What the limited third-person narrator can’t do is match the omniscient narrator’s brevity. The omniscient passage was six paragraphs long. The limited third-person version would have to be far longer. Pete’s viewpoint section, to feel complete, would have to be far longer than the two-and-a-half paragraphs he gets in the omniscient passage. To develop his point of view effectively, we’d have to go into much more detail about his preparations for asking Nora out. Perhaps we’d establish his network of relationships at work, show him trying to find out more about her, show him trying to change his image to fit what he thinks she’ll want. By the time we are ready to change viewpoint characters, we have to know Pete well enough that his view of the world — and especially of himself and Nora — will stay in our memory throughout the section from Nora’s point of view.

  The omniscient narrator can tell more story and reveal more character in less time than it takes the limited third-person narrator. That’s the greatest advantage of the omniscient narrator.

  The Limited Narrator’s Advantage

  If the limited narrator takes so much longer to do the same job as the omniscient narrator, why do we need the limited third-person narrator at all? Why, for heaven’s sake, is limited third-person the overwhelmingly dominant narrative voice in American fiction today?

  It’s a matter of distance. As the omniscient narrator slips in and out of different characters’ minds, he keeps the reader from fully engaging with any of the characters. The omniscient passage quoted above is far more presentational than representational — we’re constantly being reminded that the narrator is telling us a story about Pete and Nora. We never get deeply enough involved with either of them to fully identify with them, to begin to feel what they’re feeling. Instead of sharing Nora’s frustration or Pete’s bafflement, we are forced to take a distant, ironic, amused stance, watching what they do but not experiencing it.

  The limited third-person strategy is to trade time for distance. Sure, we spend more time getting through the same amount of story, but in return we get a much deeper, more intense involvement with the lives of the viewpoint characters. The omniscient narrator is always there, tugging at our hands, pulling us from place to place. We see everything and everybody as the narrator sees them, not as the characters see them. We are always outside looking in.

  For instance, whose point of view are we getting in this sentence? “He kept bumbling along, trying to impress Nora with his sensitivity, never guessing that Nora was much more comfortable with beer-and-football types.” Perhaps Pete sees himself as “bumbling along,” and certainly we are seeing inside his head as we see him “trying to impress Nora with his sensitivity” — but would he actually use those words to describe himself? Is he really so cynical that he thinks of himself as faking sensitivity? Or does he think that he’s actually trying to become, not “sensitive,” but worthy of her? We’re getting an attitude here, but it isn’t really Pete’s attitude — it’s the narrator’s. The narrator sees Pete as bumbling and trying to fake sensitivity.

  Likewise, when we are told that Nora “had often told her friends that all but six of her delicate, fragile bones had been broken during childhood,” who is actually using the words “delicate” and “fragile”? Not Pete — he doesn’t know what Nora has told her friends. And not Nora — she doesn’t see herself as delicate and fragile, it’s Pete who does. The phrase “delicate, fragile bones” is a direct echo of Pete’s assessment of Nora as “delicate-looking, frail-boned” in the first paragraph, yet it is inserted ironically into Nora’s memory of her own childhood. Again, the narrator is openly intruding into the story, nudging the reader into seeing the humor of the situation.

  “She liked rowdiness, laughter, crude humor, and general silliness,” says the narrator. But that isn’t the way Nora would think of it. If that sentence were written from her point of view, it would be more like this:

  She liked guys who knew how to have a good time, get a little rowdy, have some laughs. She thought of telling him the joke about Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse getting a divorce, but she knew a guy like Pete would never appreciate a punch line with the f-word in it.

  To let us know, from Nora’s point of view, that she likes crude humor, we have to see a sample of the humor she likes — if she is not the overliterate type Pete thinks she is, she is also unlikely to think of her own taste in humor as “crude.”

  These two sentences from Nora’s viewpoint take longer than the omniscient narrator’s nine-word clause, but they also get us more deeply involved in Nora’s character and give us a much clearer and more powerful view of the world as she sees it. The omniscient narrator sees the world through the wrong end of the binoculars — readers can see everything, but it all looks very small and far away. The limited third-person narrator can’t let readers see as many different things in as short a period of time, but what the readers do see, they see “up close and personal.”

  Think of the limited third-person narrator as a combination of the most important representational features of the omniscient and first-person narrators. The limited narrator gets much closer to the viewpoint characters than the omniscient narrator can, giving readers the experience of living in the character’s world — much the way the first-person narrator gives readers an intimate look at the world through the narrator’s eyes. At the same time, with limited third-person narration the viewpoint character isn’t actually telling the story, constantly reminding us that he is showing us himself, that he’s looking back on these events from some point in the story’s future.

  Look at the way first-person and limited third-person narrators would deal with the event contained in this sentence from the omniscient narration: “When he was ready at last, he wrote his invitation on a whimsical Sandra Boynton card and left it on her desk with a single daffodil.” Here’s a possible limited third-person version:

  Pete got to work at seven-fifteen so he could leave the flower and the card for Nora without anybody watching. He filled the bud vase with water from the drinking fountain, put the daffodil in it, set the vase on Nora’s desk, and leaned the envelope against it. It looked too formal, like a proposal of marriage or an apology or something. So he took the card out of the envelope. That was better. But the vase still bothered him — it would put too much pressure on her. If she turned him down, she could just throw away a flower, but she might feel like she had to return the vase. So he took the daffodil out of the vase and laid it on her desk. It got water all over her blotter. He grabbed a handful of her tissues and dabbed up the water and dried the stem of the flower. He laid down the card so it mostly covered the water spots and put the daffodil at an angle across the card. Then he wrapped the vase in the wet tissues, carried it to his office, and put it in the wastebasket.

  We are getting an experience here that the omniscient version did not provide — we’re living through Pete’s indecision and nervousness step by step, moment by moment. Even though it’s in past tense, it feels like the present. We’re identifying with Pete as we live through all the agonizing, trivial, yet vital strategic decisions in his campaign to give Nora exactly the right impression.

  Would this work as well in first person? Try it and see:

  I got to work at seven-fifteen so I could leave the flower and the card for Nora without anybody watching. I filled the bud vase with water from the drinking fountain, put the daffodil in it, set the vase on Nora’s desk, and leaned the envelope against it. It looked too formal, like a proposal of marriage or an apology or something. So I took the card out of the envelope. That was better. But the vase still bothered me — it would put too much pressure on her. If she turned me down, she could just throw away a flower, but she might feel like she had to return the vase. So I took the daffodil out of the vase and laid it on her desk. It got water all over her blotter. I grabbed a handful of her tissues and dabbed up the water and dried the stem of the flower. I laid down the card so it mostly covered the water spots and put the daffodil at an angle across the card. Then I wrapped the vase in the wet tissues, carried it to my office, and put it in the wastebasket.

  At first glance, it might seem to be exactly the same. But the effect is different in at least one important way. The limited third-person version is told straight. You are clearly meant to empathize with Pete’s indecision, to worry about whether Nora will accept the invitation, to care about what she thinks. You are living through the experience with Pete as he lives it.

  But in the first-person version, there is an unconscious assumption about why Pete-the-narrator is telling this event in such detail. Even though the narrator makes no comments like “I was such a fool in those days,” the time-distance effect is still operating. Pete-the-narrator obviously does not still feel the same uncertainty and anxiety that Pete-in-the-story felt, yet for some reason Pete-the-narrator has chosen to tell this incident. Since it shows Pete-in-the-story in such a vulnerable position, it would be unthinkable for Pete-the-narrator to recount it unless he thought it was amusing, unless he had clearly wised up somehow since then and could look back on his old self with comic distance. Without being conscious of it, readers will still adjust to this comic distance.

  Furthermore, in a first-person narrative we would know that Nora must have some long-term importance to Pete, because he’s telling about it; we know the first date must have worked out well or else her turndown was so spectacular it scarred Pete for life. In the limited third-person version, it’s possible that the incident with Nora may end up being completely trivial to Pete — but vitally important to Nora. The third-person limited narration allows more story line options.

  Of course, the differences between first-person and limited third-person narrators may seem very subtle in this example, because the two versions are identical except for changing “he” and “him” to “I” and “me.” If I had actually been writing this incident in first person from the start, the differences would have been much greater, because the writing would have been shaped by Pete’s own voice.

  MAKING UP YOUR MIND

  Which type of narrator should you use? By now it should be clear that none is intrinsically, absolutely “better” than the others. All have been used by excellent writers to tell wonderful tales. But it still matters very much which one you choose. Here are some things to keep in mind.

  1. First-person and omniscient narrations are by nature more presentational than limited third-person — readers will notice the narrator more. If your goal is to get your readers emotionally involved with your main characters, with minimal distraction from their belief in the story, then the limited third-person narrator is your best choice.

  2. If you’re writing humor, however, first-person or omniscient narration can help you create comic distance. These intrusive narrators can make wry comments or write with the kind of wit that calls attention to itself, without jarring or surprising a reader who is deeply involved with the characters.

  3. If you want brevity, covering great spans of time and space or many characters without writing hundreds or thousands of pages to do it, the omniscient narrator may be your best choice.

  4. If you want the sense of truth that comes from an eyewitness account, first person usually feels less fictional, more factual.

  5. If you’re uncertain of your ability as a writer, while you’re quite confident of the strength of the story, the limited third-person narration invites a clean, unobtrusive writing style — a plain tale plainly told. You can still write beautifully using the limited third person, but your writing is more likely to be ignored — thus covering a multitude of sins. However, if you know you can write dazzling prose but the story itself is often your weakness, the omniscient and the first person invite you to play with language even if it distracts a bit from the tale itself. In limited third person you can’t have those lovely digressions that make Vonnegut, for instance, such a delight to read.

  It’s no accident that the overwhelming majority of fiction published today uses the limited third-person narrator. Most readers read for the sake of the story. They want to immerse themselves in the lives of the characters, and for that purpose, the limited third person is the best. It combines the flexibility of omniscience with the intensity of the first person. It’s also an easier choice for a beginning writer, partly because it doesn’t require the same level of mastery of the language, and partly because it will simply be more familiar and therefore feel more “natural” to writers who have grown up in a literary community where limited third person predominates. (This is also the best reason for avoiding present tense; except for the academic/literary genre, present tense is very uncommon and so feels surprising, distracting, and “unnatural”; the more common past tense feels natural and invisible. Ironically, this makes past tense feel more immediate while present tense feels more distant; most readers are more likely to feel that a past-tense story is happening “now” than a present-tense story.)

  Even though limited third person is currently the more common and “natural” narrative choice, if the story you’re telling needs omniscience or the first person, don’t hesitate a moment to use the narrative strategy that’s right for the story. Both omniscience and first person are still common enough that your audience won’t be startled or put off by the choice (though first person is far more common than omniscience). If you use them, readers won’t think you’re showing off as they would if you were to write in some bizarre narrative voice, like second-person imperative mood or third-person plural future tense.

  Just be aware of the limitations of each narrative strategy, so you can compensate for them. I’ve already mentioned Thomas Gavin’s The Last Film of Emile Vico, which uses first person to brilliant effect. Likewise, Michael Bishop’s Unicorn Mountain uses the omniscient viewpoint to excellent effect. Both writers pay a price for their choice, but it would be hard to imagine Emile Vico without the unique vision that comes from having a cinematographer as a narrator, and the marvelous feeling of tribal unity that comes at the end of Unicorn Mountain would be impossible if we had not seen almost every moment of the story from the viewpoint of practically every major character who was present.

  LEVELS OF PENETRATION

  Once you’ve decided to write a limited third-person narration, you still have a choice to make: how deeply to penetrate the viewpoint character’s mind.

  Look at FIGURE 1, which represents the omniscient point of view. The camera is looking down on the scene — it can see everything. The dotted lines represent the narrator’s ability to also show us everything going on inside every character’s head — but we always see the scene as a whole from the narrator’s point of view, and the narrator is not in the scene. We are never inside the scene; we are always watching from a distance.

  FIGURE 2 represents the first-person narration. Now we see inside only one character’s head, the narrator-in-the-story, and we see only what the narrator saw, experiencing the world as she experienced it — but we still watch from a distance, because it is all told from the perspective of the present narrator recounting events in his past. Even though the present narrator and the narrator-in-the-story are the “same” person, there is still a gulf between them.

  The limited third-person narration is like first person in that we see only the scenes that the viewpoint character is in, and see only the viewpoint character’s mind; it’s like omniscience in that we see the action of the story unfolding now instead of remembering it later. We are not far separated from the action in either space or time.

  But how deeply have we penetrated the viewpoint character’s mind? FIGURE 3 is light penetration; we can see inside the viewpoint character’s mind, we observe only scenes where the viewpoint character is present — but we don’t actually experience the scenes as if we were seeing them through the viewpoint character’s eyes. The narrator tells what happens in the scene in a neutral voice, only giving us the viewpoint character’s attitudes when the narrator turns away from the scene and dips into the viewpoint character’s mind:

  FIGURE 1: The omniscient narrator

  FIGURE 2: The first-person narrator

  FIGURE 3: Limited third-person: light penetration

  Pete waited fifteen minutes before Nora showed up wearing a vivid blue dress that Pete had never seen before. “Do you like it?” asked Nora.

  It looks outrageous, thought Pete, like neon woven into cloth. “Terrific,” he said, smiling.

  Nora studied Pete’s face for a moment, then glared. “You always want me to be frowsy and boring,” she said.

  FIGURE 4 shows deep penetration, in which we experience the scenes as if we were seeing them through the viewpoint character’s eyes. We don’ t see things as they really happen, we see them only as Pete thinks they happen. We are so closely involved with the viewpoint character’s thoughts that we don’t have to dip into his mind; we never really leave:

  Pete wasn’t surprised that Nora was fifteen minutes late, and of course she showed up wearing a new dress. A blue dress. No, not just blue. Vivid blue, like neon woven into cloth.

  “Do you like it?” asked Nora.

  Pete forced himself to smile. “Terrific.”

  As usual, she could read his mind despite his best efforts to be a cheerful, easy-to-get-along-with hypocrite. She glared at him. “You always want me to be frowsy and boring.”

  In the deep-penetration version, we never need a tag like “Pete thought,” because we’re getting his thoughts all along. The phrase “of course” in the first sentence is not the narrator’ s comment, it’s Pete’s. The passage “A blue dress. No, not just blue. Vivid blue …” is not the narrator commenting on the dress — it’s Pete who’s judging what Nora wears.

  When Pete says “terrific” and smiles, the light-penetration version sees his smile from the outside; the deep-penetration version is more like first person, telling us something about the motivation behind the smile: Pete has to force himself to smile.