The third person

[NotWise]

All of the stories I've posted to Lit have been in third person. I've written a lot in first but not for Lit.

I'm toying with the kind and amount of personality I should infuse into the third person.

In my initial stories the third person had no character. They were a (usually omniscient) observer. As I write I find myself tempted to give my third person more character--observations, opinions, a sense of humor. I'm pretty sure that can be overdone. I want the characters to carry the story more than the narrator.

How do you balance the narrator's voice with the character's story?

 

[SamScribble]

I think it is entirely possible to imbue an anonymous narrator with 'character'.

The (perhaps) most obvious way is to be selective in what the narrator reports. Personally, I often make use of the 'unreliable' narrator. Hey, this guy keeps contradicting himself!

The second easily-accessed technique is the judicious use of comments. 'George agreed to meet Dolly after the game - something of which his wife would surely never have approved.' Oh? Really?

And the third 'trick' is, as you suggest, sense of humour. Again, it's just a matter of selecting the right vocabulary.

 

[HectorBidon]

How do you balance the narrator's voice with the character's story?

By writing in the first person. Then the narrator and the character are one in the same. Writing in first person is like writing in a diary, like writing a letter. Telling what happened, and how you felt about it. I live my life in first person. I pretty much know my take on things, but I hardly ever know anybody else's. It's just so much more natural to write that way too.

The author whose voice I hear when I sit down to peck out my stories is John D. McDonald in his Travis McGee series. The pleasure in those stories comes not only from the plots, but from spending time with McGee, the savvy, fun-loving, basically decent, basically idealistic, beach-bum detective, whose only career goal is to live out his retirement in installments while he's young enough to enjoy them. That's not to say that my narrator holds a candle to McGee in any substantive way. But if I'm going to play at being an author, I choose to play at being an author in the mold of John D. McDonald.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Yes, I love an unreliable narrator. Especially when the bastard steals women from my past and sticks them into a story, and has them doing things that really happened or completely makes shit up. When I'm not writing first person, my narrators constantly surprise me.

When I am writing first person, I surprise myself!

The (perhaps) most obvious way is to be selective in what the narrator reports. Personally, I often make use of the 'unreliable' narrator.

 

[Serafina1210]

I love these craft threads.

People think of a third-person narrator as being invisible, but that doesn't mean the narrator doesn't have personality. It's just that the reader usually isn't aware of it.

But it comes through in any number of ways. Writing style, for example. Is your narrator educated? Like big words or small? A bit of a stuffed shirt, or modest and self-effacing? Have a sense of humor, or dry and just-the-facts? Have opinions about what's going on? Maybe your narrator is on one character's side and hates another.

And then there's the unreliable narrator, as some folks have already said.

For narrators with lots of personality, read Fielding's Tom Jones which has an anonymous narrator that's extremely visible to readers. Dickens's third-person narrators tend to be opinionated. Chaucer did great things with his narrators' personalities.

 

[visioneer]

Fleshing out a character in 3rd person POV is no more difficult than 1st POV.

When writing 3rd person, I prefer to keep the POV tight around the narrator; meaning, even though it is 3rd person, we only see/feel/hear/taste/etc. what he or she does. "I" am not directly experiencing events as in a 1st person story. Instead, with 3rd person, I am experiencing how the character experiences events.

Serafina1210 comments are well-taken. Think about how the character's life experiences, education, social skills, motivations, etc., color how he/she interacts with the world, and let this come through in his/her dialogue, reactions, and choices.

And always, remember to show, not tell.

 

[Carnevil9]

If you give the narrator too much personality, he becomes a character, and then you are in first person. So it's a fine line.

I like writing whimsical stories (not for Lit) in sort of a "fairy tale telling" mode. The narrator is like an aged uncle or grandfather, telling a tale to a group of children. He isn't really part of the story, but sort of frames the story. As in "gather round, kiddies. Did I ever tell you about the evil ogre that used to live around here? Well, it all started....." I like that technique for horror stories.

 

[Serafina1210]

I like writing whimsical stories (not for Lit) in sort of a "fairy tale telling" mode. The narrator is like an aged uncle or grandfather, telling a tale to a group of children. He isn't really part of the story, but sort of frames the story. As in "gather round, kiddies. Did I ever tell you about the evil ogre that used to live around here? Well, it all started....." I like that technique for horror stories.

I think this is a great example. You almost automatically adapt your narrator's voice to the kind of story being told: a Romance narrator is going to be different from a Science Fiction narrator. But it's good to be aware of the adaption so you can take control of it and do something surprising and new.

 

[NotWise]

I try to get most of the story told through action and dialog. The narrator wouldn't be involved in the dialog. Descriptions of action give some leeway for the narrator to show some personality, but I think too much of that will interfere with the characterization.

I'm most tempted to give the narrator personality while describing scenes or events that the protagonists aren't fully aware of. Those are things that can't be done with dialog and shouldn't effect the way readers see the characters.

 

[sr71plt]

I suppose you could make the narrator opinionated on the personality and actions of the characters and thus give the narrator some personality, but if you push it very far, you're into narrator first person perspective.

 

[PervOtaku]

As I write I find myself tempted to give my third person more character--observations, opinions, a sense of humor. I'm pretty sure that can be overdone. I want the characters to carry the story more than the narrator.

You don't normally see too much of that unless the story itself is a comedy. Think Douglas Adams type stuff. But yeah, as long as you're happy with the tone that your story uses, you can do whatever you want.