Pitfalls of Multiple Viewpoints

Last time, we discussed some of the ways that including multiple perspective characters in your story can serve the needs of the narrative. Today, I'd like to highlight some of the difficulties and pitfalls that you should consider before you start breaking out new perspectives all over the place.

The audience can lose track of characters and plotlines

Generally speaking, the more perspective characters you have in a story, the more plotlines and side characters you will need to flesh out the narrative. This is a difficulty that can quickly spiral out of control. I recently read a manuscript which dropped fourteen viewpoint characters on me in the space of thirty chapters. That is a lot of viewpoints and characters to keep track of, especially when you only get an occasional chapter here and there with each character. I can tell you the names of about half of the viewpoint characters, the occupations of most of the others, and almost nothing about anyone else.

Now, if I really buckled down and focused, I could probably remember most of the names of the other perspective characters. I could painstakingly map out each plotline in my head to be sure that I understood where things were going. But the trouble is that I just don't care enough to do so. The more work it is to follow a story, the more entertaining that story will have to be to pull readers along; and most of them just can't live up to it.

The audience will almost certainly end up disliking certain plotlines or viewpoint characters

Juxtaposition invites comparison.

Go ahead. Just try not to notice any differences.

If you place two portraits side by side, viewers will automatically begin to compare them. If you write a re-telling of Sleeping Beauty, then readers will instinctively compare it to every other version of the story that they've experienced.

The same thing happens with multiple perspectives and plotlines in a story. If you jump from perspective to perspective, readers will begin to compare those perspectives and will almost always end up enjoying or disliking one more than the others. They will begin to resent having to leave their favorite plotline or character to spend time on one that they don't like as much or even actively dislike. In the manuscript I mentioned before, I encountered this problem. Of the fourteen viewpoints I'd been given, I was really engaged by only three or four of them. Perhaps eight or nine of the others felt merely adequate by comparison, and the remaining ones I actively dreaded returning to. If the amount of entertaining story is too severely overwhelmed by boring or unpleasant, many readers will simply set the book aside.

Lack of variety

Many viewpoint characters tend to be something of a blank slate, a "normal" person that the audience can relate to (or project themselves upon) in a sea of distinctive side characters. Harry Potter, for instance, can often come across this way. When compared to the intelligent and bossy Hermione, the sardonic and insecure Ron, the bombastic and friendly Hagrid, and so on, Harry is comparatively low-key. He is interesting mainly as a lens through whom we can view the world and as a vehicle to carry us through exciting adventures, but no so much for his unique or compelling personality. And this isn't a bad thing; a protagonist that your audience can easily relate to or project themselves upon can be a powerful tool.

However, if you have multiple perspective characters in a single story, it can be very easy for them all to fall into this same rut. If you have four viewpoint characters who all have this same, easy to relate to/project upon personality, the story will get boring very quickly. Characters need to interesting and distinct from one another, whether they're side characters or protagonists.

Character knowledge vs. audience knowledge

Unless your perspective characters are all getting together to share their experiences and knowledge every time you switch the viewpoint, you will almost certainly have some characters who know things that the others don't. Your readers and you the author, on the other hand, know everything that any of the characters have learned at any given point. I have read many stories where knowledge began to bleed from one character to another even though they had never had an opportunity to share information. You have to keep track of which character knows what and how they know it; don't just lazily let the audience's knowledge inform the characters.

This also includes keeping track of which characters are acquainted and which aren't. Just because your audience is already familiar with a character doesn't mean the other protagonists are.

Pacing Problems

Time is one of the most difficult problems of multiple-perspective stories. In the manuscript I mentioned earlier, one of my favorite plotlines was left with two characters in a rather dire situation. The narrative then followed five or so other characters through a variety of situations, including some plotlines that would have taken several days to play out. The narrative then returned to those two characters . . . mere moments after we'd last seen them. I was confused and irritated. If we were just going to come back to these characters in the same scene, the same minute where we'd last seen them, then why did we ever leave them? Days had passed for other characters while seconds had passed for these.

Even more difficult to write and to keep track of as a reader is concurrent action, when two plotlines are occurring at the same time. This can be very difficult to convey, which is why some of the best writers of multiple-perspective stories carefully craft the plot so that no concurrent action takes place. If you leave character A to spend five minutes with character B, then five or more minutes will have passed when you return to character A again.

There are two reasons why this is important. First, if readers get too confused, then they might get irritated with the story or simply set the book aside. Second, there are few things that feel as cheap and deceptive as leaving characters in a tricky situation only to have them get rescued by a character who logically should have been somewhere else. If you make too many mistakes with the time and pacing of your story, you run the risk of seeming dishonest and leaving your readers feeling cheated.


Now, none of this is to say that you shouldn't write multiple-perspective stories. Just keep in mind the difficulties before you start. Don't be afraid to set aside a more complex, multi-viewpointed story in favor of a simpler story with fewer viewpoints that is more within the realm of your skills. Then, once you've had some practice, come back to the more complicated story. Better to wait and do a good story justice than to botch it because you weren't ready.

Reasons To Use Multiple Perspectives In Your Story

We’ve discussed perspective quite thoroughly in previous posts—first-person, third-person limited, and third-person omniscient, as well as a host of perspective errors. But we haven’t much discussed stories with multiple perspective characters, where the narrative jumps from point person’s point-of-view to another’s and back again.

Multiple-perspective stories can be written with any type of perspective, but these days third-person limited is the most common for these types of stories. Third-person omniscient stories are uncommon these days in general because they are difficult to write and to read (though they are all, by definition, multiple-perspective stories). First-person stories, on the other hand, can often be confusing if there is more than one perspective because readers can easily lose track of which narrator is speaking, since all of the narrators simply refer to themselves as “I”.

The number of points-of-view in a multiple-perspective story can vary widely. On one extreme, you have the Harry Potter books, which feature only two or three chapters across seven books from perspectives other than Harry’s. On the other extreme, you have stories like George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series, which follows dozens of different points-of-view and switches perspective with nearly every chapter.

There is nothing wrong with writing a story from multiple perspectives—if it’s good enough for Homer, Shakespeare, and Tolstoy, then it’s good enough for the rest of us. Keep in mind, however, that writing from multiple perspectives is much more difficult than writing from a single perspective. If you choose to undertake this sort of difficult task, make sure it’s a choice that serves your story. If your story needs multiple perspectives in order to cover all of the plot, then put in multiple perspectives. If you’re only doing it because George R. R. Martin did it, however, then that’s not a good reason.

Here are some reasons a story might need multiple perspectives:

One person can’t be there for the whole story

Take a story like The Empire Strikes Back. At the beginning, the rebels are driven and scattered from their hidden base on Hoth. Luke goes to Dagobah to train with Yoda; Han, Leia, and the others evade the Empire through a strangely-cluttered asteroid field and then flee to Cloud City. Plot happens, and they’re (mostly) reunited at the end.

If Luke were the only perspective character, the audience would miss Han and Leia falling in love, the dark intrigue of their arrival at Cloud City, their capture by Darth Vader, Han being frozen in carbonite, Lando’s change of heart, and Leia and the others’ escape from Cloud City. If Leia were the only perspective character, we would miss Luke’s plot-important training—from Yoda’s reluctance to train him, “Do or do not. There is no try,” Luke’s vision of Vader, lifting the X-wing from the swamp, Luke’s decision to disobey his trainer to go save his friends, all the way to the climactic duel between Luke and Vader and the famous reveal of Vader’s identity. If we were to follow only one perspective character, then we would miss half the plot—therefore, multiple perspectives are needed.

To avoid an overabundance of convenient coincidences (Chosen One Syndrome)

Almost every story from any place or time relies on a certain amount of coincidence. Characters just happen to be in the right place at the right time to overhear just the right conversation, or Luke just happens to crash on Dagobah within walking distance of Yoda’s house—those sorts of things. We all accept a certain amount of implausibility for the sake of story.

But single-perspective stories tend to necessitate more implausible coincidences than do multiple-perspective stories. Look at the Harry Potter novels—across seven books, how many times does Harry conveniently overhear an important conversation that he wasn’t supposed to? How many more do Ron and Hermione happen to hear and relate to him? The sheer amount of coincidence can get to be a little staggering. In a multiple-perspective novel, you can give the audience all of the important plot information that they need without having to get all of that information to a single person.

To avoid boredom (More Chosen One Syndrome)

When plotting a story, it is a good idea to follow the action—show whatever part of the story is most interesting and engaging, and skip over parts that are dull or repetitive. The problem that arises in a single-perspective character is that this means that your single protagonist has to be there for almost every plot-important event or conversation that ever happens. Everything! J.K. Rowling even had to invent the pensieve so that she could have Harry be present for plot-important events that happened before he was even born! (And it was an excellent way to handle this problem, in my opinion.) But not every story can whip out a pensieve when the main character needs to be present for something plot important. More often, they have to rely on yet more convenient coincidences and implausible situations.

When single-perspective stories try to handle this more realistically, the story tends to become less engaging. One of the most common complaints that I’ve heard about Mockingjay (book three of The Hunger Games) is that so much of the actual story happens “off-screen” while Katniss is doing little to nothing on-screen. It was realistic to have her suffering from a PTSD-esque problem; but planning a big, daring mission to finally go save Peeta and then not showing us when it happened? That was disappointing, to say the least.

Multiple-perspective stories can handily side-step this problem. If one character has to drive for three hours before they’ll get to where something interesting will happen, switch to a different character in a more interesting situation. More characters get to share more of the spotlight, and the story will usually be a bit more plausible for it.

To give greater understanding or increase tension

Have you ever read The Wheel of Time? There’s a character named Galad who is in and out of the story throughout the entire fourteen books, and almost everyone hated him. He was cold and strict, a man whose devotion to what he believed was right led him to throw in his lot with dangerous, unthinking zealots. Or at least, that’s what he was for ten books or so. Then, I think in the eleventh book, we were for the first time shown a scene from Galad’s point of view. For many people, it was a revelation. Once we could see things from his perspective, he became sympathetic and understandable. Once scene was enough to make him suddenly likeable for the rest of the series, even when we weren’t in his perspective.

Writing a scene from a character’s perspective is an excellent way to get the audience to understand and sympathize with the character, if that’s what you need. (Or, if they’re despicable enough, it’s a good way to get the audience to quickly dislike or fear the character.)

Multiple perspectives can also increase tension. Show us a scene from a side character’s point of view that reveals that they are a traitor with a plan to bring down the other characters. Bam. All of a sudden, the audience knows that something bad is coming that the main characters don’t. That’s dramatic irony, folks, and it’s a handy tool that is only available in multiple-perspective stories.

So there’s some handy reasons for using multiple points-of-view in a story. Next time, we’ll go over some of the difficulties and hazards to look out for when composing multiple-perspective narratives.

Perspective Errors: Matching Description and Viewpoint

One of the most important aspects of writing is getting out of your own head and into the heads of your perspective characters. Some characters might be quite a lot like you, but many of them will view the world much differently—and it’s important that you keep your perspective (or the perspective of other characters) from bleeding into the heads of your protagonists, especially when you’re describing the world around them.

In this post, we discussed one way that such perspective bleed can happen—when an author is an expert on a certain topic, it can pop up in their writing even when it shouldn’t. For instance, I’m pretty well-trained in English grammar and editing. If I were writing from the point of view of a well-educated librarian, I might have her note that the text on a sign misused a present-continuous participle and left a modifier dangling. However, if I were writing from the perspective of a largely-illiterate street thug walking past the same sign, describing the sentence using those detailed terms would be completely out of place.

This problem—describing things in ways your perspective character wouldn’t—is probably most common when a perspective character is of a different nationality, race, or gender from the author. For instance, here is the single most common and jarring example that I have come across (and I have come across versions of it many, many times):

     Diana frowned at Detective Mullens. “My husband didn’t keep secrets from me, detective. If he had been involved in something illegal, he would have told me.”

     Detective Mullens raised his hands in a placating manner. “I’m not trying to cast aspersions on your husband, ma’am. I just have to follow every lead and possibility I come across. Do you recognize these ledgers?”

     The detective handed her a three-ring binder. She did recognize it—it held their family finances. It usually sat on a shelf in her and her husband’s bedroom. She hadn’t even realized it was missing. “Where did you find this?” she asked.

     Before the detective could answer, the front door opened and Diana’s twenty-three year old daughter Stefanie walked in. She’d clearly been jogging—her bronze skin was glistening with sweat, her body firm and lean but still curvy. Her dark hair was pulled up in a simple ponytail, though a few strands had fallen loose to dangle in front of her vivid brown eyes and her full, red lips. Her ample breasts were outlined clearly through the tight sports bra she wore, moving up and down as her heavy breathing slowed to normal. She bent down almost sensuously to brush some dirt from her tight red leggings, and Diana frowned when she noticed that Detective Mullens was watching appreciatively.

     Diana cleared her throat, and Stefanie looked up in surprise. “Oh, hi,” she said. “I didn’t see you there. What’s going on?”

Now, I sincerely hope that you all can see the problem in this passage. We’re in Diana’s head—that’s clear from the fact that we’ve been given her thoughts and no one else’s. Therefore, everything we see should come through the filter of Diana’s mind. Everything should be described as she would describe it—and if that is how she would describe her own daughter, there’s something seriously wrong with this family.

These particular scenes usually happen for one of two reasons. First, the (probably male) author is describing the daughter as he, the author, pictures her without any regard to viewpoint. This is poor writing—if your viewpoint doesn’t allow you to describe something in the way you’d like, either change your viewpoint to one compatible with your description or change your description to one compatible with the viewpoint.

The second possibility is that the author wants to convey how Detective Mullens sees Stefanie, because he’s the actual protagonist and we’ve only temporarily leapt to Diana’s perspective. If that’s the case, then why are we in Diana’s perspective? Very few stories are well served by multiple viewpoints—you might as well keep the point of view with Detective Mullens.

(By the way, this particular problem—sexualizing a character while in the viewpoint of a character who wouldn’t sexualize them—is much more common from male authors than female writers. But female writers are definitely not immune to this error, so be on guard!)

These two people should not describe things in the same way. Don't describe what he sees in a way she would describe it, or vice versa.

Always remember that description should match the perspective of the character—don’t let your personal viewpoint or the view of a non-viewpoint character influence description, unless you want to make some unfortunate implications about the perspective character!

For more on this topic, check out this post.

Characters With Multiple Names: Keeping It Consistent

Let's say that your main character has a friend named “James T. Mitchell, Jr.” His family calls him Jimmy, his mother calls him James, his grandparents call him Junior, and his friends call him Mitch.

Now, your audience probably has enough to do keeping track of the names of several different characters; if you try to make them remember more than one name for a single character, they’re going to have trouble. So if you have a character like this, consider pruning down the number of names you’ve given them. Ask yourself why this character has so many names and whether or not it actually adds anything to the plot or the character. If the answer is no, just cut down to one name.

But if you absolutely must have all of these names for James T. Mitchell, Jr., than you need to be consistent. Here's an example of too many names being handled poorly, patterned off of stories I've edited:

     Dan waved as Mitch came running out of the house.

     “James, you can’t leave until you finish your chores,” James’s mother shouted from the kitchen window.

     Mitch winced. “I can do them tonight, mom!” he shouted back. He grinned at Dan and gestured to the hole in the fence. Dan smiled and climbed through into the neighbor’s yard.

     “James Mitchell, don’t you dare leave!” James’s mother screamed. James ignored her. “James!”

     “Let’s go see if Sally is home,” Mitch said.

In the dialog of this example, Mitch was called by three different names—James, James Mitchell, and Mitch—and that's okay. What makes the passage confusing is that his name also alternates in the prose (that is, in the text that isn't dialog): he's Mitch in the first, third, and fifth paragraphs, but he's James in the second and fourth. This makes it seem as though two different characters are being referred to. Sure, your reader would probably figure out what was going on, but they shouldn't have to “figure out” something as simple as what character you're talking about.

The answer to this problem is to only refer to the character by one name in the prose. In our example above, Dan is our viewpoint character; and Dan thinks of James T. Mitchell, Jr. as "Mitch," just like the rest of their friends. So James T. Mitchell, Jr. will always be "Mitch" in the prose, even if his mother and family call him by other names in the dialog.

Done well:

     Dan waved as Mitch came running out of the house.

     “James, you can’t leave until you finish your chores,” Mitch’s mother shouted from the kitchen window.

      Mitch winced. “I can do them tonight, mom!” he shouted back. He grinned at Dan and gestured to the hole in the fence. Dan smiled and climbed through into the neighbor’s yard.

     “James Mitchell, don’t you dare leave!” Mitch’s mother screamed. Mitch ignored her. “James!”

     “Let’s go see if Sally is home,” Mitch said.

Note that this scene will still be confusing if we haven't already made it clear to our readers that people call Mitch by many different names; you can't just drop a character into the story and have everyone call him something different without explaining what's going on. If it seems like it would be difficult to fit in an explanation about Mitch's name before we introduce him, that's because it would be! That is one reason why I recommend against giving one character multiple names.

Now, if this story had multiple viewpoint characters, then we might be able to refer to Mitch by a different name in the prose. In sections written from Dan’s viewpoint, Mitch would always be “Mitch,” as we've discussed. But if you had sections written from Mitch’s mother’s point of view, you might switch to calling him "James," because that is how his mother thinks of him. But remember that you would be running the risk of needlessly confusing your readers. And either way, you must always be sure to keep each viewpoint consistent—when we’re in Dan’s head, Mitch is always “Mitch,” and when we’re in the mother’s view, Mitch is always “James.” Always.

Overview: Third-Person Omniscient Viewpoints

Third-person omniscient is a viewpoint where the perspective jumps from character to character, showing many points of view over the course of any given scene at once. It generally comes in one of two styles: the omniscient narrator or head-hopping omniscient.

Omniscient Narrator

As the name implies, a story told through an omniscient narrator is given through the perspective of a usually-nameless storyteller, someone who is not a character within the story. This narrator is, so far as the story goes, omniscient, with complete knowledge of what all the characters are thinking or doing at any given time. They will often tell the audience what one character is thinking, and then mention what another character is thinking immediately after, rather than restricting what the audience sees to the perspective of one character at a time. Here is an example from the opening of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis:

ONCE there were four children whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy. This story is about something that happened to them when they were sent away from London during the war because of the air-raids. They were sent to the house of an old Professor who lived in the heart of the country, ten miles from the nearest railway station and two miles from the nearest post office. He had no wife and he lived in a very large house with a housekeeper called Mrs Macready and three servants. (Their names were Ivy, Margaret and Betty, but they do not come into the story much.) He himself was a very old man with shaggy white hair which grew over most of his face as well as on his head, and they liked him almost at once; but on the first evening when he came out to meet them at the front door he was so odd-looking that Lucy (who was the youngest) was a little afraid of him, and Edmund (who was the next youngest) wanted to laugh and had to keep on pretending he was blowing his nose to hide it.

As soon as they had said good night to the Professor and gone upstairs on the first night, the boys came into the girls' room and they all talked it over.

"We've fallen on our feet and no mistake," said Peter. "This is going to be perfectly splendid. That old chap will let us do anything we like."

"I think he's an old dear," said Susan.

"Oh, come off it!" said Edmund, who was tired and pretending not to be tired, which always made him bad-tempered. "Don't go on talking like that."

"Like what?" said Susan; "and anyway, it's time you were in bed."

"Trying to talk like Mother," said Edmund. "And who are you to say when I'm to go to bed? Go to bed yourself."

"Hadn't we all better go to bed?" said Lucy. "There's sure to be a row if we're heard talking here."

"No there won't," said Peter. "I tell you this is the sort of house where no one's going to mind what we do. Anyway, they won't hear us. It's about ten minutes' walk from here down to that dining-room, and any amount of stairs and passages in between."

"What's that noise?" said Lucy suddenly. It was a far larger house than she had ever been in before and the thought of all those long passages and rows of doors leading into empty rooms was beginning to make her feel a little creepy.

"It's only a bird, silly," said Edmund.

Notice how over the course of these few paragraphs the narrator first sets the scene without focusing on any specific character, and then how he describes to us the internal thoughts and emotions of both Edmund and Lucy. These are hallmarks of third-person omniscient.

Head-hopping Omniscient

The “head-hopping” variation of the third-person omniscient viewpoint is similar to the third-person limited viewpoint in that it eschews narrators and instead conveys the story directly through the viewpoint of the characters, as though the reader were riding along in the characters’ heads. However, unlike the limited viewpoint, the omniscient viewpoint jumps from perspective to perspective within any given scene—hence the “head-hopping” description. Here is an example from the beginning of Frank Herbert’s Dune:

Paul felt his left hand aching, uncurled the clenched fingers, looked at four bloody marks where fingernails had bitten his palm. He dropped the hand to his side, looked at the old woman. "You did that to my mother once?"

"Ever sift sand through a screen?" she asked.

The tangential slash of her question shocked his mind into a higher awareness: Sand through a screen. He nodded.

"We Bene Gesserit sift people to find the humans."

He lifted his right hand, willing the memory of the pain. "And that's all there is to it—pain?"

"I observed you in pain, lad. Pain's merely the axis of the test. Your mother's told you about our ways of observing. I see the signs of her teaching in you. Our test is crisis and observation."

He heard the confirmation in her voice, said: "It's truth!"

She stared at him. He senses truth! Could he be the one? Could he truly be the one? She extinguished the excitement, reminding herself: "Hope clouds observation."

"You know when people believe what they say," she said.

"I know it."

The harmonics of ability confirmed by repeated test were in his voice. She heard them, said: "Perhaps you are the Kwisatz Haderach. Sit down, little brother, here at my feet."

"I prefer to stand."

"Your mother sat at my feet once."

"I'm not my mother."

"You hate us a little, eh?" She looked toward the door, called out: "Jessica!"

The door flew open and Jessica stood there staring hard-eyed into the room. Hardness melted from her as she saw Paul. She managed a faint smile.

"Jessica, have you ever stopped hating me?" the old woman asked.

"I both love and hate you," Jessica said. "The hate—that's from pains I must never forget. The love—that's...."

"Just the basic fact," the old woman said, but her voice was gentle. "You may come in now, but remain silent. Close that door and mind it that no one interrupts us."

Jessica stepped into the room, closed the door and stood with her back to it. My son lives, she thought. My son lives and is ... human. I knew he was ... but ... he lives. Now, I can go on living. The door felt hard and real against her back. Everything in the room was immediate and pressing against her senses.

My son lives.

Paul looked at his mother. She told the truth. He wanted to getaway alone and think this experience through, but knew he could not leave until he was dismissed. The old woman had gained a power over him. They spoke truth. His mother had undergone this test. There must be terrible purpose in it ... the pain and fear had been terrible. He understood terrible purposes. They drove against all odds. They were their own necessity. Paul felt that he had been infected with terrible purpose. He did not know yet what the terrible purpose was.

Although there is no narrator directing us through the scene, notice how the reader is shown the thoughts of all three characters at various points—the Reverend Mother, Paul, and Jessica.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Third-Person Omniscient Viewpoint

Advantages of the Omniscient Narrator

Easier to write than head-hopping: Since this perspective is very similar to first-person (a narrator relating the story to the readers), it can be somewhat easier to write than the head-hopping style of omniscient.

Tension: Since the author can share with the reader any character’s thoughts or even information that none of the characters know, it is easy to introduce tension through obstacles that the characters don’t know are coming.

Infodumping: Since the narrator can show thoughts from multiple characters and even pause to explain information, it is possible to get across a lot of information in a very short space of time.

Direct address to the reader: As always, a narrator can address the reader directly if necessary.

Advantages of Head-Hopping Omniscient

More immediate than the narrator: Since there’s no one between the reader and the events of the story, the narrative can feel more immediate and real and less like just a story.

Tension: Just as with the narrator, you can convey information from multiple viewpoints or information that none of the characters know.

Infodumping: Again, it is possible to convey information from multiple perspectives very quickly, rather than having to give a separate scene to each perspective.

Most reliable narrator: With its absence of a biased, actual narrator and ability to show the thoughts of many characters in quick succession, this is the single most reliable narration that a writer can provide to a reader.

Disadvantages of Both Types of Third-Person Omniscient

Difficult to write correctly: Third-person omniscient is the most difficult to write without creating viewpoint errors or getting confusing—when you move from head to head, the reader can get lost very quickly and become unsure who is thinking what.

Unfamiliar to many readers: To make matters worse, very few books are written in third-person omniscient these days, so readers are unused to reading it. This means that even if you get it right, readers may still end up confused. This is particularly true with the “head-hopping” variation of omniscient, because to the reader it will often seem like third-person limited until the first time the narrative jumps to another character’s thoughts. This can be very jarring to readers, even if they’ve read omniscient before.

Lack of tension: It can be difficult to keep secrets and tension going if the readers are getting too much information about what is going on.

Infodumping: While it is an advantage that omniscient allows you to convey lots of information more quickly, this is a very difficult thing to do well. Often, this can turn into a firehose-esque flood of information that the reader will be unable to follow.

Overview: Third-Person Limited Perspective

Today we'll continue our series of discussions on common perspectives. We've already discussed what perspective and tense are and first-person perspective; today we'll delve into third-person limited perspective.

Third-person stories are told from the perspective of someone who is not part of the story; hence, all of the characters are referred to as "he," "she," or "it," rather than "I" or "we." In third-person limited perspective, your goal should generally be to not draw attention to the narrator—in a way, you're pretending that there isn't a narrator, that the audience is simply riding in a character's head and seeing what the character sees and thinks. Take a look at these examples from the first and second chapters of Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin:

     It was not until they were mounted and on their way that Bran allowed himself to taste the sweet air of victory. By then, his pup was snuggled inside his leathers, warm against him, safe for the long ride home. Bran was wondering what to name him.
     Halfway across the bridge, Jon pulled up suddenly.
     "What is it, Jon?" their lord father asked.
     "Can't you hear it?"
     Bran could hear the wind in the trees, the clatter of their hooves on the ironwood planks, the whimpering of his hungry pup, but Jon was listening to something else.
     "There," Jon said. He swung his horse around and galloped back across the bridge. They watched him dismount where the direwolf lay dead in the snow, watched him kneel. A moment later he was riding back to them, smiling.
     "He must have crawled away from the others," Jon said.
     "Or been driven away," their father said, looking at the sixth pup. His fur was white, where the rest of the litter was grey. His eyes were as red as the blood of the ragged man who had died that morning. Bran thought it curious that this pup alone would have opened his eyes while the others were still blind.
     "An albino," Theon Greyjoy said with wry amusement. "This one will die even faster than the others."
     Jon Snow gave his father's ward a long, chilling look. "I think not, Greyjoy," he said. "This one belongs to me."

     [Chapter Two]
     Catelyn

     Catelyn had never liked this godswood.
     She had been born a Tully, at Riverrun far to the south, on the Red Fork of the Trident. The godswood there was a garden, bright and airy, where tall redwoods spread dappled shadows across tinkling streams, birds sang from hidden nests, and the air was spicy with the scent of flowers.

In this example, there is no narrator to speak of—we don't know who is telling the story, because the narrator isn't a character. Instead, the narrator follows the thoughts and experiences of some perspective characters: Bran Stark in the first chapter and Catelyn Stark in the second. Even though Bran and Catelyn aren't personally telling the story, as they would be in a first-person narrative, we still see the world through their eyes. This is what limited perspective means—our view as an audience is limited to that of one character at a time. When the author wants to switch perspective characters, he begins a new section or chapter.

Advantages of Third-Person Limited Perspective

Reliable narrator: Because the narrative is not relayed by one of the characters, third-person stories tend to seem more trustworthy and objective. The audience feels like they're inside a character's head without a narrator, so what they are shown is probably true.

Character sympathy: While not usually quite as intimate as a first-person narrative, third-person limited stories can still feel very close to the characters—the story takes place in their heads, after all.

Multiple perspectives: As demonstrated by the example passage, third-person limited narrative makes it very easy to switch from one perspective character to another. Some books have two or three perspective characters, while others—like Game of Thrones—have dozens and dozens.

Eloquence: Not all characters are as intelligent or well-spoken as others. If you wanted to write a first-person story from the perspective of a thick-headed thug, it would be difficult to describe the action as well as you would like with the thug's limited vocabulary. In third person, however, you can write a scene from the thug's perspective without sacrificing eloquence or creativity.

Disadvantages of Third-Person Limited

Easy to over-do: Just because you can write from multiple perspectives does not mean that you can do so well. Many new authors attempt to branch their story out among too many perspective characters, resulting in a slow and confusing story that loses track of its own plot. Yes, George R.R. Martin did it—but you're not George R.R. Martin. (Unless you are, of course. Hi George! Thanks for stopping by.) Try to keep your novel to two or three perspectives until you've really got the hang of juggling all those characters.

Difficult to withhold information from the reader: Since the narrator is so reliable in third-person limited, and since the audience is inside the heads of various characters, the audience will often feel cheated if you don't tell them information that the main character should have known.

Perspective errors: It is very easy to make perspective errors when writing a third-person limited story; in fact, this perspective probably sees more mistakes than any other perspective. We'll cover the many errors that writers make in third-person limited in future updates.

Overview: First-Person Perspective

I discussed here the most common perspectives and tenses that are seen in fiction writing. Over the next few weeks, we'll delve into each of these modes of writing with a little more specificity and discuss some of the strengths and foibles of each.  Today we'll look at first-person perspective.

A story told in first-person perspective is being told by one of the characters in the story, usually the central protagonist. Here's an example:

     I closed my eyes and jumped off of the roof, silently praying that Dall was as good a pilot as he claimed. The duke shouted in alarm, screaming for his men to stop me, and then his voice was drowned out in an angry rush of wind.
     I had been determined to keep my eyes closed as I fell, in hopes that I would be less afraid if I couldn't see the ground approaching. But it turns out that not knowing how far away the ground is was far more frightening than knowing. My eyes popped open after only a few seconds of falling.
    The ground wasn't nearly as far away as I would have liked, and for a brief moment I panicked; then Dall's skimcar appeared from around the side of the building. Dall waved at me from the cockpit as he pulled up alongside me, matching my pace. I reached out and grabbed the top of the car, my fingers clenching so hard that I thought they might actually bend the di-steel.
     Dall slowly maneuvered the skimcar beneath me and then slowed our descent. He slowed more abruptly than I would have liked, and I thudded into the cockpit with a grunt, spread-eagled. It wasn't bad enough that it hurt, but it did knock the wind from me.
     "Sorry, Joan" Dall said with that irritating grin of his, his voice muffled by the glasstic between us.
     "Just let me in!" I shouted.
     He shook his head. "Not until we come to a complete stop. Too dangerous otherwise."
     "Too dangerous?" I shrieked. "I just jumped off a three-hundred story building without knowing for sure that you were down here, and you think that would be too dangerous?"
      I should take a moment to mention that I'd had a little problem with heights ever since I was six years old, and Dall knew that perfectly well. He was just being a jerk.
     "You'll be fine out there for a minute or two," Dall replied, still grinning.
     "Two minutes?"

In the case of this example, one of the characters—Joan—is telling the story, as though she were sitting in front of us speaking. She uses "I" to refer to herself, marking this as first-person perspective.

So, what are some of the advantages and disadvantages of first-person perspective?

Advantages

Intimate: Because the character is relating the story themselves, first-person perspective often creates a more close, intense, and intimate feel than other perspectives, and the action often feels more immediate.

Strong Personality: When a character is relating a story "in their own words," so to speak, it can often be much easier to get their personality across than it might have been in another perspective.

Unreliability: If you want to tell a story with an unreliable narrator, first-person perspective is often the way to go. Since the perspective character is telling the story, their opinions and prejudices can color the narrative, or they can even outright lie to the reader. This can make for some very interesting stories.

Info Dump: It's easier in first-person for your narrator to step away from the story for a moment to explain something that the reader needs to know; Joan did it near the end of our example.

Simplicity: First-person can often be one of the easiest perspectives to write without making perspective errors.

Disadvantages

Most limited perspective: Since one of the characters is telling the story, the author cannot relate anything that the main character cannot see. If you want your audience to know something, then your main character has to know. You can't just jump to someone else's head for a bit and then come back. (There are stories with multiple first-person perspectives, but these can be very tricky to write well.)
Difficult to explain character appearance:   After all, if I were sitting and telling you a story, I wouldn't need to explain what I look like, would I?  Look back over our example; there's not any information there on what Joan looks like, and it would be very awkward to try to fit in a description of her anywhere.
Difficult to make the audience worry for the character: Since first-person perspective requires the main character to be alive and well to tell the story, it is difficult to get your audience to worry about the safety of the narrator. How would the story be told, after all, if the main character weren't around to finish it?  This is particularly true of first-person stories told in the past tense.