: Re: Third person omniscient or limited? This is kind of difficult to explain (im sorry if its really long) and I haven't found a question yet that addresses my exact issue. Apologies in advance

@Eichhorn147

Vote Up Vote Down

If you have thoughts of your protagonist and thoughts of other characters, then that's omniscient. If only the thoughts/feelings of your protagonist are revealed, that's limited. It seems like you want other thoughts shown, so I think that would be the omniscient route.

I think italicizing thoughts is effective and clear, not sure why that would be a problem. That way, you can use a character's name or pronoun as a tag once, and it's clear that anything following it for the next few sentences is what they're thinking. The italics make the clear distinction between thoughts and narrative, and if you use your context right you could sometimes even avoid using a tag at all, having no worry about overusing pronouns. For example:

I gazed out at the horizon line, squinting. I tilted my head. How does the sky become so beautiful at night? I thought. It's insane... Almost seems like I don't deserve it.

VS

I gazed out at the horizon line, squinting. I tilted my head. How does the sky become so beautiful at night? It's insane... Almost seemed like I don't deserve it.

(I don't know where these examples came from but you hopefully get the idea)

Also, if you're worried about rambling or being unclear, I've heard that it's good to take a break after you've written something to forget about what your intentions were when you wrote it. Then you go back to it and revise. You can also obviously get some others to read what you've written to get their opinions.

Hope this helped you a little bit - I maybe have done some random rambling myself xD. Have fun with your story.

(0)

Login to post a comment!