He, She, It—Third-Person Point of View

Lecture 17

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convey only those events that they have witnessed or heard about
from another source. The third person, in contrast, has much more range and
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third person can also go deeper into an individual character’s consciousness
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more instinctive and natural way to tell a story. In this lecture, we’ll look at
several varieties of third-person narration and see how they are combined by
modern writers.

Close Third Person
z The close third person seems to be the default mode of most
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because, on the whole, it stays close to what one character knows,
thinks, and feels.

z Still, the close third person contains at least the possibility of going
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because the third person allows the writer to reveal things about the
character’s thoughts, feelings, intentions, and prejudices that the
character may not know or understand or may not want anybody else to
know. In this respect, the close third person can be more comprehensive
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about a character, not just what that character chooses to reveal.

z As with other choices in creative writing, using this point of view means
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example, you can create a unique voice for the character, as Twain does
for Huck Finn, and by choosing to tell a story in the close third person,