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When writing a fantasy book — or any other that tells a meaningful story — the perspective you use will drive how you tell it. Therefore it’s important that you write it in the correct one and remain consistent from the first page to the last. In the previous article, we took a look at the 1st person. This time, we’ll detail how to write in 3rd person.
Writing in 3rd person is markedly different than the 1st in that you, the author, aren’t telling the story through the point-of-view (POV) of a character. Rather, you do so outside as a narrator that doesn’t have a whole lot of access to the inner workings of the characters in the tale. Most of the time, the protagonist serves as the central character and your audience follows him on his heroic journey though you don’t have to necessarily use him. You can go with another character or to subvert expectations, you can anchor the story around the villain.
In terms of how to write in 3rd person, there are 3 common styles. Before you can even begin writing, you first need to decide between one of them and stick with it all the way. Consistency is key here and it’ll be good for you (and your readers as well!).
Writing dialogue in 3rd person is a tad different compared to that of the 1st person. You need to portray it in a natural way that takes into account a myriad of things, one of which is how characters speak. Conversations need to feel organic and engaging for both your characters and readers.
A core element of how to write in 3rd person is to weave the characters’ emotions and thoughts in an organic way that helps readers understand what they’re thinking and feeling. It’s harder to present them in an interesting way since your readers don’t know what’s going on in your characters’ minds. Their facial expressions, mood, and attitude are superb cues that reflect what’s going on internally.
This is the fourteenth article in the writing a fantasy book series. If you’d like to see our many other articles we have, they’re available on our blog page.
Writing in 3rd person is the go-to, appearing in popular stories such as “The Lord of The Rings”, for many authors. So what do you need to know about how to write in 3rd person? You take the role of a silent narrator where you use pronouns and character names to describe them as they perform actions and have conversations with other people and follow them through the story.
However, there are 3 main vehicles to accomplish this and the one you choose will dictate how you structure the story and tell it. Choose the one that works best for the tale you want to tell and stick with it. Don’t change your mind partway through the novel as it’ll hurt your consistency and give you a headache as you have additional work to do.
The three styles are limited, omniscient, and objective and they perform similar, if not the exact same role as their 1st person counterparts. When writing in 3rd person, you need to do so in the present tense.
The first of three styles used for writing in 3rd person is the limited perspective. The limited 3rd person simply means that your audience has access to only one character’s thoughts and feelings throughout the novel, though they’re only inside temporarily. In pretty much every story, said character is the protagonist. When using this perspective, your readers will see the world and other characters as how the protagonist perceives them.
Using the limited 3rd person perspective means your readers can’t go into other characters’ minds and hearts to find out what they’re feeling or thinking. Instead, you’ll have to use ‘show, don’t tell’ to do so. Your readers will know what they’re feeling or thinking based on how the protagonist interprets them. You’ll need to use the right words to highlight their emotions and thoughts.
The second style of how to write in 3rd person is the 3rd person omniscience. This is where you, the narrator, can go inside multiple characters’s minds to see their thoughts and emotions, though it’s just for a little bit. Your audience gains a little insight into how they process information though they don’t get the whole picture of their inner workings.
A positive aspect of this perspective is that your readers gain more knowledge about situations and other characters than the ones in the story do. This means they can connect the dots faster than the characters since they know more than they do. A caveat to this is that different characters see the world differently and no two characters process information the same way. Thus what one character might deem important, another character might dismiss it as meaningless. Therefore, take into consideration how they perceive the world when writing in 3rd person.
The third and the last style of writing in 3rd person is the 3rd person objective. In this one, the narrator has a detached view of the events and observes them from a distance. At no point in the story does he venture inside any characters’ heads to find out what they’re thinking and feeling.
Thus readers are left with no conceivable manner to learn about how the characters’ mind works. Instead they can only use what they see to figure that out for themselves. The trouble with this is some characters can be difficult to figure out based on their facial cues since they use them as a front to disguise what they’re really thinking or feeling at that moment.
No matter which of the three styles you go with, you still need to create riveting dialogue that serves two purposes and is a crucial element of how to write in 3rd person. The first of which is to showcase the characters’ personalities since everyone has an unique way of speaking. The second is to move the story forward, whether by a little or a lot.
Just like writing dialogue in 1st person, you still need to have it flow in a way that feels natural, both for the characters speaking and for the audience. Only instead of using the word I, you’ll use pronouns or their names to let readers know who’s speaking at that moment. Also factor in the context of the situation.
People speak differently depending on the situation and adjust how they speak to match them. In formal ones, they don’t use slang words and speak in a causal tone like you see in informal ones, rather they speak in a professional tone and use words not typically part of their everyday lingo. Keep this in mind as you write in 3rd person since your characters will encounter many different kinds of situations which means you’ll need to have them speak in a way that matches them.
When writing dialogue in the 3rd person, have it reflect how a character speaks and thinks. Remember, the audience may or may not be able to wander inside their heads to see what’s going on which means it’s up to you, the author, to give them that. You have a wide latitude here, meaning you can provide sparse information that makes it hard for them to gauge the situation or you can be quite generous in giving them plenty.
Part of a character’s personality is his idiosyncrasies or mannerisms. It’s vital that the dialogue you write for them gives your readers a glimpse into their inner minds and everyone has a different way of speaking. Thus you want them to say things that feel like something they’d say, regardless of the situation they’re in, and in their usual manner of speaking.
Dialogue is also used to portray how characters perceive the world and other people. In friendly situations, characters are more relaxed and likely to speak normally as if they were surrounded by people familiar to them. In hostile or unfamiliar situations, they’re more alert and prone to anger or lashing out. This is especially true when they’re facing their enemies. The goal here is to have the dialogue match the situation.
Emotions and thoughts play a significant role in the story. Though they may be fleeting, they nevertheless give invaluable clues to the psyche of a character. How do they work when it comes to how to write in 3rd person?
Unlike in 1st person where they remain inside a character’s head for the whole story, the audience only has access to a character’s mind for a short period of time. That means, once they’re inside, they only have so much time to see what’s going on before they find themselves outside once again which means every second counts.
It’s important you select the right words to convey the character’s thoughts and emotions. Also equally vital is that the words you use to describe his emotions are words he would use himself. Basically, you want to be true to the character.
You want to show them what the character is feeling at that particular moment. ‘Show, don’t tell’ comes into play here. For example, instead of saying Sue was sad, you could write something like the tears welled up in Sue’s eyes as memories of the past flashed in her mind, reminding her of her younger, carefree days. Using ‘show, don’t tell’ makes it easier for readers to empathize with a character and gives clues as to why he’s feeling the way he is.
Thoughts are part of a character’s inner mind in how they process information. They’re used in a variety of ways like someone learning something he didn’t know before or how he’s assessing the situation he’s in at that particular point in time. As for them, you still use italicized text to highlight them. This way, readers know they’re reading something that someone is thinking at that point in time.
Let’s set up a scenario here to show how it works. Imagine Lloyd is in a heated conversation with Sally over his having to leave town for work when she reveals how she really feels about his going out of town. The narrator shows the reader how Lloyd’s processing this information. In all their time together, she never said a word about how she really felt. Not a single word. If he had known, he would have made more of an effort to stay. Does she know that every time he leaves town, he dies a little bit inside?
See how thoughts can leave a powerful, lasting impression in just a few sentences? Many thoughts are tinged with emotions that can dramatically impact how they perceive situations or other characters.
Writing in 3rd person can be a ton of fun but it comes with its own set of limitations. For instance, you don’t stay within a character’s head for the whole story. That means you don’t know what’s going on inside all the time which leaves your readers having to figure that out for themselves based on what they see which can be fun — and challenging at the same time!
In regard to how to write in 3rd person, there are three main styles to use. They each impact how you write the story a little differently, so choose wisely. Regardless of which one you go with, you’ll want to stick with it all the way because again, consistency is key.
A central tenet of writing dialogue in 3rd person is to make it feel natural. You want it to flow in an organic way, even though you’ll be using pronouns and character names to convey who’s speaking. The mannerisms of characters drives how they speak and gives the audience a little insight into their personality so keep this in mind as you jot down what they say.
Emotions and thoughts offer great insight into who characters are at heart and how they think. When writing them, using ‘show, don’t tell’ goes a long way towards making them feel real. It makes it easy for your audience to get invested in them which is always a plus!
Now that you’ve learned what you need to know about how to write in 3rd person, it’s time to roll up your sleeves and get to work in creating a fantastic book that’s written in the 3rd person!
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