In this article we'll consider:
Point of view as we know it
Understanding narrative distance
How narrative distance impacts your story
Using narrative distance to your advantage
Narrative distance techniques
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As a fiction writer, you spend a lot of your time and energy crafting complex characters whose flaws, strengths, and development drive intriguing plotlines. You prune realistic, effective dialogue, cultivate intricate visuals of your settings, and follow the beats of plot structure religiously.
Throughout all of this, you try your best not to "colour outside the lines" of your chosen point of view (POV), even if that means certain techniques are unavailable to you. However, by doing so, might you be missing something?
Might you be so confined by the perceived "rules" of your chosen perspective that you glance over something much more crucial than POV when it comes to whether your narrative hits the mark with readers or not?
And that is, the power – and, more importantly, flexibility - of narrative distance.
Point of view as we know it
First a quick rundown of what we usually mean when we refer to point of view, which is the narrator's position in relation to the story being told. The primary types of POV are:
First Person: The narrator is most often a character within the story, using "I" or "we" to describe events.
Second Person: The narrator addresses the reader as "you", making the reader a character in the story.
Third Person: The narrator tells the story from either a close perspective of a single character or a number of characters, or objectively as an observer, in all cases using "he", "she" or "they".
But as David Jauss explains in On Writing Fiction: Rethinking Conventional Wisdom About the Craft, writers (and even writing-craft textbooks) often confuse "person" point of view (first, second, third) with narrative techniques - such as omniscience - which is, in various ways, accessible to all POVs.
Such limitation results in some techniques being pigeonholed into particular POVs, while others are mistakenly discounted under the assumption to use them might break with consistency of perspective.
According to Jauss, most textbooks focus on POV in terms of "the angle of perception - who's telling the story - instead of the various degrees of depth available within that angle." A work of fiction, as Jauss goes on to discuss, is far more complex than simply categorizing it according to first, second or third person.
Think about it. This could just be me, but when I consider my favourite books from over the years, I can't recall necessarily whether they were written in first person or third - what I do remember, vividly, is how they made me feel. And that has little to do with the POV "person", and everything to do with technique - specifically narrative distance.
Understanding narrative distance: where are you positioning the camera and why?
Simply put, narrative distance is the gap between your narrator and the characters or events in your story. It's where you position the camera - moving in for a close-up, or zooming out for a wider view.
Your narrative distance choices significantly influence how your story is told and received. But unlike your fixed-position "person" narrator, narrative distance is fluid and changes throughout your story, sometimes throughout each scene.
Think of it as a spectrum, ranging from intimate closeness to detached observation. When a narrative perspective is close, readers feel as if they are experiencing the events and emotions of the characters as though they themselves are those characters (it doesn't get closer than that). Conversely, a distant narrative gives a broader, more objective overview, allowing readers to understand events with more intellectual rather than emotional involvement.
And that's the key to bear in mind - emotion. How much to evoke and when.
Consider narrative distance as a weapon you can deploy in different ways throughout your story, according to how you want readers to feel in any given scene or moment. Bring your readers in closer when you want to ramp up the feels; or step back to allow them breathing space or reflection time so they can interpret your story's events in their own way.
As Jauss says, "however singular and consistent the person of a story may be, the techniques that truly constitute point of view are inevitably multiple and shifting."
So in what ways might a shift in distance impact your story?
Emotional engagement: As we've said, in general, close narrative distances foster emotional connections, drawing readers into the characters' experiences. This is useful for scenes that rely on deep emotional impact; for example, a character's inner struggle with their sexuality, low self-esteem, or a deep hurt. However, if by a certain point in the narrative your characters are firmly established - meaning your readers have had time to become familiar with them and attached to them - emotional scenes narrated from a greater distance may prove just as effective, as readers infer what the characters themselves are yet to acknowledge. For example, denial following the death of a loved one.
Reflection and insight: Greater narrative distance allows for increased reflection and commentary. By zooming out for a short while, you're giving readers a chance to step off the emotional gas, observe from a more objective viewpoint, and comprehend the story's broader themes and contexts. The best books are those that allow room for readers to draw their own individual conclusions.
Flexibility and focus, hide and reveal: Varying narrative distance within a story can shift focus, highlight different aspects of the plot, and manage the pacing. By manipulating narrative distance, writers control how much information is revealed, and how readers perceive events and characters. In genres such as mystery, for example, narrative distance is a delicate dance between hide and reveal, just as much (if not more so) from an intellectual standpoint as an emotional one. As the plot progresses, we want readers to get closer to the truth, but not so close the cat is out of the bag too soon or too easily.
Stylistic choices: The choice of narrative distance is also a stylistic decision that contributes to the voice and overall tone of your story. It influences how the narrative feels in any given moment, whether intimate, authoritative, reflective, or detached.
Using narrative distance to your advantage
As second-person POV is rarely used by novelists, here we'll take a look at ways in which narrative distance techniques could, and have been, applied to both first- and third-person narratives.
First person
We often think of first-person POV as the closest we can get to our characters - allowing readers to deeply connect with the narrator's inner world. It's highly effective for character-driven stories where emotional engagement is paramount. For example, in J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield’s first-person narration directed at the reader pulls us into his tumultuous teenage mind.
As such, it would seem as if we couldn't get any closer to Caulfield. But in fact he is selective about what he tells us: "I'm not going to tell you my whole goddam autobiography or anything"; "Where I want to start telling is the day I left Pencey Prep."
He sets out his stall from the very first page, giving us the impression we're only going to learn as much as he chooses to tell us, thus putting a step of distance between himself and us, the readers, that he can manipulate according to his mood in each scene - whether he'll allow us to see his vulnerability and whether he won't.
So while Caulfield's first-person narration seemingly allows us close access in one sense, we're actually left to read between the lines (via what he says or doesn't say, his actions and interactions with others) to get to the real truth of who he is.
Consider if Salinger had written Caulfield's narration as a straightforward telling of his innermost thoughts, feelings, vulnerabilities, and fears, without the adolescent bravado. The novel would have been a lot poorer for it. As it is, we're able to watch events unfold from his viewpoint whilst simultaneously observing him from a step away; the effect of this "close-distance" is profound, as we instead infer his vulnerability and defensiveness, which in turn endears him to us. We can see what he perhaps isn't yet able to.
So as this demonstrates, first person doesn't necessarily always mean close. Your first-person narrator can pull us in or push us back as they see fit.
Likewise, in On Writing Fiction, Jauss refers to a scene in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby where its first-person narrator, Carraway, "assumes an omniscient understanding of Gatsby", retelling a scene that took place between Gatsby and another character at which Carraway himself wasn't present.
In narrating the scene, Carraway uses his own voice rather than Gatsby's: "The quiet lights in the houses were humming out into the darkness and there was a stir and bustle among the stars. Out of the corner of his eye Gatsby saw that the blocks of the sidewalks really formed a ladder and mounted to a secret place above the trees..."
Who says we can't use third-person omniscience in a first-person narrative? ;)
Third person
It is third-person narration that we often divide into omniscient (conventionally all-seeing all-knowing), limited omniscient (focalized through one character or a select few), and objective (a retelling of unfolding events not attached to any character).
But as we've seen, omniscience can, in the unconventional sense, even be used by first-person narrators; the first-person narrator temporarily donning the identity of another character.
There's no denying, though, that writing in third person gives us a plethora of opportunities to manipulate narrative distance, given that we have a greater flexibility of range. If we choose, we can closely follow one character’s experiences, thoughts, and emotions, similar to first person but with the flexibility of an outside narrator - thus balancing intimacy and objectivity, as demonstrated in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series.
Or we can go to the other extreme, and report events and dialogue without ever delving into the characters' thoughts and feelings; for example, the objective narrative of The Maltese Faction by Dashiell Hammett.
But just as with first person, conventional ideas of POV and narrative distance can be manipulated here, too, in order to create the desired effect. Let's take Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five as an example. In essence, the novel is narrated in third person, focusing primarily on protagonist Billy Pilgrim. However, Vonnegut occasionally shifts to the first person, inserting himself (as author) into the narrative.
At several points in the book, Vonnegut explicitly mentions his real-life presence at certain events, such as the bombing of Dresden, and his struggle to write the book. Whilst this is a subversive shift in POV and one that would have conventionalists quaking, this unusual shift in narrative distance (along with its time-jumping format) reinforces the book's commentary on the difficulties of representing traumatic experiences.
Whilst I'd only suggest going to such extremes - in commercial genre fiction, in particular - only with good cause, Vonnegut's use of these narrative techniques creates a distinctive approach, enhancing the novel's exploration of its themes. For our benefit, it proves that narrative perspective is not simply about which person is telling the story, but about the techniques we employ to influence the impact we want our story to have on readers.
Here are some techniques Jauss lists in his book for manipulating narrative distance, which he fits into the categories of Outside and Inside (the characters):
Dramatic/objective - no characters' thoughts or feelings, a relaying of events (Outside)
Omniscience - thoughts and feelings of either a single character or multiple (Outside and Inside)
Indirect interior monologue - narrator using character's language to describe character's thoughts (Outside and Inside)
Direct interior monologue - character's direct thoughts and feelings (Inside)
Stream of consciousness - associative movement of thoughts (Inside)
Reliability or unreliability of narrator (Inside)
Breaking through the "fourth wall", addressing reader (Inside)
Finally...
Narrative distance is a subtle yet powerful tool in your writing arsenal. By understanding and manipulating its techniques, you can craft stories that resonate deeply, engage thoroughly, and provide varied perspectives regardless of your chosen "person" POV.
Whether aiming for the intimate connection of a close scene, or the sweeping overview of a distant one, the fluidity of narrative distance within point of view is effective for creating rich, immersive fiction, taking our readers on a rollercoaster of emotions that peaks and troughs in all the right places.
I highly recommend David Jauss's book for a more detailed investigation into this topic and many others.
Jauss, D. (2011), On Writing Fiction: Rethinking Conventional Wisdom About the Craft, Writer's Digest Books, an imprint of F+W Media, Inc., Cincinnati, Ohio
Salinger, J.D. (1994 ed.), The Catcher in the Rye, Penguin Books, London
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Tina Williams of Fiction Yogi is a copyeditor and proofreader who works with writers at all stages, giving them the tools to improve their manuscript and level up their writing so they can meet their publishing goals.
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