3rd person Deep/Close/Intimate/Tight Point of View? What are your thoughts and tips?

I almost always prefer close third. Well, if not in first anyway.

Emma Darwin has a great article on psychic distance.

I am not sure there is much difference between the two samples you posted except that the first has a lot of filtering. If that was removed I think they would be on a par.

I don't see difference between the two POV examples. The two characters may be different though, the first one being more polite as a person and the second one being more rough.

gbhike said:

Hi all,

I've recently been enamored with the so-called Deep/Close/Tight/Intimate/Intrusive point of view, where although the book is in third person, we are still privy to and hearing the thoughts and mindsets and attitudes and beliefs of the character, and only the character.

Shallow: She saw Jason standing on the other side of the room. "That asshole can't touch me," she thought. "No one would believe him anyway." She felt a shiver of triumph tingle up her spine.

Deep: There he was, standing on the opposite side of the room. That asshole. He couldn't touch her. No one would believe him anyway. A shiver of triumph tingled up her spine.

I just wanted to gather some general opinions on this very intrusive point of view:

- Effective? Too gimmicky? Trendy? Awesome when done correctly?
- What are some books or authors you've seen implement this strategy to perfection?
- Have you tried writing in this style? How did it go? What worked or failed for you?

Thanks everyone!

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The only difference in the above examples is one is riddled with filtering (saw, thought, felt) and the other isn't and filtering is normally not recommended.

I'm not what you are asking in terms of examples of books? Every book in 3rd POV zoom in and out of the MC's head as necessary, books using omniscient are pretty rare (at least in commercial and literary fiction.)

As Harlequin mentioned I would suggest reading Emma Darwin's blog on psychic distance as it has nothing to do with adding or removing filtering. http://emmadarwin.typepad.com/thisitchofwriting/psychic-distance-what-it-is-and-how-to-use-it.html

yes, that's the one! thank you, I could not find the link on my phone. She has GREAT examples in her article.

I consider all of this regular mix-and-match POV stuff. It’s easy to get carried away with analysis, but it’s a simple case of getting inside the heads of your characters.

gbhike said:

Hi all,

I've recently been enamored with the so-called Deep/Close/Tight/Intimate/Intrusive point of view, where although the book is in third person, we are still privy to and hearing the thoughts and mindsets and attitudes and beliefs of the character, and only the character.

Shallow: She saw Jason standing on the other side of the room. "That asshole can't touch me," she thought. "No one would believe him anyway." She felt a shiver of triumph tingle up her spine.

Deep: There he was, standing on the opposite side of the room. That asshole. He couldn't touch her. No one would believe him anyway. A shiver of triumph tingled up her spine.

I just wanted to gather some general opinions on this very intrusive point of view:

- Effective? Too gimmicky? Trendy? Awesome when done correctly?
- What are some books or authors you've seen implement this strategy to perfection?
- Have you tried writing in this style? How did it go? What worked or failed for you?

Thanks everyone!

Click to expand...

There are lots of different terms for the POV you describe. I call it 3rd person limited, in that it's limited to one character (at a time, anyway.) The degree of immersion into the POV character can vary, depending on the writer's preference and needs.

The examples you give are good ones, as the second reflects a deeper immersion in the character, in that readers don't need to be told that the POV character is thinking; we simply hear the thoughts. Makes for a much smoother read and thoroughly cements the POV.

The first isn't wrong, except for the quotation marks, which aren't used for thoughts these days. You can use italics, but there's no need for that, either, if you include the phrase "she thought." But it's not as elegant. You have to change both person (to first) and tense (to present), which you don't have to do in the second version.

As for who uses what you call this "intrusive" approach---everyone does! It's more the exception than the rule these days.

I'm going to go a bit against the tide and say that both your examples are fine (although it's really impossible to judge their effectiveness out of context), and it all depends on what you're going for with the story.

Rules like "filtering is bad" are up there with "prologues are bad" - yes, filtering is often overused (and misused), but sometimes you want some distance from the narrative. (Fairy tales are a good example of this.) The truth is every story is going to ask for a slightly different approach, and tying yourself up in knots over whether you should mass-delete every instance of "she thought" in your manuscript is, IMHO, the wrong approach.

Prose has rhythm and shape just like poetry. How you phrase something can add to the "feel" of a story as much as the plot. Use what works.

I don't object to filtering as a device, but I suppose what I wanted to highlight is that the excerpts didn't look different to me aside from the filtering; in this particular case I think the filtering was confusing the issue at hand.

Emma Darwin's breakdown shows different types of psychic distance without using filtering (it's more about how much info is delivered and in what form).

Harlequin said:

I don't object to filtering as a device, but I suppose what I wanted to highlight is that the excerpts didn't look different to me aside from the filtering; in this particular case I think the filtering was confusing the issue at hand.

Emma Darwin's breakdown shows different types of psychic distance without using filtering (it's more about how much info is delivered and in what form).

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Not arguing with you a bit.

Elle. said:

Every book in 3rd POV zoom in and out of the MC's head as necessary,

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Ideally not, unless they change to another POV entirely.

Within POV, there can and should be changes in focal distance, from intimate (deep internals and sensory information) to a more mid-focus (using only occasional internals, with attention being given to action rather than the inner world of the character) to a zoom-out (this would be reserved for summaries and possibly backstory exposition). But all that would still be in the character's perspective. First-person POV does this as well.

gbhike said:

I just wanted to gather some general opinions on this very intrusive point of view

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I'm not sure what you mean by "intrusive," unless that's intended to describe intruding on the character's thoughts and feelings. It certainly isn't intrusive on the reader.

At any rate, your second example is typical of a closer use of POV, and it's often found in modern fiction. The first example contains a lot of unnecessary filtering; it's distancing and has an old-fashioned feel to it. In my post above, I mentioned the various focal lengths a writer can employ, but that first example of yours doesn't really fall into any of those categories. It's more of an example of how not to do it.

BethS said:

At any rate, your second example is typical of a closer use of POV, and it's often found in modern fiction. The first example contains a lot of unnecessary filtering; it's distancing and has an old-fashioned feel to it. In my post above, I mentioned the various focal lengths a writer can employ, but that first example of yours doesn't really fall into any of those categories. It's more of an example of how not to do it.

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It may have an "old-fashioned feel" to you, but I can't remember the last time I read a book that wasn't written that way. This includes a couple of NYT bestsellers (which doesn't make them works of timeless literary brilliance, but still).

Omni feels old-fashioned to me, but close third that includes phrases like "she thought"? Is pretty typical of what's out there right now.

Juliette Wade has some excellent resources for writing in a deep first or third viewpoint. When done well, going deep can work very well. Narrative distance exists on a continuum, and it can vary somewhat within a work as well.

http://talktoyouniverse.blogspot.com/2011/11/checklist-for-deep-pov-in-1st-or-3rd.html

There was another excellent article about narrative viewpoint that used to be linked on her site, but it the link now leads to someone's resume. Gotta love the internet and its impermanence.

This is another article about deep pov that is helpful.

http://theeditorsblog.net/2011/11/16/deep-pov-whats-so-deep-about-it/

http://theeditorsblog.net/2016/07/20/deep-pov-and-narrative-distance-part-2/

Some filters are *always* used even when technically speaking they don't need to be. Virtually every book I read that has italicized thought tags with 's/he thought.' It's not needed, but always included.

Many authors use filters sparingly (like everything! Balance) and it seems to be a means to remind us that we are in the MCs head. Some filters, like remembered or considered, seem more prevalent than others, like saw or heard. Perhaps this is widely known, but it was interesting to me to notice.

I also read a book recently where 'felt' was used super effectively. I wish I could remember the title. I was shocked how well it conveyed the immediacy of the MCs situation, b/c it was very clearly in that case a filter.

(Nice blog post!)

I have to ask are italicised thoughts something that is more common in fantasy and SF? I see a lot of people mention them but I cannot remember the last time I read a book where thoughts were italicised.


The thing with filtering is like everything else in writing you can use it. It's a question of knowing how and when to use it and always better on the lighter side but when you have 3 filtering words in 4 consecutive sentences like above that's overload.

I dont know re italicised thoughts. I personally never use italicised thoughts, in part because I often have italicised sections in my books so I think it looks confusing on the page (eg snippets from letters, or quotes, or just correspondence in general

Elle. said:

I have to ask are italicised thoughts something that is more common in fantasy and SF? I see a lot of people mention them but I cannot remember the last time I read a book where thoughts were italicised.

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I don't know if they're more common, but I've used them (and my editor flagged it if I didn't italicize something that was obviously a thought).

Elle. said:

I have to ask are italicised thoughts something that is more common in fantasy and SF? I see a lot of people mention them but I cannot remember the last time I read a book where thoughts were italicised.

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I have to admit, I write primarily in 3rd limited/deep/whatever-we're-calling-it-now, and I also italicize thoughts, though I do it sparingly. If I'm covering a character's general thoughts on a situation, then I write it out in straight prose, usually without filters. But on those occasions where I'm right in his or her head and that character directly thinking to themselves, so this it; we're going to die, I'll italicize that.

I have seen italicized thought in every recent book I have picked up (mostly fantasy and some science fiction).

Flipped through fifth season because I still have it sitting here, and yes, italicized thought is in there too.

So I can't recall a recent SF/F title that doesn't use. it.

Elle. said:

I have to ask are italicised thoughts something that is more common in fantasy and SF? I see a lot of people mention them but I cannot remember the last time I read a book where thoughts were italicised.

The thing with filtering is like everything else in writing you can use it. It's a question of knowing how and when to use it and always better on the lighter side but when you have 3 filtering words in 4 consecutive sentences like above that's overload.

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I read a lot of SciFi - but I'm not a fan of Fantasy, with that said, within the books I've read thoughts are NOT italicized. In my writing I reserve italicization for emphasis. Not a great example... but:
He just knew she wouldn't be ready on time.

I think over use could be a distraction for your readers.

Thanks everybody for your answers. I mainly read contemporary and literary fiction but I never see thoughts italicised in what I read. I have seen it mentioned on AW quite a few times, so I thought it might be genre specific.

I never italicised thoughts in my writing either whatever the POV.

The SF I definitely saw it in recently was Gunpowder Moon.

It's definitely important to not overdo any little trick. I'm using italicized thought more (again) in the two chapters where my protagonist is completely alone. The absence of dialog made it hard to keep those chapters as dynamic and intimate as I wanted, but italicized thought (along with a few other things) has helped a little bit.

For me, it is distancing, because I prefer third person where every piece of narrative presented is in the MC's thoughts so in that context, additional italicised thoughts don't make sense (and I find the tense shift jarring.)

But it's very stylistic. My CP uses them.

Nota bene: I am not a jemisin fan, unlike all the rest of sffdom lol. so use that to weigh any of my opinions since I am so off kilter.

I just do whatever I feel fits the story. Some time I may even break the rules and experiment a little with switching from one narrative style to the other. They say I'm not supposed to do that, but I don't care. I just like to see what comes out.