 Everybody, E here. Welcome back to From the Desk. This is the third time I've shot this video, not because of any technical difficulties, but because I keep stumbling on my words. This is a very confusing one, so we are going in order. I'm gonna tell you the order just in case I say the wrong thing. We are going from third-person subjective to third-person objective to third-person omniscient to third-person free slash indirect to third-person alternating. That is the sequence of styles that we're gonna be covering, and this is probably going to be a longer video. I will try to add my own examples of books. They might be my own books. They might be other authors' books, of books, good books, in these styles. There are, you're gonna find more styles in third-person than any other POV. First-person, you can have first-person, just regular first-person and the first-person omniscient, which is super rare. And then second-person is just second-person. So, what is third-person? Once again, we're going back to Wikipedia for the definition so that I get this exactly right. In the third-person narrative mode, each and every character is referred to by the narrator as he, she, it, or they. But never as I or we, first-person, or you, second-person, this makes it clear that the narrator is an unspecified entity or uninvolved person who conveys a story and is not a character of any kind within the story or at least is not referred to as such. The only time I have read this, read an I in a third-person book is with Stephen King's it. Now, I've heard it argued that after the flood, after the flood chapter in the beginning where he uses I as the narrator, that when he's not in Mike Hanlon's, right, Mike Hanlon's telling of the story later in the book, The Flashbacks, when at the very beginning, he's using I in the after the flood chapter. The reason why I don't think that's Mike Hanlon is because he knows specifics about what Pennywise and Georgie say to each other and Mike Hanlon wasn't there for that. So that would be the only time that I've seen where a third-person omniscient narrator used I. Otherwise, you have to stick to those rules. Now, Stephen King can get away with it whatever he wants to. You also gotta take that into account and you're gonna see people in reviews who complain about that kind of thing because it's confusing when he's saying I but he's telling a story from third-person. Now, third-person subjective. Yes, I am reading the titles off here off of Wikipedia, but just to try and keep on track. Third-person subjective, or as I've heard it, is third-person close, close third-person. That's subject, it's literally what it means, subjectively, subjective. You're in a character's head and giving that character's thoughts and opinions on let's say, let's give it a rough idea, let's say example, like they're walking down a hallway. You're gonna have them think the wallpaper was shitty or whatever you wanna say, this crappy wallpaper, something like that. Whereas in objective, which we'll get to next, they wouldn't say that, they would describe the wallpaper objectively because one man's trash is another man's treasure, all that stuff. So back to subjective. You were going to stick with one person and you were going to get deep into their thoughts, whereas with the second style, third-person objective or third-person limited is another way to say that. You were going to stick with one person, but you are not going to give that character's thoughts and opinions on things. You are gonna be objective, which means you wouldn't say that the wallpaper is shitty, crappy, whatever. You wouldn't say that. What you would say is that the wallpaper had flowers on it, whatever. And you wouldn't even give an opinion on what the flower is, what the character thought about the flowers. It's literally that strict. Most third-person stories are written in third-person close. It's just a very easy, it's a more relatable way. The third-person objective, I can't even think of a book that I've read and I'm just looking around, glancing around the office trying to, I can't think of one. Every single book I've read in third-person has been third-person subjective. So objective is another rarity, just like first-person omniscient. So next, one of my favorite storytelling devices is third-person omniscient, but it is so rarely done right. Third-person omniscient is you head hop without alternating chapters. So it's gonna be the same stream. There's not gonna be page breaks, chapter titles, anything in between different character's thoughts. Bill walked down the hallway and thought the wallpaper was shitty. Barbara walked down the hallway and thought the carpet felt like this. You know, what you wanna try and do is, well not try, what you want to do is every single paragraph is gonna be from a different person's point of view. This can get super confusing and I don't suggest doing it, but if you want to see it done well, Dune by Frank Herbert is a masterclass in omniscient narration. Another good one that is omnisciently narrated is Mystery Walk by Robert McCammon. He does a lot of third-person omniscient, so he's an author to check out if you wanna go there. Next, we have third-person free slash indirect which throws an entire wrench in the gear works for everything. It is a mixture, it is a mixture of objective and subjective. So you have both, let me read you what Wikipedia says. Maybe it'll make more sense to you. The third-person indirect style or free indirect style is a method of presenting a character's voice freely and spontaneously in the middle of an otherwise third-person non-personal narrator. Now, I do this in cruelty. If you've read my novel Cruelty, I do it constantly. I give objective things and then I jump into, and I thought I was doing something wrong. In fact, I was told I did something wrong but I wanted to write the book the way I wanted to write the book and if people didn't like it, oh well, that was my mindset at the time because when I wrote that book, I was in a bad place. All the pain that I was going through with my back, I was having problems with mobility, wasn't able to move, all that came out and I just didn't care how that book, how people accepted that book. I just wanted it out of my head and I'll be damned if when I got done with it, it wasn't a decent experience. So I did that in cruelty without even realizing I was doing it. I was told to change it and I didn't but it's actually a thing. So now next, third-person alternating. Third-person alternating is the last topic of discussion in this video. Third-person alternating is not third-person omniscient and it is definitely not head-hopping. If you read a book and there are POV chapters where you have one from Peter, one from Barbara, one from Bob, one from Tony, one from Deborah, whoever, if you have George R.R. Martin's A Sound of Ice and Fire is written in third-person alternating. You alternate between the characters but each character has their own specific chapter wherein it's either third-person objective or third-person subjective. So if you read reviews about people saying that those books head-hopping, that is not the correct terminology. You are not head-hopping. What you are omniscient is where you head-hop in the narrative. You are literally bouncing around between those things. So get that thought in your head. Third-person omniscient is different than third-person alternating because of the chapters. You're going to have, you were literally telling the reader. You were holding the reader's hand and saying, look here, this is a chapter from so-and-so's point of view. Whereas an omniscient, you're going to do that at the beginning of paragraphs instead of the beginning of chapters. So I think I covered everything. When I first started this series, I wanted it to be a writer's vlog about what I'm doing and where I am with my writing right now. And I'm going to tack this on to the end. Once again, I'll be live after this episode between nine and 10 Central Standard Time. And then just to talk about this topic right here, got to stay on topic. But then I'll do a hangout and chat tonight on five, six, 2018. I'll be doing a topic list or just a hangout and chat tonight at 8 p.m. Central Standard Time or 2,800 hours. Where I'm at with my own writing right now, I'm kind of frustrated. I am going to have to rewrite a book that I have already rewritten five times. Yes, I'm talking from the ground up. I'm going to have to rewrite it to fix some things because I am not happy and the most recent beta reader pretty much, I pretty much agreed that I didn't stick to landing. The problem with this book is, I have an idea in my head and I have a theme. And every time I get that theme, every time I write the book, that theme is not present. And I've had somebody read the first draft, second, third, different people have been reading these drafts. I'm running out of people to read this book. And nobody's catching what I'm, you know, nobody's catching what I'm throwing, throwing out there. So I am going into the sixth rewrite, probably I'm fighting with it, folks. I'm really fighting with it. A full rewrite of a 107,000 word book. That's nuts to rewrite that many times, but I'm just not happy with it. So we're going to have to do it. Luckily I got an extension from the publisher or else I'd be in some trouble right now because I'm not going to publish something that isn't up to my standards. Some things sneak through, sure, mistakes are made, but you can't do anything about them once it's out there. Like I said on stream one night, this is all practice until you hit publish. Maybe I even said it on from the desk, I can't remember. Another thing is, while I'm procrastinating, this is how a working author procrastinates, by the way, by working even more on stuff he shouldn't be working on. While I am trying, while I am debating or I'm procrastinating, while I am debating whether or not I need to rewrite this book again, I've written four short stories. So I am being productive. I wrote MRE, I wrote a lonely, what did I call it? A lonely parking space for cars. Oh no, a parking space for lonely cars. A sound that haunts. And most recently, as of yesterday or today as I'm shooting this video, as of yesterday I finished one called a drawer. Drawer, you know, full of pretty. So those are done, the first two are marinating and I'll get back to them once I get done. You know, once I am okay with the short stories. I don't do my normal, you know, marinate forever with the short stories because they don't carry as much weight as a novel. It's probably not going to change as much. But I also seem to see problems more quickly with a short story. Anywho, so that's where I'm at with my own writing. At this point I'm just rambling. I'm super exhausted, super tired. Somehow I had three projects all come due at one time and it's just bad organizational skills on my side. The best of us, you know, the best of us have these problems. So, but I think that's everything. If you have any questions, leave them down there in the doobly-doo and I will get to them as I get to them. One thing is I want to know where you want to go. I think I have one more video and I'm going to talk about narrative voice. I might even talk about, let's see here. Let's say like, yeah, because I think narrative voice would be like epistolary and things like that. But what I want to know from you guys is is there anything in the POV topic that you want me to cover specifically? Like unreliable narrator, I'll get to that kind of thing. If you want me to do videos on those in this series, let me know. Otherwise, the next video will be the last one and that's just narrative voice. So if you have any questions, please leave them down there in the doobly-doo and I'll get to them when I get to them. But until next time, I have been E, you have been U. This has been From the Desk. I'll talk to you guys later. Bye.