Third person also gives the writer more freedom to choose the style and tone of the prose as we aren't limited to the character's voice as we are in first person, where the character is telling their own story. In short, the prose can be a whole lot prettier than how the character talks. And when it comes to process, third person is especially useful when an author writes from personal material; it gives the writer the necessary distance to transform that story into fiction.
On the downside, that narrative distance means we don't get the up-close-and-personal experience of first person. And, of course, third person can lead to the head-hopping problem you'll see discussed in lesson two of this unit. Even when using third person limited, following just one character, it's easy to accidently drift into another POV when using third person.
You don’t have to stick to one point of view to write a novel or short story. You can write from two or more points of view. Sometimes that means alternating point of view chapters, where we get character A’s POV in one chapter, then character B’s POV, back to character A and so on. Other times we can write more than one point of view within the same chapter. Either way, writing a multiple POV narrative is tricky and takes a lot of skill, but you can learn how to do it, especially if you take the time to study multiple-POV stories by other authors.
When working with any kind of multiple POV narrative, transitions are so very important. You really need to make it clear to the reader that you’re switching to a new point of view. A common problem when shifting POV is head-hopping, where we jump from one character’s head to another within the same scene or even within the same paragraph. As the link below suggests, head-hopping is one of the most common problems writers face. So, even in a multiple POV narrative, you want to focus on just one POV at a time.
My approach in The Spawning Grounds, for example, was to stick to one point of view per chapter, for the most part. When I had two points of view within the same chapter, I sometimes indicated the change in point of view with a space and then made it clear which POV we were now following.
Example really is the best teacher. Look at the books on your bookshelf and you’ll likely find multiple POV narratives there. Read carefully to see how the author accomplished the transitions between points of view.
