Third Person "Cinematic" and "Character" Viewpoints

I actually dealt with third person "cinematic" and "character" viewpoints when I was discussing how to handle a third person narrative.

Here is a quick recap of what I said:

• In a typical 3rd person scene, you begin with the narrator "setting the scene" using their neutral and non-opinionated voice.

• Next, you home-in on the specific location where the action is about to take place, and in particular on the viewpoint character.

• Finally, you slip into the viewpoint character's skin, showing the scene through their eyes and giving the reader access to their thoughts.

Another way of putting it is that you actually use two viewpoints in a typical 3rd person scene:

• First, you use the "cinematic" viewpoint.
• Then, once you have slipped into the viewpoint character's skin, you use the "character" viewpoint.

So why have I mentioned them both here as less common viewpoint options? Simply because it is possible to tell an entire novel using just one of these options.

Let's look at these 2 options in turn...

Third Person "Cinematic" Point of View

If you choose to write your novel using nothing but a 3rd person "cinematic" point of view, you will never slip inside a character's skin at all...

• Everything will be shown from the outside, in the narrator's neutral and non-opinionated voice.

• The reader will never have access to a character's thoughts and feelings, except for those thoughts and feelings which reveal themselves through a character's dialogue or their body language or their actions.

Why would you want to use such a restrictive viewpoint for a whole novel? Good question - and in all honesty, you probably wouldn't! After all, the great advantage that novels hold over movies is precisely this ability to show characters from the "inside."

But if you were writing a novel about, I don't know, a cold and unfeeling sociopath, the 3rd person cinematic viewpoint could be an effective way of communicating this coldness.

Another possibility is to use the third person cinematic viewpoint not for an entire novel but for a portion of it...