Mastering Third Person Limited Point of View: Four Options and Four Examples

One decision you’ll need to make before starting your first draft is what point of view (perspective) to write from.

A hugely popular option is third person limited point of view, and while you might have a rough idea what that means, it can cover quite a range of approaches and styles.

Before we dig into some examples, let’s quickly pin down what exactly “third person limited” means.

What is the Third Person Limited Point of View?

Third person is when we write using third person pronouns. “He did this” not “I did this.”

First-person is the “I” perspective and second-person is the “you” perspective: rarely used in fiction, though it can work well for short pieces.

When we say third person limited, we’re restricting our narrative to a single character’s perspective at a time. 

This contrasts with third person omniscient, where the omniscient narrator can move between characters at will or describe a wide-ranging scene where characters might be miles apart.

Often, you’ll hear “third person limited” described as though there’s only one way to write from this perspective. But there are quite a few distinct ways to approach it, based on how close the narrative is to the character’s own thoughts.

We’re going to dig into how those work, with an example of third person limited perspective for each.

Four Different Types of Third Person Limited

1. (Closest) Third Person Limited With the Character’s Voice Throughout

Half the time her daddy got to drinking, Andy and Andy’s cousin Ryan were involved, never mind it was a dry county. Andy kept all kinds of liquor out back in his van for everywho wanted it and knew to ask. The good stuff came from over the country line, in Andrews. The best stuff, though, was the stuff Fran’s daddy made. Everyone said that Fran’s daddy’s brew was too good to be strictly natural. Which was true. When he wasn’t getting right with God, Fran’s daddy got up to all kinds of trouble.

From “The Summer People” in Get In Trouble, Kelly Link

Like a strongly voiced first-person narrative, third person limited allows for the possibility of bringing your character’s speech patterns and ways of phrasing things into the narrative itself. This goes beyond just giving their thoughts: who they are is shaping everything you write.

In that example from Kelly Link’s short story “The Summer People”, the viewpoint character Fran has an odd, old-fashioned way of speaking that comes through in both her dialogue and the narrative itself.

Sometimes, this is called “deep” point of view. You don’t necessarily have to go as far as that example in using voice for a deep POV, though. So long as you’re sticking with words and phrases they’d use, you’re still in this deep perspective.

If you’re using an unreliable narrator in the third person POV, it could work well to have their thoughts and perspective colour the narrative like this.

2. Third Person Limited With Indirect Thoughts

Rosemary, propped against her pillows, sits very still. Suddenly she’s warm, all the way through. Once, they had bought books one at a time, and read aloud so they would experience the pleasure of the pages, the first time, together. She’s not sure when they stopped. When they got too busy, she supposes. Or when owning a book became less of a luxury.

From Found in a Bookshop, Stephanie Butland

This might seem quite close to the “deep” POV example above, but there’s a crucial difference. We have “she supposes” here. In a deeper, closer third person narrative, we wouldn’t have phrases like “she supposes”, “she feels”, “she thinks” and so on.

Using indirect thoughts still keeps us close to the character. We get to see inside their head, though the thoughts are expressed in the third person – she’s not sure when they stopped rather than I’m not sure when we stopped.

3. Third Person Limited With Direct Thoughts

“Starling, Clarice M., good morning,” he said.

“Hello.” Her smile was only polite.

“Nothing’s wrong. I hope the call didn’t spook you.”

“No.” Not totally true, Starling thought.

From Silence of the Lambs, Thomas Harris

Another popular option is to give your character’s direct thoughts as internal dialogue, usually written in italics as above.

While you might think this perspective is more closely inside the character’s head than giving their thoughts indirectly, it actually tends to have a distancing effect. Their thoughts are clearly set apart from the rest of the narrative, like dialogue would be. We’re further from a “deep” POV here.

4. (Most Detached) Third Person Objective

Another approach to third person limited point of view is to take a purely objective viewpoint, not showing your character’s thoughts at all—just what they see and do.

In practice, I’ve struggled to find any examples of this that don’t shade into omniscient perspective (showing what multiple characters are doing). By avoiding delving into your character’s mind at all, you may also limit opportunities to show their character development.

Personally, I feel a solely objective perspective means missing out! I think one of the most unique aspects of short stories and novels, compared with other forms of storytelling like plays, films, and TV series, is the ability they have to get inside a character’s head.

But it’s a perspective you might want to experiment with, and it’s a useful one to at least know about, so I wanted to at least mention it here.

Single or Multiple Third Person Limited Perspectives

You can have just one third person limited point of view in your story: your main character. But many authors want to write from multiple perspectives, bringing in different characters’ points of view as the story progresses.

That might be through a split narrative where you have two POV characters of equal weighting, or you might go further and have multiple point of view characters (possibly not as many as George R.R. Martin…)

If you do have multiple third person narrators, it’s important to avoid “head hopping” where you dart too quickly between different points of view. It’s fine to switch perspectives, but you need to be fully in control of this — and normally, it makes sense to switch at the end of a scene, or perhaps just once within a scene.

You’ll also want to think about what information each character knows, any information they might be hiding from others, and how this might make for conflict or set up plot twists.

Third Person Limited or First Person Point of View?

A deep or close third person limited perspective can seem very similar to a first-person point of view. But it still carries a bit of extra distance, and some readers (and writers!) simply prefer a third person narrative style.

If you’re not sure whether the first or third person perspective is right for your piece, try writing a scene each way. What rings more true? What do you feel will be the best narrative perspective for the story you’re telling?

It’s also important to consider your genre. Some genres tend to use first-person POV, like YA and romance. While you don’t have to stick to these conventions, it’ll likely make it easier to get your story published and read.

But in many cases, third person limited works well. And, as we saw in the examples above, you can experiment with different degrees of closeness to your characters.

If you want more on perspective and point of view, take a look at:

Choosing the Right Viewpoint and Tense for Your Fiction [With Examples] – This post gives an overview of first person, third person, and second person perspectives, with examples of each. It also digs into whether to use past vs present tense.

Choosing Viewpoint Characters: What’s Right for Your Story? – Which characters should get to be POV characters in your story? It’s not always an easy decision, and this post explores some key considerations – and what to do if you feel your viewpoint isn’t quite working.