(Too) Close Third Person
By Jeanne Kisacky | November 17, 2017 |
I recently received a critique of a work in progress that suggested I alter the point of view (POV) from distant third person to close third person. It was good advice, but it meant facing another rewrite of what I thought was a completed manuscript. I told myself I could do it—after all, it would just be wordsmithing. I would leave the scenes as is, just go a little deeper into the characters’ psyches. I would not, of course, be rewriting entire scenes or large-scale plot details.
Before I started on the revision, I did a little research to augment my basic understanding of the differences between distant and close third person. I found numerous blogs and articles (links to some of the more helpful ones are at the end of the post) but I came away with three takeaways about close third person POV:
- It uses third person pronouns, but moves the point of view from outside of the characters to inside of a single character’s psyche, where emotions, thoughts, and assumptions become available, and where tactile details and actions external to the character are filtered through that characters’ individual experience.
- It tells the tale in the individual characters’ voice, not in the voice of a consistent narrator (or author).
- In the last few decades it has been gaining in popularity and usage in publishing and writing.
I set a schedule to finish the editing in two months—one chapter every two to three days. Each chapter was told from a different characters’ viewpoint, so I expected the editing would simply bring more life to the book by making each character more vivid.
Editing the first few chapters went smoothly, but they were strong chapters with clear motivations, conflicts, and actions. Three weeks into the editing, I got to a part of the manuscript that was not as strong. In particular, I got to the chapters told from the viewpoint of a female protagonist who had played a decisive and active role in the opening chapters, but who then became passive in later chapters as events played out on larger stages. I had struggled with those chapters and that character’s passivity through many revisions, and while I had given her more to do, the chapters were still flat.
When I started rewriting those troubled chapters, the simple editing became something far more complex. It was as if the closer POV gave that character back the voice that had been suppressed, and she was not about to sit passively still while chaos rained down upon her. She became active, not passive. And every time she chose to do something rather than let things be done to her, she created new plot elements, entire storylines, new possibilities that would echo through the work to the end.
I stalled out on the editing because it was becoming far more change, and far more work than I had bargained for. At a loss to know whether to stop or to continue, I sat down and just re-read the manuscript, to figure out whether it was worth all the work.
As I read the unrevised chapters, something became clear that I had missed in all the previous passes. Each chapter might have been told from the viewpoint of a different character, but each chapter ‘sounded’ much the same in its cadence and word choices. That cadence was mine, the author’s. There was also a sameness to the action—each character acting similarly, rationally, not individually. They were making the choices I, the author, had allotted to them in service of the outline, the plot, the plan.
When I shifted to the closer POV, the characters demanded that I honor the life trajectory that they would have chosen, rather than the life I, as an over-controlling author, expected them to follow. And honoring their individual choices meant plot changes and altered scenes. Literally, it meant writing a different story. Possibly a far better story.
To give an analogy of the shift–imagine a story as a sequence of rocks in the middle of a swift-moving stream. In the first version of the manuscript, I, the author, had laid out a sequence of stepping stones for each of the characters to choose to get them to the other side. 
Most of those stones were big, flat rocks that were close together. Safe. Straightforward. Direct. When I wrote in distant third person, each character traveled the assigned path (with about as much joy as a child doing exactly what they were told to do). Once I shifted to the close third person point of view, each character looked at that stream and chose a different sequence of rocks to cross. And each new rock made for a much more exciting story because each character was traveling his or her own path. Some stayed on the assigned safe path. Most chose riskier rocks than I had assigned them—tiny rocks, pointed rocks, wet rocks, tippy rocks. A few of the characters leaped for rocks that were out of reach and got wet.
There is an expectation that authors are the storytellers and are in complete control, and that is true to some extent. We make up the story, the settings, the characters. But characters, to come across as alive and fully-realized, have a will of their own. They have to be true to themselves as well as the story. And in my case, deep third person let the characters show me where I’d been a jailor, boxing them into the story, rather than setting them free to find their way to the end on their own terms.
So what does this mean for you? Should you go out and change everything you’ve ever written into close third person? Of course not.
But close third person can be a useful tool. In my experience, changing the strong scenes from a distant to a close third person point of view was straightforward. Changing the weak scenes was not, and working through that new POV showed me how to get those scenes (and those characters) back on track.
This means if you have chapters or scenes that just aren’t working (and you can’t figure out exactly why) a POV shift might be enlightening. Take a chapter where things just feel flat. Where it seems like the characters are just going through the motions. Set aside a little time to do a writing exercise where you shift that scene to a closer POV (whether close third or first person), and let the characters tell (and live) their own story their way. Then take that knowledge and let it inform the story, in whatever POV you want to tell it.
What do you think? Does POV alter not only how the story is told, but the story that can be told? Does this process give too much leeway to character, abandoning a sensible outline for the sake of personality?
For Further reading about close third person:
- https://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/third-person-pov/
- https://thewritepractice.com/closer-characters/
- At https://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?134799-close-third-person-POV
- https://theeditorsblog.net/2011/11/16/deep-pov-whats-so-deep-about-it/)
Image of creek from: https://pixabay.com/en/creek-cascade-clear-water-2530798/
[coffee]
Jeanne Kisacky trained to be an architect before going back to her first love–writing. She studied the history of architecture, has written and published nonfiction, and has taught college courses. She is the author of Rise of the Modern Hospital: An Architectural History of Health and Healing, 1870-1940.
There is a step beyond close or intimate third person. That is *immersive* third person POV. In this approach, we not only see through another’s eyes and hear through another’s ears, we become that person.
It’s different. When in our own heads we do not walk around thinking, “Look, I see that chair, it’s blue, it reminds me of my dear grandmother’s rocker, how comforting.” We do not think about the chair. We think, “Shit, I’m tired. I need to sit down.”
In immersive point of view, the subject is not what’s around us, it’s us. We don’t filter through a lens. There is filtering. There is no lens. There is no objective reality to observe. There is only I.
I’m not necessarily recommending immersive third person POV, just saying that there are degrees of “close” in close third person, and one can make a conscious choice to be distant, near, “as if” or “same as”. The closer we get, the more we observe not others but ourselves.
Donald-Thanks for the further clarification. I did encounter some discussion of degrees of ‘close’ third person, but nothing that made the distinctions and the unfiltered consequences of intimate vs. immersive third person resonate so clearly. During the editing I found that it was difficult to sustain an ‘immersive’ viewpoint for long passages. Not that every sentence couldn’t be written from that interior a viewpoint, but that it was exhausting to read over longer passages. It’s led to the rewriting shifting between levels of intimacy even within a single passage. I have a feeling that this struggle to find the right level of ‘close’ is going to be an ongoing battle. As you point out so clearly, it changes whether the revelations for the character (and the reader) are internal or external.
I agree, Jeanne. Immersive POV can be exhausting to read. On the other hand, there can also be a false intimacy to technically “close” third person. What seems intimate can actually become distant and safe.
I notice that particularly when prose is pretty. We may see with fresh eyes and feel connected, but to what? To a vague, warm, aware sensibility, maybe, but that is not the same as connecting to the raw self of ourselves.
We readers, as humans, in our disconnected world crave connection. We yearn for honesty. Third person POV, when “close”, provides that feeling but to what degree?
Reread the opening of Catcher in the Rye, for instance. Is Holden alienated? I’d say he’s honest. It’s why we still connect to him sixty-six years later.
As you say, seek balance, yes, but sometimes on the page we just want to feel, “Shit, I’m tired.” That’s raw, but it’s real.
Great post, Jeanne. Thanks for sharing your experience. I’m also working on this all the time.
Hi Jeanne – I just wanted to chime in and say how excited I am for the changes you’re describing. It seems like it might be just the ticket for a work that was already so close.
Your findings about this sort of change match experience, and the stream/rocks analogy is spot on. Also, enlightening conversation with Don above.
Thanks, Happy Friday, and best to you for your awesome project!
Vaughn – Thanks for the encouragement. I know you know how hard it is to face yet another revision of the same project.
I, too, loved the stream/rocks analogy, particularly as I’ve been reworking my WIP (not nearly as far along as yours) and wrestling with similar results as I revise. (Characters taking different actions, changing paths.) The story I’m trying to tell clearly needs a range of distances–not least because there are two timelines and MCs–and it’s both intriguing and perplexing to try and figure them out!
I’ll have to check out the links at the bottom of your post. I’ve generally been trying to use close third all along, but here I think you really highlight the way in which POV and character voice intersect in a way that’s helpful for my thinking. Thank you!
Alisha – Good luck on the WIP, and ironing out the POV, characters and timelines. There wasn’t as much on close third person available on-line as I’d expected (or hoped), so what I’ve posted is just starting to skim the surface. If anyone else knows of better references (like Barry’s recommendation of James Woods’ work), please add them in the comments.
Jeanne–I feel your pain, as Bill Clinton said. It’s possible to talk about a story’s premise, or its plot without going into detail about its point of view. But the story itself must be experienced through a point of view. IMO, no decision a writer makes for a novel is more important.
For those interested in this issue, James Wood’s book How Fiction Works is a good place to go. His term for close third person is “free indirect style.”
Barry- Thanks for the encouragement and the recommendation of Wood’s book. I will definitely check that out. I have also been doing my favorite form of research-rereading passages of favorite fiction to figure out how the POV worked in them. Problem is that kind of ‘research’ often takes more time than originally allotted.
I second the recommendation of James Wood’s book. He really clarified this issue for me.
Jeanne, something similar happened to me while writing my last book. It was a lot of work, but the results of deeper POV were undeniable.
Wishing you much joy in the revisions!
Jan – glad to know you wrestled with the same issue and overcame it. It gives me hope.
I have a tendency to write in close third or first person, as I like the intimacy of it. However, even with a close third, you have to be careful not to make the characters all seem alike. I just shipped off a manuscript with three POV characters (all writtene in close third) and they may be too similar–I’m too close to it to know, hah ha!
I do find omniscient POV to be particularly troubling. I have a tendency to dive in too close. Thanks for the post, and for the links!
JeffO- I definitely find myself fighting having all the characters sound like (and act like) I would. But boy do I hear you on getting too close to be able to know when that is happening. Good luck on yours.
Jeanne,
Such a timely post, thank you. I’m still in the process of writing a first draft. I have it from a few central character’s POV, with one obvious protagonist. I struggle to clearly differentiate between each character’s voice and experience.
Thanks for doing the homework and providing links.
Hello and thank you for an excellent post explaining the close third person POV. I loved your analogy of the rocks – it’s so clear in my mind how this POV works.