McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft
Chapter Perspectives and How to Start Them
drewavera:
wow, i didnt know there was a difference between third person perspectives. im gonna have to look into that
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
--- Quote from: drewavera on October 10, 2012, 06:52:13 PM ---if he is changing to third person perspective then the narrator is describing everything. i thought he mentioned that he was not gonna do first person perspective. if he does third person then there is no voice for each individual character until the dialouge comes into play.
--- End quote ---
Sure there is.
Everything a third-person character notices is voice, because different characters notice different things.. Everything a third-person character thinks is in their voice. No difference between third and first in that particular respect at all.
Quantus:
--- Quote from: drewavera on October 10, 2012, 07:15:44 PM ---wow, i didnt know there was a difference between third person perspectives. im gonna have to look into that
--- End quote ---
There is a ton out there on it, here is a good place to start: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narrative_mode
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
--- Quote from: Quantus on October 10, 2012, 06:59:53 PM --- The Objective voice tends to be more neutral and dehumanized, but the Subjective one is more "over the shoulder" and still gets inside the characters' heads. Given that he was switching from 1st POV to third purely to allow for multiple POVs in different scenes, I was assuming he was intending to use the subjective form.
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I'm not sure I believe in the precise scale of distinction you are making; if you are going with a distinct third-person omniscient voice that's not associated with any specific character, it's not going to give you that distinction between POVs but the narrative itself will have a voice made manifest in every choice of words, of which detail to focus on and where to prioritise, even if it's not explictly an omniscient in-world narrator. Doing that consciously has kind of fallen out of fashion this past while except in childrens' books, which I think is kind of a pity.
Otoh, if you're talking about a camera-eye third that follows each individual character around as they do their thing but never steps inside their heads, I still think that you would or should or can have the ability to tell the characters apart by them each behaving distinctly like themselves, even if you don't get a thought process to go with it.
Quantus:
--- Quote from: the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh on October 10, 2012, 07:23:58 PM ---I'm not sure I believe in the precise scale of distinction you are making; if you are going with a distinct third-person omniscient voice that's not associated with any specific character, it's not going to give you that distinction between POVs but the narrative itself will have a voice made manifest in every choice of words, of which detail to focus on and where to prioritise, even if it's not explictly an omniscient in-world narrator. Doing that consciously has kind of fallen out of fashion this past while except in childrens' books, which I think is kind of a pity.
Otoh, if you're talking about a camera-eye third that follows each individual character around as they do their thing but never steps inside their heads, I still think that you would or should or can have the ability to tell the characters apart by them each behaving distinctly like themselves, even if you don't get a thought process to go with it.
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You are absolutely correct. I was attempting to paraphrase the wiki entry, but by no means hit all the subtleties. The main point I was after was just to show that you can indeed do third person while still being inside a character's head.
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