that exist whether a subject perceives them or not. This is a good place to start when understanding objective point of view.
Mind
The key feature of the style is there is no direct access to minds. It is something like cinema, where, without narrators, all we get is sensory information.
We see and we hear. Only, in prose fiction, we may also access the other major senses.
Exposition
We don’t see character minds. But we also don’t see narrator minds. That means there is no exposition. Exposition requires a mind to know facts and details. To be able to observe the world and report select information.
As such, we only get description and speech.
Mimesis
This package of description and speech is sometimes referred to as mimesis. First coined by Plato, this refers to narrative that is merely mimicking the world. A narrator with thoughts and ideas is performing diegesis.
So, objective narratives are full of mimesis, and therefore tend to be highly descriptive.
Tricks
Just because you can only be mimetic in objective POV, doesn’t mean we can’t receive minds and exposition in more subtle ways.
How do you know, in real life, when someone is angry? You don’t have to read their minds. You see their red face, their clenched fists, their slamming of a door. Likewise, you don’t need to be given exposition about the recently finished war if characters are talking about it, or there are battlements destroyed around the crumbling walls of the great city.
Expository
This is a style you won’t find anyone else talking about. As far as I can tell, I’m the only one who sees it this way. Does that make me smarter than other people? No. It’s my gigantic juicy brain that does.
In any case, others may argue with this category but I think it’s helpful.
Animal
A couple of years ago, I was reading Animal Farm in order to teach it to some students. But when I tried to determine the POV style, I was having trouble. Even though it seemed more or less objective (little or no access to minds), it felt very different.
Then I realised what was happening. It read more like a history book than a standard narrative.
Exposition
The hallmark of this style is exposition. Instead of showing us scenes, with people doing and saying things as if in real time, Animal Farm is like a historical recount.
Yes there are some scenes. But primarily, it is moving from event to event, telling us how a decade-long period unravelled.
Time
As a product of the expository nature of this style, the narrator will play with time more than other narrators. Time tends to skip ahead.
Example: “Later that month”
Either or
I suspect you could do this style with omniscience or objectivity. In the first case, you recount not only physical events in the world, but also mental events in characters. Likewise, you could avoid heads altogether and simply write a sort of loose timeline.
Mixed
The truth is, most great works of fiction don’t stick strictly to one or the other. Typically, they will slip from time to time. And there’s no reason you can’t do that yourself.
These are sorts of templates, but blending is certainly possible. My advice is just be aware, as much as possible, of the features your narrator presents or doesn’t.
Exercise
A great exercise to do, especially early on in a project, is to write the same opening multiple times in multiple styles.
So try it. Write a scene of fiction in limited style, then write the exact same one in omniscient, and so on.
Examples
Read these example below if you want to see that exercise in action.
Limited
What a beautiful sight. She had not seen magic before, not real magic anyway. Yes, she supposed, she’d seen the odd dove here and rabbit there. Hat’s and all that. Oh but now to see magic. Real magic. Strange tendrils of fume curling up into the shape of a face. Her face. Looking back at her as if an old friend. Butterflies ran up her skin and the most pleasant sort of lightness she’d ever felt expanded inside her. Who was he? This man? This wizard in his brown, earth sodden tunic? She would have to find out, no two ways about it.
Objective
She wore a smile so large that it wrinkled around her eyes like a thousand waves and ripples lapping against a shore. She just sat there, by the barn’s edge, partially hidden by a bush of white daisies, watching. The brightness of the magic she gazed at lit her face with a hazy reflection of itself. She watched that picture on the air, that picture of herself, with attention on nothing else, until she set her gaze upon the wizard from which it emanated. And then, that was the magnet for her eyes. But as it stood, it was only her who was seemingly aware, for the wizard continued with his distant stare towards nothing.
Omniscient
She didn’t know it at the time, but he was not actually a wizard. He was what they called a “resmagusa (magical thing)”, an object of a sort which held within it the magic stuff of the cosmos. And occasionally, as was the case with Thomas, the “wizard”, that stuff would burst out of him, in strange and unforeseen sorts of ways. None of it was under his control. But honestly, none it was under any of their control, so it made no difference. Yes, to her, Thomas was a wizard. But he would yet be more.
Expository
She met Thomas in arduous circumstances, running from the law, watching him do magic from her dark hiding spot amongst the shrubbery. But before long, their relationship was anything but arduous. They travelled together through the Shadow Glen, mainly through necessity. “I can’t do it alone,” she had said. And he had agreed. A girl that young, with no training, would be easy pickings for all sorts of nefarious actors. So for weeks they travelled, at first in much silence. Even when they sat for food, barely a word was spoken, except for the odd “pass the salt” or “good bread this”. But that all changed when they found themselves in the Eusophia Inn.
Very interesting reading. I like the point about limited narrators having their own voice. Some authors even blur the line by shifting tone with the character’s emotions—adds a nice depth!
Great insights! POV is such a crucial yet often overlooked element when starting a story. Great take on its role in shaping voice and guiding the reader’s engagement.