Point of View in Fiction, Lesson 3: Third Person

Okay class, this is where the real fun begins. Just when you were starting to feel confident about this whole concept of grammatical forms in Point of View, Third Person has to come along and throw a wrench in the works. Don’t worry. You can handle it. Just be sure to take careful notes.

Third Person Elements:

1. Uses “He, She, They” (“She decided to bake a cake so he would  have something to take to the party.”)

2. Narrator is not a character in the story.

3. Most common narrative form.

4. Most flexible form- can be both intimate and detached.

5. Usually past tense, but could be present.

Are you with me so far? Good, because here’s where it starts to get tricky.

6. Types of Third Person

                                             a.Objective: Camera eye; observes without judgment.

                                             b. Omniscient: From above; can report on the actions and feelings of any character. Narrator can know things that none of the characters know, including future events. There is some interpretation of attitude and action.

                                             c. Singular: From the point of view of one character.

                                             d. Multiple: From the point of view of more than one character.

Got it? Piece of cake, right?

Now that they’ve studied the basic elements of the Third Person Grammatical Form, they should go write a practice paragraph or two just to make sure they have the hang of it. They might even try reworking their exercise from last week’s lesson from Second Person into Third Person. Ready…go!

Did you do it? Would anyone like to share their work?

Come back next week for lesson 4: Levels of Third Person.