I noticed that if I write from my character’s POV in first person, I can convey a lot of attitude, thought, and “voice” for that character. I speak as if I am that person. But when I write in third, I can’t get nearly as close. I slip into a more narrative mode. (It could mean that the story itself should be written in first person, but I don’t think that’s the answer.) I sometimes notice it in other people’s writing too, where the 1st person Character Interviews really sing but the 3rd person text is flatter. (That’s where I first noticed I had this problem, in comparing my character interviews versus my story text.)

Have any of you addressed this problem in your writing? Do you write in 1st and then convert it into 3rd? Can you do that and keep the deep penetration effective? I guess I should try it out… but it seems that would get wearisome after a while.

A factor that gave me insight into narrative point of view as it relates to resonance is defining how deep a psychic access is relevant to any given story, even first or second person narrators. No psychic access at all is hard to do, can be very flat, harder to depict emotional meaning, but a useful exercise for practice. Superficial psychic access interprets exterior facial expressions and gestures, nonverbal cues that social beings have little control over. Slightly deeper psychic access interprets surface thoughts at the level of immediate awareness. Deeper access interprets thoughts at a level of personal guarding, the secrets we keep or only share with a close circle of acquaintances. Deeper, the secrets we don't share ever. Deepest, at the level of conscience where the caricature of a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other argues about what's best for our self, which also presents publicly in our consequent actions.

Another method that's effective for establishing and maintaining resonance is having the viewpoint character take a stand on a topic, stating a moral, a message, like corporate free enterprise and big government are emotionally indifferent to individual needs, sort of a good and evil theme with perhaps dystopian undertones.

But in all things, a fresh viewpoint on otherwise tried and true worn out themes and storylines is paramount. Even the routine scandals of blasé suburbia can be dramatically meaningful if portrayed freshly, insightfully, uniquely different from what's gone before. Show readers that suburbia is a conflict ridden ecosystem fraught with collision of wills, and an environment prone to conflict. Suburbanites will fall deeply into the reader trance over a fresh take on suburbia.

Donald Maass in Writing the Breakout Novel goes into the nature of reader resonance in depth; however, he doesn't offer methods. The twelve fiction-writing modes plus tone and attitude are what I've uncovered that offer methods for developing resonance.

My mnemonic for the twelve fiction-writing modes in no particular order of emphasis is, A secret ends I;

A S-E-C-R-E-T E-N-D-S I
Action
Sensation
Emotion
Conversation (dialogue)
Recollection
Exposition
Transition
Explanation
Narration
Description
Summarization
Introspection

I write in close 3rd because I find 1st too revealing, too exposing. It's too close, does that make sense? It's one of my writer hangups, I need to just get over it and learn to tell a good 1 person POV story, but since limited third has broad appeal and marketability right now, I'm not sweating it.

The thing I do to try to increase that psychic access/resonance thing that extrinsic is talking about is a lot of expressed thoughts of the POV character. Typically in first drafts they look very dialogue-y, with tags ("of course he doesn't," she thought to herself...) but over time, I try to edit back down to the more comfortable italics to indicate thoughts style.

I also try to firmly affix that mental "camera" to the POV's shoulder. Do you find that some of the problem you're having is POV shifts/slipping from the MC's POV to something more omni or to another character's POV/in another character's head? My main suggestion if you find that to be the case is to imagine that the MC has a head-cam like a miner's light on his head at all times. It only sees the world that is in the direction the MC's head is pointed in. He turns to the right, everything that had been to the left is now gone, he sees only what's to the right, etc.

While we can debate the literary merits of various books, I find the Harry Potter books to be good examples of a 3rd person close that works, although I do think that there is more psychic distance between harry and the audience than in many 3rd person tales. But the thing that is useful in those books is that you see how as the reader, you inherit harry's perceptions and *mis*perceptions, his misunderstandings about the world. This is both interesting and annoying at times.

Ender's Game (by OSC) is another book that's a really well-done 3rd person POV.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_indirect_speech

I didn't realize there was a term for it.

The big question then becomes whether you italicize or not. I actually think, on reflection, that I don't italicize this sort of thing much. It's just part of a character's voice.

You should be able to just right click on the link above and 'save target as' to save the MPeg

It is an MP3 download, and is the literary critic James Wood, and he discusses free indistinct style. If you want it, it will only be posted for about a week.

It is very good, if you can put up with the accents.

Someday soon I’ll fly again. They won’t believe it when I go down to the village square and tell them who I am. Gramma Ida, they’ll say, we know you, you’re no dragon. I’ll laugh with them and then I’ll stretch out my fingers to the sky, and they’ll see. Finger to claw and nose to long snout, wings sprouting from my shoulders. It’ll hurt, but when it’s done their eyes will be so wide. The little ones will glow with wonder. The adults will be puzzled, confused, perhaps a little scared. But the elders, they’ll be angry, because I kept myself hidden away.

//Someday soon she’ll fly again. They won’t believe it when she goes down to the village square and tells them who she is. Gramma Ida, they’ll say, we know you, you’re no dragon. She’ll laugh with them and then stretch out her fingers to the sky, and they’ll see. Finger to claw and nose to long snout, wings sprouting from her shoulders. It’ll hurt, but when it’s done their eyes will be so wide. The little ones will glow with wonder. The adults will be puzzled, confused, perhaps a little scared. But the elders, they’ll be angry, because she kept herself hidden away.//

A reader gets caught up by the reverie.

If it's bracketed by action (and the character is thinking this while they walk the hills, or mend the laundry, or hoe the fields) and I have a setting pictured, I don't mind these forays into the minds of the perspective character. I even enjoy them.

I've started reading Donald Maass' Writing the Breakout Novel. It looks promising! Thanks, extrinsic.

Once again I'm reminded that my focus is too much on the sentences and not enough on the story, for where I'm at in the process. I have to allow myself to write in first-draft mode, but it feels impossible! My inner critic wants perfection.

It sounds like conveying the character's internal world through his thoughts is the key to immersion. What I find is, its easier, more natural, for me to write about the character's thoughts and include them in the text when I'm in 1st. I tend to pull back and narrate more when I'm in 3rd, unless I pay attention. Head-hopping is not an issue, but I have to watch I don't slip into a distant 3rd.

I rewrite published first person story passages in third person to see if I think they're improved by it. I've yet to find one that wasn't ammenable to third person. Improved? not in every case, but few that were appreciably altered. For me, the meaningful impact of first person comes from its inherent untrustworthiness, but I've yet to find stories that really get into that as a virtuous rhetorical device to the point that being in first person makes a story stand out surpassingly. However, writing in first person then translating to third is a widely recommended method for accessing a story's more intimate and personal deeper sensations and psychic accesses and tones. Once the method is mastered though, writing directly in third person becomes natural.

Third person is also more flexible in terms of allowing a narrator to move about the landscape varying psychic distance and touching on multiple viewpoint characters and multiple psychic accesses and tones. Third person also allows for a milieu, event, or idea rather than a focal character to influence readers' immersion in a story's meaning space.

Third person's power to entice reader immersion comes in large part from its trustworthiness and to a great extent today because it's more easily accessible from repeated exposure to third person in visual dramatic arts and print and visual media journalism. But then there's Gonzo journalism where first person subjective involvement in a news story is an artful editorial device.

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writing in first person then translating to third is a widely recommended method for accessing a story's more intimate and personal deeper sensations and psychic accesses and tones. Once the method is mastered though, writing directly in third person becomes natural

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BTW, I like your snippet. Sounds cool.

For example, if I were writing from the POV of a female vampire, I would become her, but make sure my fingers write in 3rd person.

The blood always went down hard, and to hell with what her maker had said. She would never get used to it. How could she? Blood tasted like chocolate to a child and just a smooth; she wasn't denying that, but knowing she was draining the life of a person, though a criminal, haunted her thoughts, ruined the feeding process. Damn the bastard for making her this way and not dulling her sensitivities.

I just came up with it, and this is not a character I had previously invented, but I find it easier to write if I pretend I am writing 1st person. It would take too much time to actually write it in first person and then translate it.