Third Person Point of View in Fantasy Fiction

Third person point of view is a tricky thing to get right. At one end of the scale, you have third person omniscient, with a narrator external to the story world who can access characters' thoughts and feelings at leisure.

At the other end – and the most popular choice in Anglo-American commercial fiction at present – is close third, told from within the body of a character who narrates the events. This point of view is very direct and immersive, similar to first person.

And then you might have several viewpoint characters who all use close third (a multi-POV novel) or a slightly more distanced third person limited. This is quite popular, too, especially in fantasy fiction.

Let’s start with a quick recap and examples. If you’re familiar with these concepts, scroll down to learn more about how to handle them in fantasy fiction.

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Third person omniscient

Omniscient means all-knowing, and this narrator is a fly-on-the-wall god, buzzing around and dipping into lots of characters' thoughts and feelings. This point of view has a “told” feel with substantial narrative distance. Here’s a classic example from the opening pages of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice:

Mr Bennet was among the earliest of those who waited on Mr Bingley. He had always intended to visit him, though to the last always assuring his wife that he should not go; and till the evening after the visit was paid, she had no knowledge of it.

The key to omniscient lies in having a strong, unique narrative voice. For this reason, it suits humorous or whimsical fantasy in particular, or novels where the narrator includes biting social commentary. It can also be used in fantasy fiction to draw attention to nonhuman entities (such as trees, the forest, certain animals) as having intentionality and consciousness. When executed well, this can have a poetic quality to it.

But it's tricky to get right, especially for new authors.

Here's a cliched example I’ve invented:

A faint white owl skidded along the branch, one eye half closed, the other fiercely open, keenly observing the forest floor. Aerith and Bob were moving quickly through the undergrowth, making steady progress, not mentioning their movements to anyone. The owl was one of the Authority’s watchers and had been spying on them for days.

In this example, the point of view is omniscient because it shifts from following the owl to Aerith and Bob, as if looking at and commenting on an oil painting. This is clearly omniscient because the narrator knows things that the main characters (Aerith and Bob) do not – for instance, that the owl is spying on them. The perspective is also not from within a character’s body. We don’t see the world through their eyes.

If you want to get a handle on the point of view in your writing or someone else's writing, here's a summary of points that suggested an omniscient point of view:

[This list includes some technical terms, so don’t worry if you don’t understand every point; it’s an adapted version of a list you can find on the CIEP Fiction Editing course.]

• narrative voice is of exterior narrator rather than character

• reported and direct thought in place of free indirect thought

• scenes opening an intro or empty stage rather than in media res

• scenes ending with empty stages and exits

• framing in place of anchoring

• focus shifting between characters within scene (focus characters rather than viewpoint characters)

• exposition, editorializing and asides

• discursive passages in place of reflective passages

• delayed introductions of name via dialogue

• full formal naming of characters in narrative.

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Close third

At the other end of the third-person spectrum, you have close third, also known as deep third. This is the go-to for much of modern fiction writing. It’s highly immersive – basically a first person point of view with third-person pronouns. It’s grounded within the body rather than narrated from outside the character’s body. If you’re writing for a large audience, close third is a good choice because modern readers enjoy highly immersive books. This does not mean you shouldn’t pick another point of view – but it’s important to be aware that omniscient requires a lot of skill to get right, and it may be harder to sell to agents for certain subgenres of fantasy.

As an aside, there are other third person limited points of view that aren't as close as close third. One example is third person objective. But this is not a common choice in twenty-first century commercial fiction, so I'm not discussing it here.

Let’s rewrite the bad fantasy text in close third:

A faint white owl hooted somewhere in the thick beech canopy, making Aerith’s heart pound. She glanced up. That hoot was familiar, too familiar. She placed a finger to her lips and implored Bob to slow down. It was unlikely, but deathly possible that the owl was working for the Authority.

This is a heavy rewrite that retains some of the information conveyed in the original. Aerith is the viewpoint character here, and the scene is experienced from within her body. The reader encounters the storyworld through her perspective rather than observing it from a distance. Her heart pounds, she glances up when an owl hoots, etc.

Because Aerith is the narrator here, only inferences can be made about matters known to be truths in the omniscient example (e.g., the owl working for the Authority). This is why close third is a “limited” rather than an “omniscient” perspective.

You might have noticed the close third extract conveyed more tension. And that’s partly because there are more unknowns if the world is experienced through a limited perspective. If you’re writing a high-tension dark fantasy or supernatural thriller, for example, then close third is a good call to make. But novels that play around with humor or biting social commentary swap out tension for humor or snark, and that’s one reason why omniscient can work nicely for them.

Here’s a summary of points to watch out for:

• narrative voice is that of a character

• scene narrated from within that character’s body

• scenes opening in media res

• anchoring in place of framing

• viewpoint maintained throughout entire scene

• less exposition and editorializing, and where it exists, told through the viewpoint character’s voice

• reflective passages

• use of informal names and pronouns over full formal names

  
  

Fantasy genres, audiences, and point-of-view preferences

These are my observations – but they are notes, not rules. I’ve copyedited YA fantasy novels with omniscient points of view, etc.

• Young adult (YA) fantasy prioritizes immediacy, so direct points of view (first or close third) are favored.

• Adult fantasy, especially urban fantasy, often opts for close third, too.

• High fantasy is split – many classics use omniscient points of view, but the dominance of close third nowadays means that many stories in high fantasy settings are told in this way, too.

• Even if high fantasy is written in close third, it will often include some omniscient description, for instance, of settings

• Humorous and whimsical fantasy in particular favors omniscient points of view.

  
  

Where it gets complicated in fantasy fiction

So far, I’ve set up a binary opposition between close third and third person omniscient. But it’s not that simple. Third-person perspectives are more of a sliding scale along which narrative distance can increase or decrease a bit. (This is an insight that Jennifer Lawler shares in her advanced course Point of View and Perspective for Editors.)

Generally speaking, flipping between the two extremes of this scale would be highly grating (not impossible, but not something a new author should try if aiming to find an agent).

But little bits of omniscient description in close third can work nicely to create a certain atmosphere or describe the setting. Fantasy novels written in close third can and often do have bits of omniscient descriptions thrown in.

Sometimes this works wonderfully, but sometimes it’s jarring, trite or cliché. Let’s return to the bad writing:

Autumn had arrived, and the Ochre Forest was turning a wonderful shade of burnt orange. Only the conifers retained their lush green as the oaks and beeches gently melted into yellow and gold. The canopy was the ideal hiding place for birds seeking sanctuary from the forest floor, and those with darker intent, too. A faint white owl hooted somewhere in the thick beech canopy, making Aerith’s heart pound. She glanced up. That hoot was familiar, too familiar. She placed a finger to her lips and implored Bob to slow down. It was unlikely, but deathly possible that the owl was working for the Authority.

In this example, the story opens with some omniscient description in bold (Aerith does not have eyes over the forest or up in the canopy, nor does she know the intent of the forest birds). It then moves down to focus on Aerith, dropping into close third. The purpose of the omniscient description here is to give a panoramic sweep of the setting and to set the tone, too.

This is what Jennifer Lawler calls funneling – starting with a panoramic sweep of the setting before zooming in on the viewpoint character and maintaining close third for the rest of the chapter.

Funneling is really common among newer authors, but when done well, it can effectively add an omniscient twist to a novel written in close third.

What beginner fantasy authors often do

Beginner authors tend to default to omniscient unless they’ve trained in POV or read heavily and copy the style of a book in their genre. The reason for this, the developmental editor Scott Norton argues in his book, is that this is how people tell stories casually in everyday life. For example, when narrating an encounter, you might say something like:

I went to the shop; the cashier was so angry, she thought I was going to steal the jacket. And then the manager turned up, he was super unhappy that day…

True beginners with no training and who read little in their genre will also often include head hops, and switch between POVs without realizing, e.g., sliding from omniscient into close third. Or less commonly, slipping from third to first or vice versa.

A word of caution about fantasy points of view

If you’ve read a lot of craft books, you may have heard that the so-called first rule of point of view is that there are no hard and fast rules. This is true! But some authors can take this to heart and be very ambitious with their early writing, for instance having chapters that alternate between first and third person, or sliding between omniscient and close third.

This rarely turns out well because to break the rules elegantly, you need to first learn and apply the rules with grace.

So I highly recommend starting out simple. If you want to do something ambitious, practice the technique in a short story or first chapter until it’s refined. This isn’t about stopping authors from thinking big: it’s about tackling the nursery ski slope before trying the big one.

Hybrid points of view: omniscient versus close third

Now, I’ve said so far that third-person points of view are a sliding scale with omniscient at one end and close third in the middle. Sometimes, a fantasy novel will be bang in the middle, mixing an omniscient narrator with a defined narrative voice with close third.

So what happens with novels that seem to combine close third (internal) and omniscient (external) narrations? In short, they’ll need to be revised heavily as omniscient or as close third. The key here is to see whether the narrative feels like it’s being anchored within someone’s body and point of view or not. Is the scene focus being directed by the character’s gaze or by the narrator’s?

Most of the time, revising hybrid points of view to close third will be the best option for the author.

Do you struggle with third person points of view? Has this blog post helped to clarify your thought on this tricky topic? Let me know in the comments!

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