When First Person Feels Distant (and Third Feels Close)
One of the biggest problems my editing clients have is when they can feel something is wrong with their story, but can’t put their finger on exactly what it is. A lot of the time, they’ve received vague, unhelpful feedback from beta readers, and are no closer to fixing things than they were at the start.
I once worked with one writer who said their readers “just don’t feel connected to the main character.”
And while a whole host of issues can cause that, this writer had already done the hard work of creating a compelling protagonist. Their heroine was complex and flawed, and she had a mixture of strengths and weak spots, so what was the problem? And why do readers sometimes feel like a book just isn’t immersive?
This week, we’ll be looking at one possible culprit: the thorny issue of narrative distance.
As with all things, the key is knowing what your readers expect, and how to meet those expectations.
The Problem: Watching Through Glass
It’s easy for writers to get into hot water with this, especially because readers often can’t explain exactly what they’re looking for.
That’s why we end up with endless arguments on social media about how “first person is better because I want to be inside a character’s head.”
But in fact, our point of view, and how close we are to the action are completely separate things. First person can absolutely feel distant and detached, as we see here:
I watched the car explode from across the parking lot, the blast knocking me off my feet. I felt a jolt of fear and confusion as the fireball rose into the air. I wondered where the driver was, and if they were still inside. Smoke curled into the sky while people began to scream.
Similarly, third person can be visceral and immersive:
Jane slammed into the tarmac, small black stones tearing through her palms. Heat roared from the skeletal remains of the car, and she screwed her eyes shut. Too fast, too loud. Where was the driver? Someone screamed, ragged and loud. Was it her? The sound was so close. She had to get out of here.
Notice the invisible camera in these examples. In the first, we’re watching everything from very far away. In the second, we’re drawn into the brutal experience of what’s actually happening.
That’s the difference between close and high narrative distance, and where readers often get confused.
Point of View is the Frame, Narrative Distance the Zoom
There are three main points of view:
First person: “I walked down the road.”
Second person: “You walked down the road.”
Third person: “She walked down the road.”
There are also three modes of third person:
Third person omniscient, where the story is told by a detached, all-knowing narrator, who can see inside the head of every single character.
Third person limited, where we’re stuck inside the head of a single character in each scene. If there are multiple POV characters, we only shift between them at a scene or chapter break.
Head-hopping, where the story switches back and forth between the minds of multiple characters without warning. This can be extremely challenging to follow, and is generally discouraged.
Our story’s point of view will generally remain the same throughout. The whole book will be written in first person, or third person limited, even if we shift between different characters. But there are some exceptions. For example, you see some romance novels that use first person for the FMC, and shift into third person for the MMC’s perspective.
Narrative distance is a different beast entirely. It’s the sliding scale of how close we are to the story. We might be right behind a character’s eyeballs, hearing their every single thought, or see everything from miles away.
And while some POVs lend themselves to certain distances (omniscient is almost always quite distant), we can generally combine point of view and narrative distance however we’d like.
Importantly, narrative distance can also change wildly within a single story. We might stay up close and personal throughout a book, or write the whole thing from very far away—for example, if we wanted to create a diffuse, dreamlike, or fairytale feeling.
Alternatively, we might vary the narrative distance for each point of view character, or move quickly from close to distant, creating a feeling of shock:
The target’s silhouette was perfectly framed in his scope, a dark cutout against the city’s sodium glare. He eased forward, squeezing the trigger.
Then, the world changed.
A searing line of crimson light connected a rooftop across the street to the centre of his chest. There was no sound. Only a silent, perfect puncture.
He tried to run, but his legs belonged to someone else. His right hand reached towards his chest and came away dripping black blood. He felt shock spread like an ink stain. The city’s lights started to haze, then blur as his body tilted and fell.
Notice how we shift from strong verbs and visceral phrasing (eased, squeezing, searing) to all the hallmarks of high narrative distance: narrating the movements of his body as though we’re seeing them from the outside, filter/padding words (tried, seemed, felt, starting), and telling emotions (“he felt shock”). We’ll be looking into all of these more deeply below.
Different genres also have varying expectations around point of view, and how much narrative distance is acceptable. So it’s worth reading widely in your chosen genre, and learning the rules even if you plan to break them—especially if you plan to break them!
That said, close third (third person with short narrative distance) is highly favoured in most types of speculative fiction today, with readers strongly preferring immersion. First person, told from “close up” is also extremely popular.
Because of that, writing at a short narrative distance is a skill that’s worth learning.
Letting Your Reader Fall Through the Glass
If you want to write in close point of view, the first step is what we did last week: learning who your protagonist is, and speaking with their distinct voice.
Showing emotions (especially through train of thought and the filter of perception) is also key. Ask yourself: How is the character feeling in this moment? And how might those emotions affect everything they see—influencing how they speak, what they think, and what they’re focused on.
For example, we might practice conveying panic through a character’s voice. So, instead of:
She needed somewhere to hide and so she ran into the room. It contained a large wardrobe, a bed, and a window. She was terrified. She had to get away.
We might try something like:
He was right behind her, heavy boots thumping up the stairs. She threw herself into the nearest room. A wardrobe? Too obvious. The bed. No, there wasn’t space. The window. Yes. Perfect. Quickly now.
See how the shorter sentences bring us inside the character’s panic, and how we see what she is seeing. While the first example has a detached, uncaring eye reporting the contents of the room, the second is vibrating with her need to get away, as though the whole story is happening inside her head.
That’s the magic and true power of close third.
Seeing Through Your Character’s Eyes
To achieve this effect, we often have to narrow the “lens” of our story—moving more deeply into the character’s narrow perspective. Then, instead of taking in everything, we only see what the character is focused on in that moment.
Someone who’s hunting their brother’s killer is unlikely to take in the wild starry sky. A protagonist talking to their rival at a party isn’t going to absorb every single detail about the room.
Problems with this can crop up throughout a story, but they’re most common in fight scenes, where the writer feels like they have to describe everything:
Lyra span away from the werewolf, her twin daggers carving shallow wounds through its thick fur. One of the creatures almost had her, at least until Ev’s arrow struck the creature in the shoulder and sent it reeling away.
Across the battlefield, Tristan brought his heavy mace down in a crushing arc, while Elerin backed away from a massive, snarling beast—staff raised in her shaking hands. She swung, but the beast’s jaws locked around her forearm. Her piercing scream cut through the night, but Lyra couldn’t help her right now.
But often, showing less (and narrowing the window of our story) is far more powerful:
The wolf’s yellow eyes burst out of the darkness, and Lyra barely got her dagger up in time. She struck on instinct, slashing its matted chest, the cut too shallow to slow the creature down. It bore down on her like a carthorse, and as she stumbled to get away, the beast’s jaws opened wider and wider, swallowing her world.
A streak of silver light, and the wolf was gone—yelping away with one of Ev’s arrows in its shoulder. Gods bless that man and curse him. She owed him a drink now.
But before Lyra could regain her footing, a scream sliced through the dark. High and sharp, cut off too soon. Elerin? Ice tightened in Lyra’s guts, but she had her own problems. The wolf broke Ev’s arrow off at the shaft and lunged again.
The key, as always, is to narrow the lens—moving more deeply into the character’s subjective experience, and ignoring everything else.
Filter Words & Unclear Prose: Other Ways to Cloud the Glass
Filter words place the character between the reader and what’s happening.
Words like saw, heard, felt, noticed, realised, etc all subtly remind us that there’s someone else there—someone doing the seeing, hearing, and noticing.
While not strictly filter words, words like causing, making, starting, beginning to, etc all have a similar effect. When we describe every movement a character makes, it also adds subtle distance. Like we’re watching from outside. You can see both of these in this example, where a detective arrives at a crime scene:
He walked into the front room, looking at the blood splattered all over the walls. Walking further down the hall, he found three rooms. These were all splattered with blood too, he noticed.
Our stories are often more effective when we simply show what the character sees, and let the reader infer that they’re moving around:
The front room was a mess. Blood splattered everywhere. The ceiling. The floor. Further in, two bedrooms and a bathroom—all in a similar state. A broken television left a perfect white shadow on the wall of the back bedroom, outlined in arterial spray.
Ensuring our prose is direct and crystal clear is another great way to shorten the narrative distance: using strong verbs like “sprinted” or “charged” instead of the weaker “ran quickly,” as well as eliminating passive voice and forms of the verb “to be.”
There’s no single shortcut.
Our narrative distance is the sum of everything we share and how we share it. And learning to control each of these levers is the best way to make sure we have the right effect on our readers.
How to Zoom In
To shorten your narrative distance, here’s something you can try:
Pick a scene from your latest work in progress.
Note down the name of your point of view character, who they are, and how they see the world. We went into much more depth on this last time.
Write what the character is feeling in this particular moment.
How does that feeling come across? Brainstorm some ideas. We might write in long, breathless sentences to convey enthusiasm, fixate on negative details for someone who’s depressed, or flood an angry character’s thoughts with criticisms and fault-picking. The Emotion Thesaurus is a great resource in doing this sort of work.
Rewrite a paragraph or two from the scene, using a mixture of the emotion you chose and the character’s unique voice.
Look for the camera lens. Are we seeing everything in this scene? Could we remove some details and narrow the focus—fixing the prose on whatever is most important to the point of view character in this moment?
Are we describing every movement and gesture? Could we trim those descriptions, trusting the reader to picture the action themselves?
Put a final polish on the prose. Look for filter words, weak verbs, passive voice, and cloudy, indirect phrasing.
Reread both the original paragraph, and the one you’ve rewritten. Think about what’s changed, and the effect that has as you’re reading. With any luck, your rewritten section will feel much more powerful, visceral, and like we’re “inside of the story.”
How Close is Close Enough?
Close third (and short narrative distance generally) isn’t for every story.
For example, there’s still a strong market for indie sci-fi novels written in a “Golden Age” style, where omniscient point of view, with high narrative distance, is king.
But short narrative distance (either in first person or close third) is by far the most popular with modern-day readers. It’s also the most immersive, so it’s a great tool to have in your toolbox. Perhaps most importantly, when we really understand narrative distance, we can vary it to suit our whims.
As with all things, the key is knowing what your readers expect, and how to meet those expectations.
Because once we can do that, we can follow or break the rules with abandon—controlling the reader’s experience and keeping them right in the palm of our hand.
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Great perspective. The immersion into a character's mind, to me, is the great benefit of fiction (and it's noticeable when it's absent, esp in 1st). And not just to the reader, but the writer, too.
I've found a surprising amount of joy in inventing a new human, then moving in: feeling their feelings, thinking their thoughts, making their decisions, etc. It's fun to lean into all that, to try to embody whatever weird, neurotic thoughts would be inside that human.
I really liked the before and after sections in this article. That helped me understand the concepts more clearly. I feel like this is A+ level editing advice, explaining the conceptual underpinning and not just critiquing the words on the page.