It’s hard to know how often this perspective is actually used because it gets overlooked quite a bit. I’ve had the five perspective classifications in my head for so long I can’t remember who first taught them to me. what I do remember is that a teacher at one point told me that this view (which I remember he referred to as third person objective and third person limited) was even less popular than second person. If the scant mention of wikipedia is any indication (it doesn’t even have its own page!), third person objective (tpo from now on because I’m lazy) has gone from unpopular to almost out of the question.
This style, like the second person, has many intrinsic restrictions. The story you get in TPO is the same kind of story you’d get from a private investigator who’s been tailing your characters. you can describe what they did and said, but you can’t give a real idea of their thoughts and motivations.
You are reading: Third person objective books
the basics of tpo are as follows: – i and we are used only in dialogue – all characters are referred to by name or by the distant pronouns he/she/they – cannot delve into the thoughts of no character, not even in his main character
for example:
He sat down in his seat at the kitchen table, placing his hands where hers had rested so many times.
“I still take care of your roses”, he said to the air.
The silence that reigned then was only broken by the ticking of the old clock hanging on the wall. he sat there for another minute and sighed.
“I should accept the fact that if you’re not back by now, you’re not going back.” she stood up and gently pushed the chair back into place. “But I still feel guilty that no one will be here to take care of the roses once I’m gone.”
All the information you get from the segment above comes from his observable actions and the words he speaks out loud. stick to that, avoiding accidentally filling in the blanks, if that’s the hardest part of typing in tpo. One advantage, however, is that you can look through anyone’s window, peek into their lives (a peek that all three third-person perspectives include).
Except for this, tpo is the most distant point of view, observing but in no way involved. Think of my researcher example: in a way, reading a book in tpo is more than a bit like reading a pi report. not that it is never used successfully. In fact, one of my favorite stories is in this narrative style: Hills Like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway, which you can read by clicking on the title. however, unless you have a great narrative idea like hemingway’s, one of the other viewpoints will probably suit you better.
see also: general point of view first person second person third person limited omniscient third person omniscient
edited to add (12/17/2016):
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In both of my assassin novels, I make use of this point of view often. for those books, discord and nemesis, the tpo perspective allows me to give readers a look at what’s going on away from the narrator. I can reveal secrets the narrator doesn’t know, or at least drop clues, and it adds suspense to the pacing of the books. Below is an example of nemesis, and it’s the first section of the book:
The violent storm slammed into the Sea of Japan, churning up waves and sending strong winds howling over the water. Those waves crashed against the shores of the small, isolated island located between Japan and the Korean peninsula. windswept trees and displaced rocks in the high mountains of the island.
Inside the Lyohwa Laboratories research facility on the northwestern edge of Etobih-lin, none of that could be heard. especially not in sublevel two.
lab six was a large windowless room with a door that could not be opened from the inside. cameras in the corners were positioned to monitor everything, with no blind spots, but at this early hour of the morning, there didn’t seem to be much to see. only one woman, wearing a white hazmat-level, full-body suit, was on the job.
hands flat on a backlit glass table, she gazed through her faceplate at the rack of glass vials in front of her, furrows on her forehead. the vials seemed to glow in the light from the table, the deep green liquid vibrating in the otherwise all-white stainless steel room. Although her gaze jumped between the vial and the tools laid out in front of her, she ignored the alerts that appeared on the wall-mounted screen to her left and the beeps from the various machines, all labeled lyolabs.
“they will kill you if this works”. the words were quiet, but the distortion of his breathing apparatus gave them an ominous rasping sound. “Whatever. At least you won’t be here anymore, right?”
As arrogant as the words sounded, her hands were shaking as she straightened up and tried to pry a vial from the shelf with a pair of tweezers. she took a deep breath, the sound made mechanical by her breather. her hands steadied. after picking it up from the shelf, he turned from her and placed it on another one on the epoxy resin workspace behind her.
Slowly, carefully, he pipetted up a small amount of the green liquid and placed three drops into the simmering brown mixture in a beaker over a lit bunsen burner. the color changed as the glittering droplets swirled and dissolved into the bubbling liquid. From a vacuum-sealed vial on the table, he measured 0.03 milligrams of an extremely fine powder. when she added it to the beaker, dark blue lines spread through the mixture like ink, but when he stirred it with a thin glass rod, the solution cleared up.
“we are almost there”.
another alert sounded through the computer speakers. the pitch was lower, a scratchy sound meant to attract attention, but he gave the screen no more than a cursory glance.
the door behind her opened; the hissing sound of the airtight seal being released would have made it obvious even if the door handle hadn’t clicked as it lowered and announced company.
A lean, muscular, olive-skinned guy dressed in a lyolab security uniform entered the room with a colt pistol in his hand. he kept it pointed at the ground.
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“I don’t care how impatient you are,” he said without turning around. “There is no possible way for me to make these machines work faster. they shoot me or let me go back to work.”
“adila?”
“who else?” she murmured. “It’s not like you idiots let me have assistants anymore.”
stopped at the screen on the wall that had been displaying a red alert box. when she saw what was written there in bold black and white Korean letters, she cursed. when she crossed the room, her steps were heavy and fast. Goodbye, we have to go. now.”
“come on. stay. to come. to work. I’m not a fucking dog!” he slammed his hand down. the stirring rod clenched in his fist shattered as he hit the counter. releasing the broken pieces, he turned. “if you want me to solve this, leave me alone and leave me, who are you?”
Although the gun-wielding newcomer was dressed like a guard, he looked to be at least twenty years old. he looked too young to be working there, but his dark eyes searched the room with purpose, and he held his colt like someone with decades of experience shooting it.
“I’m your ticket out of here if you follow me,” he said. “But the offer won’t be worth anything in about four and a half minutes.”
adila hesitated only a moment. In a burst of motion, she grabbed a flash drive and shoved it into one of the computers, triggering a command to back up the data.
“Time is running out,” the guy warned. “Is that information worth it?”
“is worth a lot more than that.” Adila poured the clear liquid from the bubbling beaker into the sink, then filled the beaker with solution from a large bottle by the sink and poured the rest of the contents of the bottle and all the vials full of green down the drain. when the computer showed the full backup of her, she ejected the flash drive and placed it in her savior’s hand.
After running a command to format the computer and wipe the drive, Adila followed the stranger out of the lab, slowly removing her hazmat suit as she walked, dropping the pieces behind her.
When the suit fell off, the body underneath became visible, and the scars on that body. old healed burns from the little finger to the elbow on the side of his left arm. a misshapen bulge that could have been a poorly treated tear. Fine lines were almost hidden in the natural creases of his neck, but they were too pale against his naturally tanned skin to disappear entirely.
“annyeong you motherfuckers,” he said as the door closed behind them.
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