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Topic : Re: How to write a scene in third person limited when the POV character is not in it? I am studying the third person POV for my novel. I read about the third person limited POV. I don't understand - selfpublishingguru.com

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I suspect your biggest hang-up is not understanding it's possible to have a book with multiple third-person limited PoVs. If your book has an extremely important scene without which the story makes no sense, but lacks the main character for plot reasons, you could tell the scene from a different character's (third-person limited) PoV.
However, don't overuse this trick and relay all important plot information via one-off characters whom the reader meets once and then never sees again. The reader generally wants to know what goes on inside a viewpoint character's head, and if there are too many characters to keep track of this becomes too difficult.
As an alternative to putting information out on the page directly, consider sprinkling a breadcrumb trail of clues for the reader (and viewpoint character) to piece together. If the heroes in a fantasy novel are two thousand miles from the siege evil orc overlord Bargzhuil-Gro-Gorgak lays on the Empire's capital city, you could switch to the overlord's perspective for that scene. Or, you can have the heroes arrive two weeks later and find a city in ruins, orc and human soldiers rotting out in the field, ravens pecking at dead eyes. Either option communicates the same information.


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