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Q&A

Posts tagged third-person

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Q&A How can I make a transition from third person omniscient to first person less jarring for the reader?

I'm working on a longish short story (I expect to hit somewhere around 5,000 - 6,000 words by the time I'm through) that starts out in third person omniscient POV, mostly because that allows me to ...

2 answers  ·  posted 4y ago by Canina‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by Monica Cellio‭

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Q&A First or third person

I'm sitting with a bit of a dilemma. I'm writing a novel and I'm struggling with the decision of whether I should use first or third person. I prefer third person, also prefer to read novels writt...

2 answers  ·  posted 4y ago by Liezl Doman‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by Mark Baker‭

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Q&A Using a different POV just for the opening line

I'm currently working on a short story with a dramatic "twist" ending. I use the quotation marks because, unlike a conventional plot twist aimed at surprising the reader, the intended target of the...

1 answer  ·  posted 5y ago by motosubatsu‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A POV - 3rd Person Rules and Exceptions?

I'm stuck on a POV question in a short story I'm writing. The entire story is written in 3rd Person, but not omniscient - I guess it's either "distant limited" or "deep" (I'm not sure exactly the d...

3 answers  ·  posted 5y ago by romebot‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A How to work in a piece of information that no MC knows, when writing in 3PLtd?

In my story, there is a group of four characters that are called upon a classic macguffin hunt. The characters know that the macguffin is important, but they do not know all the details as why it ...

5 answers  ·  posted 7y ago by cobaltduck‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A Have a tough time figuring out third-person prose

I can write first-person great, but many stories can only be told third-person and i dont have much experience here. It always feels clunky, doesn't flow right. And get distracted by pronouns and w...

4 answers  ·  posted 7y ago by Altoban‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A How to know whether to write in 3rd person or 1st person?

How do I know, when I'm writing, which perspective I should write in? I almost always write with a 1st person narrative because it makes it easy to get great immersion in with the characters. Is i...

2 answers  ·  posted 8y ago by Daniel Cann‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A Should I describe my characters going to the toilet?

Should I let the narrator (third person) describe that my characters are going to the bathroom (for a sense of realism and accuracy) or should I simply omit it as it as it adds no value to the stor...

4 answers  ·  posted 8y ago by Joel Okimoto‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A Prologue and Epilogue in third person and chapters in first person doable?

My current work is in first person. Well, it's a début so I didn't compare the benefits of first vs. third when I started writing it. I just picked the first because it was easy. Now the plot line...

3 answers  ·  posted 9y ago by Amin Mohamed Ajani‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A Does it sound more natural to use the character's way of speaking while describing his/her inner thoughts?

In the following example, the character is a five-year-old: Saki stared at her side. Her cousin was right: she had indeed an extra digit on one hand. How come she hadn't notice it before? ...

1 answer  ·  posted 11y ago by Alexandro Chen‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A First person pov with more than one main chars

I really love -- and most of time write in -- first person point of view. The novel I'm writing is somewhat different from what I'm used to. I have four main characters -- I don't see any of them ...

3 answers  ·  posted 10y ago by Psicofrenia‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A What is "head popping" and why is it bad?

Most of my writing experience has been with first person, nonfiction stories. Now I want to try some fiction. I'm working in third person, but I'm a little bit confused about how to pull something ...

1 answer  ·  posted 11y ago by Tim Elhajj‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A How best to handle revealing a main character's name midway through a long story in close-third person?

I'm writing a novel, and it's written in close third person perspective, very much sitting on the shoulder of one main character and privy to their thoughts. There is another very important charact...

3 answers  ·  posted 12y ago by RSid‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A Is straight-up writing someone's opinions telling?

When I first learned about the "show don't tell" guideline, I believe it applied to everything. I have now learned there are many grey areas, like for example exposition, and that the most importan...

5 answers  ·  posted 5y ago by A. Kvåle‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A Would it be cheating to change the main character's "name" partway through the story?

I'm writing a story written in third-person limited, and the main character has no real name. They simply go by the nickname they're given by the people they hang around at the time, resulting in m...

3 answers  ·  posted 6y ago by AkkaVer‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A What to call a main character who changes names?

I'd like to write a story, in the third-person perspective, centering on a character who changes her name several times in the course of the story. She uses her birth name for the first couple of ...

3 answers  ·  posted 5y ago by Cerise St Hilaire‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A How to refer to characters in a non-repetitive way in the third person? [closed]

Currently, I'm running into an issue with constructing a scene in third person in which the POV character is having a conversation with his mother. Since it's third person, I can't just be like "Mo...

2 answers  ·  posted 6y ago by LHH‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A 1st person addressing a narrator

I'm writing a story in first person, but with a third person narrator for the secondary character. I was wondering if there were any books or stories to research how the first person character coul...

1 answer  ·  posted 5y ago by Jack Woods‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A Referring to a character in 3rd person when they have amnesia

A section of a story I am writing is being told in third person from the perspective of a character who does not know anything about herself due to amnesia. The reader is also unaware of anything r...

1 answer  ·  posted 5y ago by driima‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A Will a change in perspective "intimacy" confuse the reader?

[Not a native english speaker] I am currently writing a novel, told from the 3rd-person POV, with several characters being followed in different scenes. Will the following confuse the readers? ...

0 answers  ·  posted 5y ago by System‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A Is it okay to say what the character infers about other characters thoughts as fact in third person limited?

The story is third person limited to Bob's point of view. He is with Alice, and I have the following line. Alice sat up proudly, then shrunk back down, realizing where she was. Compare this t...

2 answers  ·  posted 5y ago by rtpax‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A How to avoid mentioning the name of a character?

I am writing a short story which features a character known only as Old Man, but there is a part of the story where someone calls the Old Man by his name. Only once, and I was wondering if there wa...

2 answers  ·  posted 5y ago by Kalama Xander‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A How to quote something somebody was told by someone else? (Third-party, hearsay)

THE ISSUE There must be a catch-phrase or soundbite to describe this scenario, but so far, I've been unsuccessful locating that term, and my efforts to answer this question have been flat as well....

1 answer  ·  posted 6y ago by Eric Hepperle - CodeSlayer2010‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A What is the difference between limited third-person narrative and free indirect discourse?

Free indirect discourse is a writing technique that makes the writing display the character's thoughts whilst still remaining in third-person narrative, with 'he' or 'she' as pronouns. As an exampl...

2 answers  ·  posted 6y ago by Fabjaja‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A Writing a full conversation in free indirect speech

I'm writing a conversation between some no-good thievin' teens, and one of them has stolen a wallet, which has turned out to be that of an FBI member. They converse, written in indirect speech, wh...

2 answers  ·  posted 6y ago by Piomicron‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A First Person vs. Third Person: Advantages and Disadvantages?

My name is Alex and I'm writing a fantasy novel. I don't know if I should use first or third person narration. First person writing is good for protagonists and important characters, but third pe...

4 answers  ·  posted 6y ago by Seraph Myrmidon‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A "Am I mixing my tenses?" She asked, scratching her head

I'm very confused about tenses. I am not sure if I am mixing modifiers up or slipping from past to present. Can someone help me please, here are a few examples: Stooping, he lit a fire, warming hi...

2 answers  ·  posted 7y ago by Llongo‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

Question third-person tenses
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Q&A Is my method of Narration switching from objective to subjective too complicated?

I'm having trouble deciding if the manner I have decided to narrate my story is too complicated or not. I have a story set in a completely foreign and alien world (fiction story). I then uproot my...

2 answers  ·  posted 7y ago by EveryBitHelps‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A What is the technique of displaying stream of thought in third person?

I've noticed that authors often show the main character's though process in third person using the prose itself, almost as if the character were the one narrating. Made-up-on-the-spot example: ...

0 answers  ·  posted 8y ago by Raiden Worley‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A How to write about simple locomotion?

I am writing a third person story, the opening contains a short tram ride which the main character is on, how can I write such a scene without just writing; The tram moved forward another 100 metr...

0 answers  ·  posted 8y ago by Malta‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

Question third-person
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Q&A How to switch pov characters mid-scene without jarring the reader?

I am writing a novel wherein there are many characters whose thoughts are key to telling it properly. In an earlier draft, I attempted to have any given chapter told from the point of view of exac...

4 answers  ·  posted 13y ago by StrixVaria‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭