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Mary Rosenblum
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Hello all.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Welcome to our Tuesday
Lunchbox Forum.
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Mary Rosenblum
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I wanted to talk about Limited
Third Person POV today because doing it well tends to take you to the top
of the slush pile.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Most novice third person tends
to be a more narrative third and a good limited third really brings your
story to life.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Now of course, narrative is
the right voice for some fiction. It's not that ALL narrative is wrong. Far
from it.
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Mary Rosenblum
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But if you are writing
strongly character driven fiction -- which is the case for most genres
outside literary mainsteam, you're generally better off using limited
third.
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Mary Rosenblum
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So let me start off by
defining the various types of third person, just so we're all on the same
page here. :-)
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Mary Rosenblum
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Cinematic third person is
simply visuals...only what a camera would record.
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Mary Rosenblum
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The reader has no idea what
anyone is thinking or feeling, all you see is the action.
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Mary Rosenblum
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This is very useful for
showing brief action scenes where you need more distance than your POV
character can give you.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Narrative third person is when
the author tells the story.
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Mary Rosenblum
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The author describes what is
going on and tells us what everybody is thinking and feeling as needed. We
see the scene as if we are in the audience watching it on a stage or a
movie screen.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Omniscient Third puts is into
the heads of the characters so that the readers know what that character is
thinking and feeling, but the reader moves from character to character as
needed within a scene. This tends to be the weakest of all the POVs in most
circumstances.
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Mary Rosenblum
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I would avoid using it until
you have a lot of experience. It's rarely effective.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Limited Third POV puts the
readers inside the head of a single POV character (or two or three in a
novel or very long short story). Everything is described as if the POV
character is seeing or hearing it, and the readers catch some of the POV's
thoughts and awareness and emotions.
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gail
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In the novel I'm writing, I plan
to use limited 3rd for the MC, but narrative 3rd for scenes involving other
characters. Is this a good plan, or should I consider using limited 3rd for
every POV shift?
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Mary Rosenblum
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If you are really using a
single main character, then narrative third should be fine for scenes where
that character is not present, or even cinematic third. Just be sure your
main character is present in most of the scenes so that the readers are
fullly engaged with her/him.
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geezer
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When I use fragments for the
POV's thoughts, some critiquers think the effect is too choppy.
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Mary Rosenblum
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It can make your prose read
choppy. I"m always balancing on that tightrope and what is okay for
some readers will feel choppy for others. You have to keep adjusting
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Mary Rosenblum
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until you find the right
balance so that those fragments give us the feel of thought without making
the prose feel like a wooden cart going down a bumpy road.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Limited third POV done well is
not easy to learn. It's one of those 'lightbulb' skills where you can
strive and strive and not master it and then, all of a sudden, you get it!
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Mary Rosenblum
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The way you 'check' to see if
you're doing good limited is to read a scene and ask yourself 'where do I
need to be standing to see this'.
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Mary Rosenblum
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If the answer is anywhere
other than your POV character, you're not really using limited third.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Here's an example.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Andrea stolled into the living
room brushing back the long auburn hair that contrasted with her green
eyes. Candy wasn't there yet, and she sat down on the sofa with a sigh, not
noticing the figure that appeared in the window behind her, then ducked
quickly out of sight.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Where do you have to stand in
that scene in order to see all this? Outside of Andrea certainly. We see
her eyes...a hard trick to pull off if you don't have a mirror handy, and
we see that sneaky figure peeking through the window behind her.
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Mary Rosenblum
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She doesn't see that.
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Mary Rosenblum
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This is narrative third, the
author describing the scene for us. Is that bad? Well, bad is not the right
word, but it reminds the readers with every sentence that
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Mary Rosenblum
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they are not in the room
living this adventure. So it limits reader engagement with Andrea and the
story.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Here's the limited third
version:
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Mary Rosenblum
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Andrea strolled into the room.
No Candy. She sighed because of course Candy was late, and flopped onto the
sofa. So now they'd both be late. She got out her comb and neatened her
hair, pleased with the way the light brought out the red. Red hair, green
eyes, who could ask for more. She smiled.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Here, I've given the readers
more sense of being inside Andrea's head. She thinks 'no candy' and sighs
because Candy is always late. Since I want readers to know that her hair is
red and her eyes green, I let her pass the time by combing her hair and
noticing the color
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Mary Rosenblum
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then thinking about how her
eyes go with that red hair nicely. Notice that we don't see the shape in
the window?
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Mary Rosenblum
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That window is behind her. She
can't see it.
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Mary Rosenblum
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So what do I do if I need
readers to see it? Well, I could do this.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Andrea looked up as Candy
stuck her head in the door. "You're late. What's wrong?" Andrea
turned to look over her shoulder. "You look like you saw a
ghost."
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Mary Rosenblum
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"I think I did."
Candy's voice trembled a bit. "Looking in the window behind you."
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Mary Rosenblum
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Now we have our shape in the
window.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Andif Candy didn't guess what
that shape meant, she might have been more casual.
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Mary Rosenblum
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"I thought I saw
someone." Candy crossed the room quickly and peered through the leaded
panes. "Nope. Guess I was wrong."
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Mary Rosenblum
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What limited third does is to
suck the reader into your story so that they get up close and personal with
your main character.
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Mary Rosenblum
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That is the most direct way to
create strong, memorable characters. And it's rare.
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Mary Rosenblum
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A lot of published books use narrative
third. Very few writers use strong limited third and they tend to be well
published. So it's a skill well worth cultivating.
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Mary Rosenblum
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When you write a scene try
going back through and asking yourself 'what does my character see here?'
'What does my character hear, now?' and most importantly 'What is my
character thinking now?'
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Mary Rosenblum
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That does not mean you should
add in a lot of those thoughts. But you can imply those thoughts or use a
bit of internal narrative. Knowing what your character is thinking and
feeling will help you create consistent and believable behavior and thus
create a believable and real character.
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reece
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Do LY words weaken your limited
third pov?
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Mary Rosenblum
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The ly words...which tend to
be adverbs...are not BAD per se, it's just that they tend to show up when
the author is telling us things and they also prop up weak verbs.
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Mary Rosenblum
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She ran quickly is simply much
stronger as she raced, she charged, she darted.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Each of those verbs gives us a
subtly different type of 'ran quickly'.
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Mary Rosenblum
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They're a weak substitute for
action tags in dialogue.
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Mary Rosenblum
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"I'm so pleased,"
she said brightly. "I'm so pleased," she chirped. "I'm so
pleased." She bounced on her toes, grinning.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Sometimes the simplest
solution is to use an adverb....you can over complicate things trying to be
politically correct. :-) But when you use them a lot, yeah, you're
weakening your prose.
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Mary Rosenblum
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No matter what voice you're
using, first or third.
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andi
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i like the last one, Mary.
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Mary Rosenblum
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The last is an action tag,
andi.
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Mary Rosenblum
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They are incredibly powerful.
They show the character in action, the allow you to show us body langauge
which reveals
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Mary Rosenblum
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the emotions of even non-POV characters,
and they show us the scene so that you create the effect in dialogue
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Mary Rosenblum
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of seeing and hearing
simultaneously. Just like in real life, duh.
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Mary Rosenblum
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As with anything, you can over
use them. Sometimes 'he said' is simply the best way to ID the speaker.
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Mary Rosenblum
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But most people use said out
of habit not because it's the right choice.
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Mary Rosenblum
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And the saidisms...exclaimed,
announced, etc...are worse than said. :-)
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Mary Rosenblum
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You always want the scene to
flow along and not feel labored. If you make yourself use an action tag
after EVERY sentence, it's going to feel labored pretty fast
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Mary Rosenblum
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just the same as if you use
'said' after every dialogue sentence.
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Mary Rosenblum
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This is true for all the
various skills you learn. It's all about the whole being greater than the
sum of the parts.
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Mary Rosenblum
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And even those things you get
told 'don't do' sometimes are just the right thing.
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Mary Rosenblum
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The reason you hear 'don't do
this' is because they rarely work well, and generally, a novice writer will
be detracting from his/her story by doing that.
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reece
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why are saidisms like announced
or exclaimed worse then said? -I thought they would be better
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Mary Rosenblum
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Good question, reece. They are
worse because we notice them. Remember, readers have been trained to read
from a young age. :-)
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Mary Rosenblum
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Said means nothing really, it
simply identifies the speaker. Jane said.
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Mary Rosenblum
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So our eye skims over it as
soon as we get that identification.
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Mary Rosenblum
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"I guess I'll stay
home," Jane said.
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Mary Rosenblum
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We barely notice the said
unless it repeats too often. Then we REALLY notice it of course.
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Mary Rosenblum
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But when you use a saidism, we
do notice it. And that makes the tag...which is the author telling us
somethign rmemember...much more noticeable, period.
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Mary Rosenblum
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And 'thought' is about the
same.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Occasionally you need that
'thought' in order to make it clear to the reader that you're transitioning
from speech to thought.
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Mary Rosenblum
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But most of the time you can
avoid it entirely.
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Mary Rosenblum
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If you look back to my example
with Andrea, when she enters the living room 'No Candy' is Andrea's
thought.
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Mary Rosenblum
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If I had written No Candy,
Andrea thought it would have sounded clunky.
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Mary Rosenblum
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And it's obviously her
thought. It's not in quotations so it's not speech.
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Mary Rosenblum
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What else could it be?
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Mary Rosenblum
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In limited third, because
we're inside the character's head, you can bring in these brief bits of
thought smoothly and avoid 'she thought' altogether.
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Mary Rosenblum
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BE sure you use the
character's own voice when you do those internal narrative bits though.
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Mary Rosenblum
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If your character talks one
way and thinks another that's going to seem wrong.
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Mary Rosenblum
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And in limited third pay
attention to how YOU think.
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Mary Rosenblum
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We do not...most of us...think
in grammatically perfect complete sentences.
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Mary Rosenblum
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And when you try passing that
off as thought, it sounds phony to the readers.
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Mary Rosenblum
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So do a little writing
exercise. Write an action scene with a single POV character in
it...something fun.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Then go through that scene
sentence by sentence and ask yourself 'where do I need to be standing in
order to see this'.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Then, if needed, revise the
scene so that you can only be sitting inside the character's head in order
to see/hear/etc everything.
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charie'
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Is it okay to use 2 limited POVs
(Sleuth and Criminal) to give your readers info the MC doesn't have?
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Mary Rosenblum
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Sure, as long as the readers
need to have that information. And you probably don't need to make your
criminal a POV unless you are using him/her as a main POV character.
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Mary Rosenblum
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You can do a lot externally.
It's very rare that you actually need to put the readers inside of a
secondary character's head in order to get information across.
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Mary Rosenblum
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I suggest that you stick to
your main character(s) for limited third and stay out of the heads of your
secondary characters as much as you can.
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charie'
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By externally, do you mean
having secondary characters reveal things to the MC?
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Mary Rosenblum
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You can have the secondaries
reveal things without putting us inside their heads, even if the POV
character isn't present.
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Mary Rosenblum
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You can simply do a short
cinematic scene where we see action you don't want your MC to see.
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gail
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Near the end of a novel I
recently read, there was a scene involving excited dialogue between several
characters. There were no saidisms nor action tags. I found it confusing,
and wonderfully how it could've been written more clearly. Would you use
action tags or saidisms when trying to maintain a sense of heightened
exchange?
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Mary Rosenblum
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I'm assuming you mean stripped
dialogue, gail, with no tags at all?
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gail
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yes
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Mary Rosenblum
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Yeah, this is another of those
fine lines. As conversation gets more heated, you want to reduce the tags
to simulate that increasingly rapid and tense speech.
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Mary Rosenblum
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But as you found out....you
can confuse readers. That kind of scene takes a lot of work so that you
sucessfully create the sense of a verbal fight
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Mary Rosenblum
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but don't confuse the readers.
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charie'
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So limited 3rd POV doesn't have
the MC in every scene like 1st person POV?
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Mary Rosenblum
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Well, a POV character should
be in MOST scenes. I would not put in many scenes with no POV, but say you
want the reader to see a murder but of course your POV, the detective,
isn't going to be there.
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Mary Rosenblum
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You can simply show us the
scene, the couple sleeping, the creak of the door opening...all that. And
never put us into anyone's head.
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geezer
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In stripped dialogue might you
rely on the differences in the characters voices?
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Mary Rosenblum
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Yes, that REALLY helps. That
is one of the reasons a unique character voice for each of your characters
is very important.
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Mary Rosenblum
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You can still confuse readers
if the characters are all shouting short sentence fragments at each other.
:-) But it sure helps.
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Mary Rosenblum
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This is where the difference
between novice and pro lies folks. When you start writing, you don't see
the subtleties of what makes
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Mary Rosenblum
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a scene work. So it's hard to
see just how your scene differs from that published scene by a really good
author.
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Mary Rosenblum
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But a lot of subtle balance
work is involved in making those scenes work as well as they do.
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gail
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Which works best in that sort of
clipped dialogue, action tags or saidisms?
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Mary Rosenblum
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Generally, if a conversation
is rising to a fevered pitch, you start with action tags, reduce to 'said'
and end with stripped dialogue.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Think of it this way...if
you're having a relaxed conversation you're noticing the room around you,
maybe thinking of other things.
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Mary Rosenblum
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AS your temper rises you focus
on the other speaker, you stop noticing the room much and by the time
you're both shouting
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Mary Rosenblum
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you're only staring at his
face. :-)
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Mary Rosenblum
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You want to recreate that with
your words.
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andi
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Mary you ever do the formal and
informal contractions like don't, do not? off the forum talk
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Mary Rosenblum
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In prose I use both (do not)
or informal (don't) style. It utterly depends on what I'm writing and which
style is called for.
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Mary Rosenblum
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The language and style need to
suit the task.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Always.
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Mary Rosenblum
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(One of the few 'always' in
writing! )
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Mary Rosenblum
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Spend some time working on mastering
limited third POV. It will increase your characterization by an order of
magnitude and it'll make your fiction stand out in the slush pile.
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Mary Rosenblum
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No, it's not always the right
choice for a story, but often it is, and when it is, it's worth doing well.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Well, thanks for coming all.
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Mary Rosenblum
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I'll post the transcripts of
this chat in the usual place.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Writing Craft: Forum
Transcripts.
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Mary Rosenblum
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You all have a good week and
I'll see you on Sunday for our casual chat.
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