What’s the point of third person limited POV?

JohnLine · Nov 12, 2019

I’ve been writing a novel in third person limited, and I’m starting to notice some major limitations in it as a point of view.

For one thing, it makes pronouns confusing as hell. When you write in first person you always have “I” reserved for the MC. So you can say things like:

She put her hand on my shoulder, and I said, “How’s your uncle Bob?”

Instead of (assuming a female MC)

She put her hand on her shoulder and she said, “How’s your uncle Bob?”

The two hacks I’ve noticed authors using to get around this are either, bending over backwards to make sure that interactions always happen between one man and one woman; or giving all the characters very short one-syllable names.

And now I’m wondering, if you’re limiting knowledge to a single character anyway, what’s the point of this POV and why is it so popular?

Gillhoughly · Nov 12, 2019

It's just one more way to tell a story. Some writers are comfortable with it while others are not. There is no right or wrong viewpoint. You use the one that gets the job done the best.

I write a LOT of books in first person. Some time after the 6th was published someone in my writing group informed me it was the most difficult POV to write. That was a shock, because it was the most natural for me. My first book did start in third person, I got tired of juggling pronouns, shifted to first and never looked back.

I've also written a number of books from third limited. This took place after I read plenty of books using it. I got the hang pretty quick, mostly because writers like Lois McMaster Bujold (winner of many Hugos) make it look easy. Third person it is, but the reader is still inside the character's skin and feeling their sweat and reacting emotionally to what's going on.

If you want to read how it's done right, I suggest cracking open her Miles Vorkosigan books.

Ari Meermans · Nov 12, 2019

Third person limited is the easiest POV for me to write, with first coming in second. This article might help you understand third person limited better: "Third-Person Limited: Analyzing Fiction’s Most Flexible Point of View".

lizmonster · Nov 12, 2019

JohnLine said:
The two hacks I’ve noticed authors using to get around this are either, bending over backwards to make sure that interactions always happen between one man and one woman; or giving all the characters very short one-syllable names.

I can't say as I've noticed this, and third limited is probably the most common POV in my genre.

In any POV, clarity is important, and sometimes that means reconstructing your sentences. Even in FP, if you've got more than one other person in the scene, you've potentially got the same issue. The problem isn't the POV; it's how it's handled.

Marian Perera · Nov 12, 2019

JohnLine said:
The two hacks I’ve noticed authors using to get around this are either, bending over backwards to make sure that interactions always happen between one man and one woman; or giving all the characters very short one-syllable names.

I don't recall ever doing this (or noticing it in other authors' scenes that feature interactions between characters of the same gender with longer names). There are other ways to make it clear who's speaking, or who's doing what to whom.

And now I’m wondering, if you’re limiting knowledge to a single character anyway, what’s the point of this POV and why is it so popular?

Does "third person limited" mean only one POV, always, or does it mean several characters' POV as long as you make it clear when there's a scene break? If it's the latter, you're not limited to a single character's perspective.

Layla Nahar · Nov 12, 2019

I think it means the narrator is limited to what the single focal character can experience and know. There's no limit of how many characters can be the focal point through which the story can be told.

Yeah, a writer can run up against the pronoun problem. But generally when we run into a problem wording like that, the best solution is to think of a very different way of explaining the situation.

JohnLine · Nov 12, 2019

JohnLine said:
The two hacks I’ve noticed authors using to get around this are either, bending over backwards to make sure that interactions always happen between one man and one woman; or giving all the characters very short one-syllable names.

The best example I can think of is Brandon Sanderson's Mist Born, where the MC is named Vin, and she mostly has interactions with men.

I've been writing 3rd person limited as much like first person as I can, and that's been working out, except for the pronouns.

When I needed a short same-sex flirting scene, I started tripping over pronouns. I've written romance scenes before and never had any problem (either first person or 3rd person hetro), but without the simple he/she pronouns it quickly became comically difficult.

I'm just surprised that multiple first person POV isn't really a thing. Off the top of my head, the only book I can think of that uses it is Dracula.

Tocotin · Nov 13, 2019

JohnLine said:
I'm just surprised that multiple first person POV isn't really a thing. Off the top of my head, the only book I can think of that uses it is Dracula.

Off the top of my head, Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik (I just read it last week).

Multiple first person POV has been very much a thing since teh 18th century, I think. A lot of epistolary novels use it (The Coquette by Hannah Webster Foster, Dangerous Liaisons by Cholderlos de Laclos, Poor Folk by Dostoyevsky, to name just a few), and Dracula is one of them.

onesecondglance · Nov 13, 2019

JohnLine said:
She put her hand on my shoulder, and I said, “How’s your uncle Bob?”

Instead of (assuming a female MC)

She put her hand on her shoulder and she said, “How’s your uncle Bob?”

1. Use paragraph breaks in third person when you switch speaker or primary actor:

Beth put her hand on Alice's shoulder.
"How's your uncle Bob?" Alice said.

2. Do not be afraid of names, which goes for any perspective, tbh. You might think it sounds repetitive to keep saying a name, but when you're reading, names become more like shapes - you see that shape, you know what it means without having to give it much attention. Contextual pronouns like "he" or "she" (or "it" for non-characters) require more mental effort to parse. Clarity is key, and to be clear you have to be specific.

3. Read more third person fiction. You can't just treat third person as "first person with different pronouns". It's a different storytelling mode and needs to be handled as such. If you find being specific with names makes your writing feel clunky, rewrite so it doesn't feel that way.

Bufty · Nov 13, 2019

JohnLine said:
I’ve been writing a novel in third person limited, and I’m starting to notice some major limitations in it as a point of view.

For one thing, it makes pronouns confusing as hell. When you write in first person you always have “I” reserved for the MC. So you can say things like:

She put her hand on my shoulder, and I said, “How’s your uncle Bob?”

Instead of (assuming a female MC)

She put her hand on her shoulder and she said, “How’s your uncle Bob?”

The two hacks I’ve noticed authors using to get around this are either, bending over backwards to make sure that interactions always happen between one man and one woman; or giving all the characters very short one-syllable names.

And now I’m wondering, if you’re limiting knowledge to a single character anyway, what’s the point of this POV and why is it so popular?

The 'Limited' in Third Person Limited Point of View simply means 'limited' to the POV of one person in any given scene, chapter, book or whatever. The choice to introduce fresh POV characters is up to you - you're not automatically limited to one POV character per novel.

And pronoun confusion due to poor execution - as opposed to POV choice - is not limited to Third Person POV stories. :snoopy:

lizmonster · Nov 13, 2019

JohnLine said:
The best example I can think of is Brandon Sanderson's Mist Born, where the MC is named Vin, and she mostly has interactions with men.

I think this is a case of confirmation bias. I'd be rather stunned to learn that Sanderson chose the gender of his characters because of pronoun clarity.

As for multi-FP being a solution: as someone who's revising a multi-FP book, yeah, no. As I said before, any time you've got more than two people in a scene, you're once again running into a potential issue.

osg has it right: restructure your paragraphs, and use proper names more than you think you should. I also find this a good aapproach to dealing with potential ambiguities using they/them.

Marian Perera · Nov 13, 2019

I still don't understand what the number of syllables in a person's name has to do with clarity. I can't see myself thinking, "Oh, in A Song of Ice and Fire, when Jon was talking to men, I wasn't confused because he has a one-syllable name, but when Daenerys was with women, forget about it!"

Lakey · Nov 13, 2019

I’m going to address your subject question first: What is the point of third-person limited? Third-person limited is my favorite POV because it has the potential to be incredibly intimate. It puts the reader unequivocally inside a character’s head, with access to thoughts and feelings that the character might never otherwise choose to reveal. In first person, the narrator is always present between her own thoughts and the reader; there is always an implicit filter, an implicit editorializing. In first person, the narrator implicitly gets to choose how much of herself to reveal; she can be honest, or she can be cagey. In third person, the narration can lay the POV character utterly bare, whether she likes it or not.

(The narrator presence in first person can be useful, of course, as when you are aiming to write an unreliable narrator story. No one POV is inherently better than another; each has strengths and weaknesses for different types of stories.)

I recommend this book a lot for all kinds of reasons, but take a look at Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr Ripley for a master class in what third-person limited can achieve in the way of narrative intimacy. And, incidentally, there are very few women at all in that book, which brings me to your other points.

JohnLine said:
For one thing, it makes pronouns confusing as hell.
...
The two hacks I’ve noticed authors using to get around this are either, bending over backwards to make sure that interactions always happen between one man and one woman; or giving all the characters very short one-syllable names.

This is an odd assertion, and perhaps just means you haven’t read enough third-person limited work. For one thing, wouldn’t first person have exactly the same issue any time your character is interacting with two women or two men at the same time? For another, competent writers structure their scenes and their sentences and their action beats so that the writing is smooth and it is always clear who is speaking or acting.

And now I’m wondering, if you’re limiting knowledge to a single character anyway, what’s the point of this POV and why is it so popular?

Again, does first person POV not limit knowledge to a single character? You are ascribing problems to third-person as though they are unique to third person when they simply are not.

In addition, third-person limited only means that you remain in a single character’s POV for the duration of a scene or chapter. You can switch to the POV of another character in another scene or chapter, if your story requires it. There are also books in which some POVs are first person and others third person. (Andy Weir’s The Martian is a recent popular example that leaps to mind.)

When I needed a short same-sex flirting scene, I started tripping over pronouns. I've written romance scenes before and never had any problem (either first person or 3rd person hetro), but without the simple he/she pronouns it quickly became comically difficult.

Sarah Waters manages it—The Paying Guests is third-person limited and contains a healthy spoonful of sex scenes between two women. Mary Renault’s The Charioteer is pretty much a book-long flirtation between two men, and her writing is flawless and gorgeous.

Most of the scenes I’ve posted in Share Your Work over the last couple of years (Historical Fiction section) contain conversations between women. Most recently I posted a sex scene (R-rated) between two women. It was extremely difficult to write, but the pronoun issue was not at all what made it difficult! If you like, you can read it and tell me if you find it awkward, the way I identify who is who. None of the feedback I’ve received on it cited that as an issue.

I'm just surprised that multiple first person POV isn't really a thing. Off the top of my head, the only book I can think of that uses it is Dracula.

Tocotin already mentioned that multiple first-person is indeed a thing. In addition to the books she mentioned, Vera Kaspary’s Laura is one; more recently, Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible; more recently still, one of my very favorite books, Elizabeth Wein’s Code Name Verity. That’s just off the top of my head; a little bit of thought, I am sure, could turn up many more. My understanding is that many romances are written this way as well.

tl;dr, go forth and read more! See what different authors have done with different POVs. Third-person limited is extremely fruitful and powerful. Might there be some stories for which another POV is a better choice? Sure—but don’t dismiss it out of hand until you fully understand what it can do. There is a reason that it is commonly used.

:e2coffee:

Barbara R. · Nov 13, 2019

JohnLine said:
I’ve been writing a novel in third person limited, and I’m starting to notice some major limitations in it as a point of view.

For one thing, it makes pronouns confusing as hell. When you write in first person you always have “I” reserved for the MC. So you can say things like:

She put her hand on my shoulder, and I said, “How’s your uncle Bob?”

Instead of (assuming a female MC)

She put her hand on her shoulder and she said, “How’s your uncle Bob?”

The two hacks I’ve noticed authors using to get around this are either, bending over backwards to make sure that interactions always happen between one man and one woman; or giving all the characters very short one-syllable names.

And now I’m wondering, if you’re limiting knowledge to a single character anyway, what’s the point of this POV and why is it so popular?

Your second sentence (She put her hand on her shoulder and she said, “How’s your uncle Bob?”) is incorrect, which is why it's confusing. Pronouns refer generally to the last person of that gender mentioned by name--in your example, "her" and "she" refer to two different women. The sentence should have been something like "She put her hand on Jane's shoulder and said, 'How's your uncle Bob?' "

Neither of the two hacks you mention make much sense to me. If you can't write an interaction between 2 characters of the same sex, you're incredibly hamstrung. And names need to be what works for the character and the story, not artificially constrained to one syllable! The solution is to use proper names whenever needed for clarity. I've even seen it done as a parethetical aside, just to avoid confusion. E.g.: Marcy seriously doubted whether she, Janet, had the guts to go through with it, even if she could located the poisoned dagger."

The value of 3rd person limited is the same as first-person. That exclusive perspective brings readers very close to the POV character, whose thoughts we hear and whose feelings we feel. It also limits other perspectives, which can be a very useful choice. If you're writing a mystery, for example, you might very well prefer to stick to the detective's POV lest readers get ahead of him in solving the crime.

JohnLine · Nov 13, 2019

Lakey said:
I’m going to address your subject question first: What is the point of third-person limited? Third-person limited is my favorite POV because it has the potential to be incredibly intimate. It puts the reader unequivocally inside a character’s head, with access to thoughts and feelings that the character might never otherwise choose to reveal. In first person, the narrator is always present between her own thoughts and the reader; there is always an implicit filter, an implicit editorializing. In first person, the narrator implicitly gets to choose how much of herself to reveal; she can be honest, or she can be cagey. In third person, the narration can lay the POV character utterly bare, whether she likes it or not.

This is a good point and was more or less what I was looking for. I've been asking myself what is unique about 3rd person limited that 1st person can't offer, and you've hit the nail on the head.

Now as far as the pronoun game goes, I still stand by my assertion that pronouns are much easier/better in 1st person. Yes, it has issues as soon as you have a conversation with three characters (including the narrator) that aren't the same sex, but how often does that come up?

Let's break it down (I'm going to use a female MC here) So if the conversation contains:

MC(female) + male: 1st(person) No confusion; 3rd(person) No confusion
MC(female) + female: 1st no confusion; 3rd person CONFUSION
MC(female) + female + male: 1st no confusion; 3rd person CONFUSION
MC(female) + female + female: 1st CONFUSION; 3rd CONFUSION

So, 1st person is good up until you have three people in your dialog, and 3rd person fails with two (50% of the time)
I'd say roughly 75% of dialogs have two people in them, and less than 10% have more than three.

So, 1st person has roughly 88% pronoun clarity while 3rd person is right around 40%.

And I think it makes far more sense to have a pronoun for the POV character, than to hand them out randomly based on what's betwixt a character's legs(or in their hearts).

But there is a lot of value in studying 3rd person. Since I've started writing in it, I've become far more aware of who the subject and the object (whom) of each sentence are, and that you can imply pronouns based on this. It forces me to come up with interesting ways to overcome the 3rd person pronoun issue, and it makes me aware of what lines are pure narration and what lines are the POV's thoughts. Both of these make me a better writer.

But it’s still kind of annoying, from time to time.

By point of contrast, one limitation of 1st person is you can't refer to the POV character by name. Which, I suspect is why you don't see multi POV 1st person used very much. You'd have to start each chapter and scene change with someone calling the POV by name!

Dan Rhys · Nov 13, 2019

Third person limited is very good for showing how people can be, in a sense, pawns of larger social forces and human frailties. Thus, authors who want to make social commentary often rely on them. It's my go-to POV because it allows readers to explore many characters in depth. First person can feel very claustrophobic to me because you are trapped in the mind of a single character throughout the story, and if the MC is someone the reader cannot sympathize with, the story can lose the reader quickly.

lizmonster · Nov 13, 2019

JohnLine said:
Now as far as the pronoun game goes, I still stand by my assertion that pronouns are much easier/better in 1st person. Yes, it has issues as soon as you have a conversation with three characters (including the narrator) that aren't the same sex, but how often does that come up?

I write space opera, and the answer is all the time.

JohnLine said:
MC(female) + male: 1st(person) No confusion; 3rd(person) No confusion
MC(female) + female: 1st no confusion; 3rd person CONFUSION
MC(female) + female + male: 1st no confusion; 3rd person CONFUSION
MC(female) + female + female: 1st CONFUSION; 3rd CONFUSION

To be blunt: only if the writing is bad.

Woollybear · Nov 13, 2019

JohnLine said:
I’ve been writing a novel in third person limited, and I’m starting to notice some major limitations in it as a point of view.

For one thing, it makes pronouns confusing as hell. When you write in first person you always have “I” reserved for the MC. So you can say things like:

She put her hand on my shoulder, and I said, “How’s your uncle Bob?”

Instead of (assuming a female MC)

She put her hand on her shoulder and she said, “How’s your uncle Bob?”

The two hacks I’ve noticed authors using to get around this are either, bending over backwards to make sure that interactions always happen between one man and one woman; or giving all the characters very short one-syllable names.

And now I’m wondering, if you’re limiting knowledge to a single character anyway, what’s the point of this POV and why is it so popular?

I really dislike first person in most (not all) cases. In general, as a generality, in broad strokes, it feels like an assault to me as a reader. And the endless repetition of "I this I that" feels so self-absorbed.

First person cannot use the character's name as a reference; it is always I. Third person can use he/she or name.

The main reason I prefer third is because it invites me to spend time with a character and does not demand that I do so.

But many people prefer first person. They say it is more intimate--I find it more self-absorbed.

Any approach must be handled well.

Woollybear · Nov 13, 2019

Marian Perera said:
I still don't understand what the number of syllables in a person's name has to do with clarity. I can't see myself thinking, "Oh, in A Song of Ice and Fire, when Jon was talking to men, I wasn't confused because he has a one-syllable name, but when Daenerys was with women, forget about it!"

I don't understand this either but several people on my early drafts said Ardelle is too strange a name, as is Alphonse, and has it ever occurred to me that names like... Luke are better--they are shorter and easier--and that maybe this is the problem with my story?

It wasn't the problem with my story. Once I fixed the other problems with my story, no one minded the multisyllabic names. I write in third.

Tocotin · Nov 13, 2019

I don't dislike any POV; everything depends on the execution. I started writing my current novel in 3rd person, it felt all wrong, and halfway in I had to switch to 1st.

1st person is not at all more intimate or candid. It's manipulative.

Patty said:
First person cannot use the character's name as a reference; it is always I.

That's not true. The first-person narrator can look at the scene from afar and describe it as if they were disconnected from their own body, or they can briefly refer to themselves in third person; this can be done for various purposes, from irony to change of pace to raising the tension. I have seen it done and have done it myself.

JohnLine · Nov 13, 2019

lizmonster said:
To be blunt: only if the writing is bad.

Very true, all other things being equal, writing ability is the most important factor. I'm just trying to understand the limits of the medium, so I might come across as infuriatingly dense, from time to time.

lizmonster · Nov 14, 2019

JohnLine said:
Very true, all other things being equal, writing ability is the most important factor. I'm just trying to understand the limits of the medium, so I might come across as infuriatingly dense, from time to time.

Not dense!

I do think you're trying to apply rules of logic to an art form, though, which doesn't really work. It's a bit like trying to come up with universal, agreed-upon rules about when an artist should or shouldn't use red.

When I was in high school, I tried to pull apart the prose of one of my favorite authors. Turns out when I parsed it at the word level to figure out how she created such evocative images, it all fell apart. In writing, every word exists in relation to the words around it. It's about rhythm and music as much as word choice and POV. Which can be annoying if you're the sort who wants clear-cut rules. (I'm one of those people; took me a long time to let that go.)

Bufty · Nov 14, 2019

JohnLine said:
Very true, all other things being equal, writing ability is the most important factor. I'm just trying to understand the limits of the medium, so I might come across as infuriatingly dense, from time to time.

There are no limits, John. :Hug2:

If there's clarity and flow, and it works- it works. The only 'limiting' factor - if that's the right word- is that different folk can see the same piece through different eyes and from different perspectives. Which is why we write to please ourselves in the first instance, then edit and refine to try and ensure the images we have are clearly conveyed to readers through the writing.

angeliz2k · Nov 14, 2019

I would forget the pronoun confusion thing. That's only a problem if you don't treat pronouns with care, and as mentioned it can be a problem with any POV.

The point of third-person-close is to tell a story from the perspective of the person from both slightly within and slightly without that person. You still get full access to their thoughts and feelings, but you can also zoom out and be more of a camera on their shoulder. With first, you are always seeing through their eyes. Even if the person is telling the story from the perspective of hindsight, you're still seeing it through their eyes. (For example, I have a character telling a story from the perspective of some 40 years later, but we're still seeing it through his eyes, and through the lens of those 40 years. If I had done it in third person, it wouldn't be all seen through the lens of his thoughts/feelings; it would be the more objective description of the invisible narrator. I chose first-person because in this case I wanted to see everything through the lens of his emotions and hindsight.) Third person allows you to pause and notice things that the characters themselves might not comment on. Say your character is taking a walk at dusk. In third-person, you can describe the colors of dusk, but if the character were telling it themselves, they might not notice the dusk at all. Now, you may or may not want to describe that. Maybe that sort of thing doesn't work for your story. Or maybe it's exactly the kind of thing you want. Each POV has strengths and weaknesses. The strengths of one might be exactly what you need for a particular story.

Long story short, first and third are tools. Use the right tool for the right job.
.
.
.
Short anecdote about first/third and pronouns. I had a WIP where, in the frame story, one character is telling another about his past. Initially, I had the frame in third person and the flash-back chapters in first. I did this because he was telling the story (so first seemed natural) and because I didn't want to reveal his real name until later on (and "I" was, of course, a major help there). But it wasn't working for various reasons. I decided to switch to third, and lemme tell you, going six or seven chapters in third-person trying to avoid the MC's name was not easy. He had to be "he", but his father and a friend were also "he". That was hard to dance around, but I think I succeeded. So, it can be done.

Lakey · Nov 14, 2019

JohnLine said:
Now as far as the pronoun game goes, I still stand by my assertion that pronouns are much easier/better in 1st person. Yes, it has issues as soon as you have a conversation with three characters (including the narrator) that aren't the same sex, but how often does that come up?

Not infrequently at all. I'm not sure why you think it's unusual. I recommend you go take a look at some of your favorite books. Reread the scenes that have multiple characters in them and see how the authors handle it. By your citing of Sanderson I'd guess you are a fantasy fan; what does Tolkien do in Lord of the Rings, where there are hardly any women to speak of at all? LOTR might be omniscient third, rather than limited -- I don't know off the top of my head, but given when it was written it probably is omniscient-- but being omniscient isn't going to address this pronoun issue, which you ascribe to third-person limited even though it exists in any scene that has multiple interacting characters, regardless of POV.

Or if you would rather look at books in first person: Have a look at Neal Stephenson's Anathem, and all the scenes which are discussions between Erasmas (the first-person narrator), Lio, Arsibault, Jesry, their teacher Orolo... lots of conversations among these characters, all male.

I mean, the idea that this doesn't come up often is just -- weird. Most books feature scenes with more than two non-POV characters of the same sex. Writers figured out how to deal with it a long time ago. Any difficulty that you might encounter sorting out who is who is far from the greatest difficulty you will face in learning to write decent fiction, believe me!

And I think it makes far more sense to have a pronoun for the POV character, than to hand them out randomly based on what's betwixt a character's legs(or in their hearts).

Take that up with the English language, which is grammatically gendered, and assigns gendered pronouns to humans (historically based upon their sex; more recently based upon their gender self-identification). Writers have figured out how to deal with it.

But there is a lot of value in studying 3rd person. Since I've started writing in it, I've become far more aware of who the subject and the object (whom) of each sentence are, and that you can imply pronouns based on this. It forces me to come up with interesting ways to overcome the 3rd person pronoun issue, and it makes me aware of what lines are pure narration and what lines are the POV's thoughts. Both of these make me a better writer.

That's good to hear. It is always good to be aware of who is in your scenes, and what they are doing. Be aware, too, that a common rookie weakness in first-person writing is overuse of I -- making every sentence "I did this" and "I did that." So having the unique pronoun at your disposal for that character can actually lead to flabby, repetitive writing, if you rely on it too much.

In other words, no matter what narrative POV you choose, there are technical skills that must be developed to make the writing read clearly and smoothly and not feel repetitive. Keep studying your favorite writers to see how they do this. I guarantee you they do not do it by sticking only to first person and only to scenes with no more than one person of each sex present.

But it’s still kind of annoying, from time to time.

"There is no way of writing well and also of writing easily." --Anthony Trollope.

:e2coffee:

What’s the point of third person limited POV?

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