For my future reference :) 0:56 - What is psychic distance? 2:20 - Examples of a range of distances 4:20 - You don't always need to have the closest distance 6:00 - Mistakes that will distance your narrative (1) 7:49 - Mistakes that will distance your narrative - Filters (2) 8:38 - Head hopping and leaky information 9:45 - Looking at the character from an external view point 10:22 - Voice 11:06 - Direct Thoughts 12:52 - Witholding thoughts, emotions 13:57 - First Person

I feel like Reedsy is writing 101 while this channel is the masterclass. Thank you for another great vid! I knew about different POV options & how they're generally used, just never thought of them as points on a spectrum of psychic distance & never paid attention to the viewpoint mistakes or distance I might accidentally create within a scene. The whole concept opens up a lot of possibilities I never considered before!

Awesome video; I am bookmarking it for use in a future class. One aspect of psychic distance that you didn't talk about: distance created by time. For instance, Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird" is a story told in the first person by an older version of the character Scout, who is reminiscing about events that took place in her childhood. It's still pretty darn close, as the narrator and the character are technically the same person, but distance is created through the benefit of hindsight, and the storytelling will occasionally make use of information that the young Scout would not have (such as Bob Ewell being fired from a public works project, and that this was a unique circumstance for the 1930s). This is different from a book like Laurie Halse Anderson's "Speak," where we experience events in the present tense as the narrator experiences them. The novel is written in a stream of consciousness fashion that is meant to mimic the thought process of a traumatized teenager. It is extremely close (even uncomfortably so, given the book's subject matter) and creates no distance. Both books are written in the first person, but the element of time makes a big difference in the psychic distance of each story.

You always come up with the most useful and informative writing advice. I feel like when I'm looking for new advice it's just the same things hashed over and over again. I always learn something new from you. Glad to be a subscriber.

I'm 12, and I'm writing a fiction novel. I kinda started it when I was nine, before I knew all this. I'm now watching these videos and filtering my story- and I'm sure it's already exponentially better than the first draft. Great Videos, and useful information. Thanks, Shaelin!

"God being the narrator, because as writers we all want power trips, and wanna be deities of our own little worlds." Golly gosh that got dark! 😅

Third person objective might be unusual in novels but if you want to write a screenplay, it's obligatory, and there is an art to revealing the emotional life of characters without direct access to their thoughts. You can show what information they attend to, which information stops them in their tracks, etc. in a way that exposes their thought processes. But you have to do that in a novel too with every other character aside from the protagonist when writing in the first person or when writing the kind of third person where the narrator only has access to the thoughts of the protagonist. In either of these cases, the emotional life of every other character aside from the protagonist has to be conveyed with only the tools that would be available in the third person objective, so I wouldn't downplay it as unusual. There's an important set of skills there.

Can you make a video about character arcs and / or one about what happens in the writing process after finishing the first draft?

This video allows me to explain something that I find really annoying from many others. It's when they are essentially writing in first person but they are using the third person structure. If you just want to write in first person then just write in first person

I always watch till the end when the video begins "this is the most useful thing I have learned in my whole writing degree". I feel good about saving money and time.

even though i believe i was aware of it instinctively, i've never heard about this concept in theory before and it's genuinely fascinating to learn more about. being conscious of it means there is a way to avoid it that is more effective than just staring at the page and going, _what the hell am i doing_ bc you can't pinpoint what exactly is so jarring to you.

Can you do a video on the difference between "head hopping" and 3rd Person Omniscient POV?

I love this video, it's comprehensive and accessible at the same time. I would like to note that it's a viable technique to increase your psychic distance immediately after a traumatic or emotionally fraught scene, as a way to convey that your character is either disoriented or emotionally drained after experiencing something monumental. For example, the dominant refrain in the Hamilton musical after a traumatic event is, "It's quiet uptown." Because, you know, what else is there to say?

The YA novel No Kidding by Bruce Brooks was written completely in third person objective. The reader never hears a character's thoughts. We are left to surmise their thoughts and feelings based on what they do and say. For example, there's a scene that says "Ollie begins to jiggle a leg," which suggests that he's nervous, and as the story progresses toward the end we realize that he was nervous because he wasn't being entirely truthful with his brother. I'm not even sure if the novel is still in print.

I am in love with your videos! Thank you so so much you helped me a lot! Please keep going!

This is brilliant!! Love your channel. Thanks Shaelin.

love your videos! really inspires me to continue writing my story!

Thank you for this! Amazing job explaining this topic!

This is awesome! I don't think I've seen anyone cover this on youtube! You explain it so well, thank you! (All of this is new to me!)

13:34 feel the rain on your skin no one else can feel it for you only you can let it in no one else, no one else- ok im done but i had to

My friend wrote in third person objective and his stories were so boring. It was like a camera following a person around. It turned out, my friend wasn't able to imagine how people feel or how they would react to situations.

I just found you and all I got to say is wow! Very useful and insiteful information here! Thank you thank you thank YOU!

I'm half way through reading 'A Place Of Greater Safety' by Hilary Mantel. Having watched your video earlier it's made me realise how she plays with the reader by switching between different viewpoints including 3rd limited, 3rd omniscient & 1st in different chapters. A lesser writer wouldn't pull it off, but together with her sparse and punchy prose it makes for a powerful reading experience.

Please make a video on how to decide and keep a story tone! I would appreciate your point of view! Love this video btw!

This is a great series of videos. Almost every time, when it starts, I'm like, "lol this is writing 101, why am I watching this?" But then, every time, it reaches a level of insight and detail that is beneficial and profound. It reminds me of reading Ibn Khaldoun or Imam Ghazali. Well done.

I always default to close 3rd or more rarely close 1st. It never even crossed my mind to do omniscient, which had been drummed into my head as outdated and bad, etc. But recently I've been reading some works by Mary Renault and other older writers and they actually sort of zoom in and out with the psychic distance and even though they follow one main character they have these brief asides where they basically hop into the head of another character/let the reader know what's going on for them, and it honestly works really well, like it really enriches the story. So I'm kind conflicted because of all the writing advice saying head hopping is bad bad bad

i love watching your videos so much, even though a lotof the time most of it goes way over my head lmao you have a very encapsulating way of talking into the camera

Thank you this was so great!!!

Also I would love to see a new video about Infodump. Maybe an updated version especially from 1st point of view. I struggle a lot with it

This was really helpful, especially with the diagrams, thanks :)

I love this! Subscribed!

Thanks for your valuable information ❤️

Awesome video and Thumbs up *though i'm hoping KZfaq won't put psychic videos in my recommended list now lol

great video, it gave me some ideas to experiment with

I use 3rd person objective in small doses. Mainly, I use it for naval and space battles when I need to show what's going on outside the ship. (Otherwise, I write in Free and Direct Narrative - which I didn't know there was a name for until no so thank you!) Sometimes I use it for "establishing shots". I'm pretty sure it found its way into my prose when I took a film and television class and learned a tiny bit about screenwriting. One thing I'm working on at the moment is portraying stuff my viewpoint character perceives through their sense of proprioception without relying on filters. Because "she felt that her rifle was a few inches from her fingertips" sounds stupid and probably doesn't make sense to a reader with normal spatial awareness. It's so hard!

You are such a ood teacher!!

Ooh those dark circles due to late night hardwork ahhaha. thank you! This was very helpful, gosh. I had no idea what pyschic distance is, had never heard of it before, and then boom, in twenty minutes, you made me realise this is what I have been missing. Thanks again for YOUR devotion and hard work.

Awesome! Thanks!

The only time I've ever purposely distanced an otherwise consistently close 3rd person narrative was when the point of view character experienced psychosis. Obligatory "I experience psychosis so this may not be true to everyone but it's true to me"-a lot of my psychotic symptoms will revolve around the idea that I am being watched and judged by an invisible audience, or otherwise that I am a character more than I am a human being, functionally unpersoning myself in the process. Sometimes my own thoughts will start narrating everything I do as if my brain is separate from my body. It can get very weird! And while this isn't the exact way I wrote my character's psychosis, it's a bit similar, as far as the unpersoning goes, which meant writing a scene with a very deliberate change in distance that, hopefully, is jarring in the way that it's supposed to be, rather than jarring in the "I royally fucked up this scene" way. As with most every rule of writing, finding the creative ways to break them continues to be where I have my most fun.

Excellent video, and very timely for me. Please keep up the good work - you are very articulate and insightful in sharing the fruits of your experience, talent, and education.

OMG I DID DIRECT THOUGHTS ALL THE TIME WHEN I WAS TWELVE IN MY FIRST BOOK I’m glad I don’t do it anymore

Reading and writing in the first-person irritates me, and I don't know why. Anyway, great video.

I just realized I read an incerp from The Book Thief on one of my classes. That teacher's classes are good but she kinda has her own agenda rather than letting us get to our own conclusion instead. I don't blame her, she probably doesn't think others have read it except me but once or twice she would commend me for formulating my own thoughts and analysis on the story.

Amazing video! So many learned points.

You could argue that in first person, if the character's personality or voice is very different from the reader's, it will create more distance than most third person narrators would. But most of the time, you're right: the first person kind of tricks the brain into thinking it's about itself, because of how the brain interprets language (mechanisms like subvocalization).

Just came across this - thanks Shaelin, it is really useful. As a new writer, this has definitely been the most challenging thing to incorporate into my writing. I wrote a 400 page novel and am now having to go back and rewrite whole sections of it. Psychic distance is the aspect that is giving me the most heartburn! How do you decide which distance to use? It make sense to me to use close distance when you really want to arrow in on a character's thoughts, emotions, turmoil etc. Similarly a greater distance when filling in backstory, worldbuilding etc. It is the middle ones that are making me second-guess everything. When you are writing, what is your decision-making process regarding this - or do you just let it flow and tweak it in editing/ reviewing?

Shaelin "Wanting to be deities of their own little world" Me sitting at my desktop: YOU FOOLS *evil laugh*

Could you make a video discussing how to write multiple main characters in the same story?

it’s “points of view”, love ☺️

Nice video and nice channel

About 3rd person Objective never being used-I think Hemingway would have something to say about that. In particular his short story Hills Like White Elephants is an example (can be found online). And while I agree it isn't something I'd like to use for an entire story, it can be used very effectively for certain parts of story, usually at the beginning or end of a story or a scene or chapter. For instance to show the murder of a victim at the beginning of a detective novel.

20:23 When I've read this ( _Willow_ by Hoban), and because it was a present-tense narrative, It gave me the feeling that it was first person and not third. And that the character was one of those people who constantly refers to themselves in the third person. That is, the protagonist is a bit cracked.

Aaaah, third person objective is what you use for screenwriting and that was why my writing didn’t feel like prose for so long. I actually default to writing third objective because I’m used to screenplay but it feels so _wrong_ in prose, it just feels like screenplay with integrated dialogue tags. It even felt that way to me as I wrote it, but I didn’t know that was the problem, I only just realized watching this that what actually fixed that weird coldness was my intentional switch to first person.

Interesting.

I would like a video about fantasy stories and how to make a fantasy book that stands out. I would like to hear you opinions about fantasy cliches and tropes. You are the most important person to me as a writers. You inspire me to write and your tips are really useful to me. I just want to thank you for that. I'm doin my first draft right now and it wouldn't be anything without you. Thank you.

I would love to see a video about mixing POV in a novel. Say one character is in Third Person, and the other is in First Person. Can that be done well?

I'm at a spot in my story where it's coming to a climax. The protagonist is falling under an evil spell. Her aunt, having been released from evil spell, wants spell power back but sort of knows better. The protagonist's mom is freaking out her daughter is falling under an evil spell. Dad turns into warlock while everyone is arguing over spell. Etc, etc. All heck is breaking loose. How do I maintain POV when all these characters are vying for power and/or redemption at the same time?

That part about using pronouns is sooo true! XD I used to say the boy, the woman, the elf, etc about the characters all the time. Then it was pointed out a noob thing and I was like... Crap! I do this a lot. Been editing that away a TON. XD Also been editing to remove a lot of filter words (he saw, she heard, they noticed, he felt...)

I believe that 3rd person can be as close as 1st, but It's very hard to write that way. But if you take something written in 1st and change the pronouns to 3rd, do you think that affects the distance in a measurabile way? Perhaps this is what you refered to at the very end of the video?

Hi I like your video.

I think that close third person and first person is equally close. Only difference is that in third person I can be close to more than one character through the book.

So point of view from the first person, where basically the perspective and the author is the same, like a stream of thought, but also there's direct thought in italics too. No like ' this is outrages', she thought' but like 'This is outrageous.' That's it. Is that bad? I always used thoughts since I love writing in the first person. Is that so bad? I mean...I feel like it's going in when you're already in but deeper if that makes sense.

I've never heard about this consept before! Really interesting. We did learn about point of view in Norwegian lessons at school though, and I think the main example the teachers gave us for the 3rd person objective POV, was the really old, classic Norwegian books that we were forced to read and analyze to death. The "A Series of Unfortunate Events" book series has this very distinct narrator person, doesn't it? The type that knows everything, and spoils stuff to the reader before the characters even are aware of it? I read a couple of books from that series when I was a kid, and haaated them because of that annoying narrator!

my cat and I need to talk about psychic distance

I always found it funny how subtitles have your name as Jalen.

V O I C E Y

I love this, I never really thought about any of these, but I can remember having done them. Not so much any more. Something strange happened, in the last novel I worked on. It was a first person novel that I ended up using direct thoughts without filter, whilst talking with somebody, resulting in this weird 2nd person hybrid. I don't know how to feel about this. Sometimes, they are sarcastic thoughts about what that person is saying for example. What's your thoughts on this?

power Trips :D best Moment

Weird... it feels like direct thoughts would get you closer to the character, not further away from them. :O

watching this in class. really struggling.

Hi Shaelin 😊

how to write from 3rd person's point of view?

I'm confused about the difference between direct thought--which you say to avoid--and allowing the reader in on the character's thoughts. Care to clarify?

PLEASE HELP: there’s a point in my book where the villain escapes and i wanted the narrative (which is 3rd person) to follow the villain after he escapes for one chapter. would this be too jarring? please let me know

@shaelinwrites totally random question, but where are you from? Like country or state, nothing specific. Sometimes it sounds like you have an accent lol

Writing in third person, is it still reasonable to change perspectives. Say, from chapter to chapter. George R.R. Martin is the only example of this that I can think of and the extent that he goes to to note who’s perspective it is makes it seem like it isn’t very common. I’ve done it in my novel thus far but I have one character who’s perspective is used more than others so I haven’t noted change in perspective that clearly. I’m not sure what to.

I have to disagree with you there. Most third person stories that I have read have been very close and intimate with their characters and their feelings. I actually feel more disconnected when I read first person. Possibly because I can only connect to one person in those. However, most third person stories tend to not show emotions and inner monologues of less important characters and the villains (if you get to see their POV). Something I have noticed though is that YA books tends to be written in first person whereas adult books are more often in third person. Possibly because children have a harder time focusing and gettin into more than one character?

Fourth.

This sucks... Not your video but my situation. I avoided most direct thoughts in similar ways as to how you described. My editor, however, insisted that it was "telling not showing" and that I needed to use direct thoughts to avoid that... I went through, against my feelings, and changed it throughout my Middle Grade book. Hours of work, of effort, of rewording and even cutting to make that concept work. Now, I'm pissed that I listened to him.

heyyy

it literally says 4 comments but i can read like 9 comments good job youtube 😂

There is a lot of useful information in this video. Unfortunately, the rapid delivery stands in the way of absorbing the ideas. Passing the 3/4 mark of the video, I could no longer take it in. I wish for a transcript that would make it possible to follow at a comfortable pace.

You are simply rewording point of view.

First?

why do you sound like you’re on the brink of tears

are you taking care of your voice there is a lot of vocal fry.

This seems useless.