August 17, 2005
Up early for a radio interview with Frank Truatt with WTBQ-AM in New York this morning, off flogging my novel Dirty Deeds. Thought it went well. Thanks Frank, and to anyone who is here because of that interview, thanks for stopping by.

Point of View--Part 2: Third Person
Yesterday I gave 4 examples, 3 being in the third person. Here's #1--

Example 1:
The device gave off a caustic stench. Kneeling over it, Joe and Frank studied the bomb--the grease-encrusted housing, the multiple many-colored wires, the digital clock counting down: 1:01; 1:00; :0:59...

"We don't have time to think," Joe said. "We have to make a decision."

"Red," said Frank. He moved his wire cutter toward the red wire. "We'll cut the red wire."

Okay. Very journalistic. It's omniscient. We're not in either Frank or Joe's heads. We're not, really, looking at things from either Frank or Joe's points of view. There's nothing wrong with this, except it doesn't really exploit the writing. TV and movie scripts give you what's said and seen and except for some sort of voiceover, which sometimes works but often doesn't in TV or movies, the only way the viewer knows what's going on in the character's head is by the skills of the actor. Novels and short stories can do better by letting us know what the character is thinking and feeling, what they're seeing. Which is part of the problem of the omniscient limited 3rd person pov--the narrator is like a camera lens just showing the reader what's happening. It's Just The Facts, Ma'am Fiction, and it has its places, certainly. But ultimately, not only do I think writing that way for an entire story or novel would be very difficult to do, but I think it would ultimately be rather unsatisfying for the reader. But some of the time, that's exactly what you're going to do.

Another problem here is the distance between the reader and the writer. The easy thing about first person narratives is how intimate they are. You're in the narrator's head. You're also limited by what the narrator experiences. The advantage to 3rd person is the ability to expose readers to more than what the pov character experiences. One of the disadvantages--at least some of the time--of 3rd person is that there may be too much distance. Example #1 is like that. It's a little cold. Sometimes that's what you want, a certain kind of detachment. There's a touch of intimacy because the characters are named Frank and Joe. If their names were Frank Holloway and Joe Smithback, and if I called them strictly by their last names, the distance becomes even greater.

Take Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch novels. Except for at least one of them, they're written in the third person. Connelly's a terrific writer, but there's a formality to his writing style that is reinforced by how far he keeps the reader from Harry. The narrator always refers to Harry as Bosch. Most other characters do, too, though some call him Harry. It's undoubtedly intentional. Whatever the reason--and I suspect it's that Connelly wants to be more of an observer of Harry and crime and Los Angeles--it's as if there is a glass wall between the reader and the character. We know Harry rather well--again, Connelly's a terrific reader--we know his thoughts, his feelings; but it doesn't feel like we're wearing Harry's skin or sharing his experiences so much as watching his experiences.

This is taking longer than I thought, so I want to add one more comment about the omniscient third person. It has to do with the classic "show don't tell," aspect of writing. If all we did was "Show" our novels would all run 1000 pages, so sometimes we have to tell as well. If we don't get into our characters' heads, though, we really need to show things in order to display emotion. Here's #1 re-written to show emotion, but we still don't have their thoughts or have an individual character's pov:

The device gave off a caustic stench. Kneeling over it, Joe and Frank studied the bomb--the grease-encrusted housing, the multiple many-colored wires, the digital clock counting down: 1:01; 1:00; :0:59...

"We don't have time to think," Joe said. "We have to make a decision." Sweat dripped off his brow and spattered onto the hard concrete floor. He armed it off his forehead with the sleeve of his Michael Jordan jersey, which was torn and stained from his struggle with the Bombardier.

"Red," said Frank. He moved his wire cutter toward the red wire. "We'll cut the red wire." His hands didn't shake. His jaw was set, eyes wide open. He shifted his position on the floor, looked at Joe, and winked. "Trust me."

See? All show. Not bad. Brings the reader in. We have some idea of what they're thinking and feeling without "telling" what they're thinking and feeling. Is this a good way to go in your writing? If you want it to be. But it's tricky to stay omniscient and if you don't create a scene from a character's pov, you're building a house without using all the tools at your disposal. Still, there may be good reasons to do it--or not so good reasons, but for some reason that's how you want to tell your story.

Tomorrow we'll look at limited 3rd person.

Best,
Mark Terry