Point of view

[Demesnedenoir]

I would have to see how you define interchangeable. Both can get away with it, of course, but 1st has the advantage of being the "character's voice" and someone directly telling us a story as 1st is purported to be, makes it feel more natural to just say "I was really pissed." Similarly, the thought I'm so pissed right now buffers the tell. If in 3rd tight, you say "he was pissed off" you are way more likely to get hit with a "show don't tell" comment, just from my experience and observations. Plus, you might get hit with the passive. It's a simplistic example.

A 1st POV voice is more forgivable, IMO, because it emulates more how we'd expect someone to talk, just the same as dialogue is given a pass for a lot of things. Passives in dialogue? Not that big of a deal. -ly adverbs in dialogue? not that big of a deal. ?'s, !'s, tells, bad grammar, even profanity to some degree, the acceptance level will change. 1st is, in a sense, all dialogue, so it can get treated differently. Of course, there are totally different styles of 1st POV too... so, no hard laws here.

Why? I'd have to look for some examples to see if this is true. My general view is that 1st person and an intimate 3d person POV are interchangeable, and that it's just a matter of stylistic choice.

 

[FifthView]

I think it is possible for an objective (cool) writer to be very close...

I had an instinctive kneejerk recoil from the idea of "warm" v "cool," heh. I'm not sure I approve.

But here's the thing. Cinema and television can easily suck me into a story. I become so engrossed, I begin to feel as if I'm there, in that time period, place, in the midst of events. The people are real to me, the stakes are palpable. There are times I find myself snapping out of that experience, and this indicates to me that maybe I was "close" before I snapped out and became distant.

Audio/visual media has an advantage in being visual and audible, heh. I can't dismiss these things as aids to that closeness.

But I also suspect that much of our normal day-to-day experience of events and people is similar. Those of us who are not psychic do not actually experience the subjective world of others, their emotions and sensory experiences. We see behaviors, we have to infer, and we're pretty good at doing that, heh.

(On a philosophical level, I think I'd have to say that seeing images on a screen is not much different than seeing people in real life, except that we aren't getting the 3D experience and are missing out on other sensory impressions like smell and touch. And I think this is part of the reason that we can so easily objectify others—not saying that this is okay, but just wondering if this is a partial reason for it.)

So I think that using imagery, objects, observable things can help to make the experience of reading similar to the experience of living, heh.

But I think I'll add another element to this discussion, or partly borrow from Skip. Closeness, regardless of POV, level of objectivity and subjectivity, verb tense, may require an engaging story, engaging characters, and good writing: If the hook is anodyne, then the tension of the line makes moot the fishy's twitch, the splashing of the brine. Heh. I like using "line" for describing tension because there is a kind of unbroken line, an unbroken experience that helps in maintaining focus and seems necessary for creating a feeling of closeness. So in a way, avoiding breaking that line or casting the reader out of the story may be a method of building a sense of closeness. These may include: breaking POV, breaking voice, breaking tense, breaking grammar and syntax, breaking character, breaking style perhaps, breaking the world/milieu, and maybe many other things besides.

 

[Steerpike]

I would have to see how you define interchangeable.

I've done some exercises in the past where I've taken intimate 3d person and 1st person passages and rewritten them in the other POV, and they're very similar. That may be a function of the passages I chose. I'd have to take a look at some 1st person books and see if there are any passages that I don't think would lend themselves to easy rewriting in 3d person.

 

[FifthView]

I think there really is a type of third-intimate that begins to feel a lot like first person.

However, the difference is that there's also, always, an outside narrator in third, even in third-intimate. The goal of that sort of third intimate is to hide this fact, heh, or create the illusion that there's no outside narrator. Saying, "He was pissed off" begins to feel like someone from the outside telling us about him.

That said, I think that maybe some of this, the whole discussion of closeness in fact, may depend on the general thrust of the narrative, so that occasional minor distancing doesn't leap out at the reader in a way that breaks the closeness.

Edit: I want to describe an example. If I'm really absorbed in the character voice, the narrative, and feel as if I'm seeing the world from his POV, then come upon a line like "He was pissed" in the middle of all that, I don't think it'd break the closeness. It would feel like just another part of the narrative, probably like the character himself telling me that. But maybe if the rest of the writing is weaker, the POV a bit abstract, whatever, that line might be a feather breaking my back, heh.

I would have to see how you define interchangeable. Both can get away with it, of course, but 1st has the advantage of being the "character's voice" and someone directly telling us a story as 1st is purported to be, makes it feel more natural to just say "I was really pissed." Similarly, the thought I'm so pissed right now buffers the tell. If in 3rd tight, you say "he was pissed off" you are way more likely to get hit with a "show don't tell" comment, just from my experience and observations. Plus, you might get hit with the passive. It's a simplistic example.

A 1st POV voice is more forgivable, IMO, because it emulates more how we'd expect someone to talk, just the same as dialogue is given a pass for a lot of things. Passives in dialogue? Not that big of a deal. -ly adverbs in dialogue? not that big of a deal. ?'s, !'s, tells, bad grammar, even profanity to some degree, the acceptance level will change. 1st is, in a sense, all dialogue, so it can get treated differently. Of course, there are totally different styles of 1st POV too... so, no hard laws here.

 

[Steerpike]

I don't know that there is necessarily a narrator apart from the character, but setting that aside, here is the opening of Hunger Games:

Now, if we switch to third (maintaining present tense):

When Katniss wakes, the other side of the bed is cold. Her fingers stretch out, seeking Prim's warmth but finding only the rough canvas cover of their mattress. She must have had bad dreams and climbed in with their mother. Of course she did. This is the day of reaping.

Katniss props herself up on one elbow. There's enough light in the bedroom to see them. Her little sister, Prim, curled up on her side, cocooned in their mother's body, their cheeks pressed together. In sleep, their mother looks younger, still worn but not so beaten-down. Prim's face is fresh as a raindrop, as lovely as the primrose for which she was named. Their mother was very beautiful once, too. Or so they say.

Not a heck of a lot of change required. You have to vary the wording, of course, but in terms of intimacy and what you can show or tell, I don't see much difference here. Maybe with other passages...?

 

[FifthView]

I don't know that there is necessarily a narrator apart from the character

The character wouldn't be referring to her this, she that in reference to herself or be using her own name. The outside narrator is there. But this goes back to that double-narrator idea, blending the two. All other things being close and not breaking POV, those pronouns and her name almost become lost in the way said can be unnoticed by the reader.

 

[Heliotrope]

"The walls are getting dingy." She said, turning to him. "They need a coat of paint." His eyes never moved from the screen. Eight men in wool socks and shoulder pads slid over the ice. Someone shot, and scored.

"It's playoff season."

"Not every minute, it's not." She snapped. She should have know it would turn into a fight. "Besides, I never said you had to do it. I'll do it."

His mouth twitched. She had him.

"Like hell you will. I'll have to spend the next month scraping paint off the ceiling." She was surprisingly offended. She had known to expect that but it still stung.


Ha! Fun little exercise, trying to fit that "she was offended" line in there. It was hard and maybe not that effective lol.

 

[Steerpike]

The character wouldn't be referring to her this, she that in reference to herself or be using her own name. The outside narrator is there. But this goes back to that double-narrator idea, blending the two. All other things being close and not breaking POV, those pronouns and her name almost become lost in the way said can be unnoticed by the reader.

Yes, that's true. I wonder in some of these cases whether it makes sense to consider there is really a narrator at all. In other words, for an intimate third the narrator can't be the character, for reasons you stated, but the way it is written is such that no discernable narrator is meant to be present. You have the writer, but no real narrator separate and distinct from the writer. Even the "voice" in intimate third person is typically the voice of the character, as it is in first person.

 

[FifthView]

@Helio: There's almost a sense of self-analysis there. She's aware of having been offended; perhaps the surprise prompted that self-analysis. And it turns out that having been offended wasn't the surprise–abstractly, she knew it was coming and probably was already offended before he said it, heh–so much as the fact that it actually still stung, was more than mere abstraction. Or somesuch in her self-analysis.

I think this effect often happens when we tell emotional states for the POV characters in third intimate. To the degree that the voice comes across very much like a first person, the illusion of the character narrating, then this effect happens? A curious thing.

 

[Heliotrope]

Yeah, you had mention d the "he was pissed" thing earlier and it got me thinking about how that would all work, as far as telling vs. Showing and POV... interesting stuff.

 

[FifthView]

I'll always and forever say there is an outside narrator in third person narration, because there is.

BUT this is probably far more important, or at least this fact is far more useful, when examining how it can go so wrong, heh.

I'll give an example. Some thread long ago prompted me to go to Amazon and look at a preview of some random self-pubbed book, and what I found was a narrative that lacked the richness, the description of your Katniss example. Every page, heck every paragraph, had lots of hers and shes and the POV character name, close together, and the overall sense was that I felt I was outside looking at her rather being absorbed by the POV or into the POV. This was a story meant to be in an intimate, close POV I think.

Yes, that's true. I wonder in some of these cases whether it makes sense to consider there is really a narrator at all. In other words, for an intimate third the narrator can't be the character, for reasons you stated, but the way it is written is such that no discernable narrator is meant to be present. You have the writer, but no real narrator separate and distinct from the writer. Even the "voice" in intimate third person is typically the voice of the character, as it is in first person.

 

[Heliotrope]

I'm inclined to agree with FV... even with third close, it is sort of an invisible narrator, but they are still there. Nothing illustrated that more to me than the book I'm reading now. To start out in first, and get so connected to the character and the voice, to be suddenly thrust into third was jarring, like being ripped from my mothers arms. I think Atwood intended it that way, and it was a simple jump from first to third close, but the separation is obvious.

 

[Steerpike]

The discussion regarding narrators raises some interesting questions, at least in terms of academic matters or writing theory. For example, to the extent the narrator really is invisible, what does it mean to say they're there. These are written words...it seems that speaking of a narrator as existing really only makes sense to the extent the narrator is actually perceptible in some fashion. An intimate third person point of view provides the illusion (to use FV's words, which I think are apt) that the character is narrating, but structurally it can't be the character.

I'm assuming we're all using narrator in a similar way, as other than the writer. The writer is always present. The characters are always present. If the narrator is invisible in a medium where perception of words is how information is conveyed to the reader, than does the narrator really exist (or, perhaps more importantly, does it matter if she exists)?

 

[FifthView]

I think there's no problem in saying that the narrator may be the writer, in some cases.

Curiously, this harks back to the topic of objective narration, also. One goal in objective narration, at least the pure variety [Edit: in third person], is to remove the sense of a narrator altogether. So if some subjective thing is given, that breaks the objective narration. If the subjectivity is character subjectivity, then there must be someone outside the events in the story giving it who is able to see inside the character. If there's a subjective evaluation of things exterior to the character, then there must be someone outside the story giving that also.

Then there is the difference between the storyteller omniscient third and other types of omniscient third. I've often thought that the storyteller ought to be considered another character in the story. But other types of omniscient can have a narrator who has no easily discernible personality.

I suppose that some extreme examples of removing the sense of narrator probably might end up at the level of writer=narrator—or being near enough to that to say that.

On a theoretical-philosophical level, I think we'd probably need to consider the split between conscious and unconscious awareness of the existence of a narrator. Even if the pronouns, "said," etc., aren't receiving conscious attention or focus from the reader, the reader is probably still aware of them on some level. Same goes for the narrator.

 

[Michael K. Eidson]

A third person narrative extensively using the device of free indirect speech helps me as a reader to forget about the outside narrator. I'm able to feel like I'm in the skin of the character, even though the pronoun used in the text is "she" or "he" instead of "I." The narrator is not intruding.

Even with first person narratives, the narrator can intrude. I just read an excerpt on this forum where the first person narrator intruded while telling her own story.

 

[FifthView]

Some of this prompts me to ask whether there's sometimes a difference between a narrator intruding and a writer intruding, lol, just in case there are different sorts of things to look for.

 

[Steerpike]

Some of this prompts me to ask whether there's sometimes a difference between a narrator intruding and a writer intruding, lol, just in case there are different sorts of things to look for.

I think so. Going back to Brust's The Phoenix Guards, the narrator intrudes and is not the 'writer.' But that's somewhat of a special situation in that the narrator is intentionally quite present. Brust isn't trying to make him invisible.

The closer you get to an intimate point of view, it seems to me there less of a difference there is between the two.

I suppose it is worth asking how much the hair-splitting here matters in terms of the craft of writing. I was in grad school and then law school, so if anyone wants to engage in academic arguments I'm always down for it. The practical value of some such arguments may be more than others.

 

[Michael K. Eidson]

Some of this prompts me to ask whether there's sometimes a difference between a narrator intruding and a writer intruding, lol, just in case there are different sorts of things to look for.

Who is intruding in the below example?

Ben glared at Helen. "I've never been so insulted in my life." Indeed, he had been, but he couldn't remember when. Matt Damon would be a good choice to play the role of Ben in a movie, if the book were ever adapted to the screen. He pointed at the door. "Get out of my house."

I just rolled my eyes and sat there silent in my old rocking chair. I really loved that chair. It's a shame that two days later, Ben ended up accidentally breaking it. All these years later, I can forgive him. Back then, I didn't.

Helen bustled out, leaving the door wide open behind her.

 

[Heliotrope]

Ha! That's awesome.

Yeah, I think considering narrative voice is important as writers because I think sometimes (and we've had this discussion before) a lot of new writers try too hard to disguise their writer voice (maybe lack of confidence?) and so they adopt a sort of "serious writer or narrator" voice that is a bit flat and dead. Even when trying to write in strict POV, a lively narrator voice can bring a peice alive... but it comes down to personal write style... I think the two are connected.

 

[Heliotrope]

I had an instinctive kneejerk recoil from the idea of "warm" v "cool," heh. I'm not sure I approve.

But here's the thing. Cinema and television can easily suck me into a story. I become so engrossed, I begin to feel as if I'm there, in that time period, place, in the midst of events. The people are real to me, the stakes are palpable. There are times I find myself snapping out of that experience, and this indicates to me that maybe I was "close" before I snapped out and became distant.

Audio/visual media has an advantage in being visual and audible, heh. I can't dismiss these things as aids to that closeness.

But I also suspect that much of our normal day-to-day experience of events and people is similar. Those of us who are not psychic do not actually experience the subjective world of others, their emotions and sensory experiences. We see behaviors, we have to infer, and we're pretty good at doing that, heh.

(On a philosophical level, I think I'd have to say that seeing images on a screen is not much different than seeing people in real life, except that we aren't getting the 3D experience and are missing out on other sensory impressions like smell and touch. And I think this is part of the reason that we can so easily objectify others–not saying that this is okay, but just wondering if this is a partial reason for it.)

So I think that using imagery, objects, observable things can help to make the experience of reading similar to the experience of living, heh.

But I think I'll add another element to this discussion, or partly borrow from Skip. Closeness, regardless of POV, level of objectivity and subjectivity, verb tense, may require an engaging story, engaging characters, and good writing: If the hook is anodyne, then the tension of the line makes moot the fishy's twitch, the splashing of the brine. Heh. I like using "line" for describing tension because there is a kind of unbroken line, an unbroken experience that helps in maintaining focus and seems necessary for creating a feeling of closeness. So in a way, avoiding breaking that line or casting the reader out of the story may be a method of building a sense of closeness. These may include: breaking POV, breaking voice, breaking tense, breaking grammar and syntax, breaking character, breaking style perhaps, breaking the world/milieu, and maybe many other things besides.

Yes to all of this. This is why, though, I think a purely objective writer has a harder time cultivating closeness. Not impossible, just harder.

So as you said, in general day to day interactions we don't have the benifit of mind reading. We do, however, have a lifetimes worth of experience reading body language. We understand facial twitches, eye rolls, shoulder shrugs and any other manner of social actions. My daughter has severe autism, and so does not understand basic social gestures, even as simple as pointing at an object. It means nothing to her.

When watching a movie we can easily become engrossed because we have skilled actors who are well practiced in raising eyebrows, commanding tears at will, charming us with friendly smiles, etc. When we watch a film we can see the difference between a shy smile and an arrogant one. We understand all the emotions and personalities in between.

In fiction, however, it is totally up to the writer to convey all that body language. A skilled writer, who is highly observant in human behaviour will be able to do this. But many of the objective writers I have seen struggle with this. They repeat the same descriptions over and over ad nauseum with very little variation or attention to subtlety. It's exasperating! So while I think it can be done, obviously, in film, with the advantage of real live people appealing to the communication part of our brain adapted to read body language, it is much more challenging for a fiction writer to do well.