The third person limited omniscient is a narrative mode. In this mode, the reader and writer observe the situation from the outside through the senses and thoughts of a single character, although that focal character may shift throughout the course of any given narrative. Furthermore, there is no implied fictional intermediary between the reader and the story, as there would be in the case of a fictional newspaper article with an implied fictional reporter. Shortcut: WP:-( Vandalism is indisputable bad-faith addition, deletion, or change to content, made in a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of the encyclopedia. ... Shortcut: WP:-( Vandalism is indisputable bad-faith addition, deletion, or change to content, made in a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of the encyclopedia. ... In literature, a focal character is the character around whom the events of the story revolve. ...

Although first person fictional narratives are popular as well, the third person is seen as the current preferred voice in fiction, with the prominent exception of most detective and some police procedural novels.

While an omniscient point of view can change viewpoint characters instantly, the limited omniscient point of view narrative limits narration to what can be known, seen, thought, or judged from a single character's perspective. Thus, the narration is limited in the same way a first person narrative might be, but the text is in third person. In literature and storytelling, a point of view is the related experience of the narrator — not that of the author. ...

Henry James, who used the third person limited omniscient narrative in his novel The Ambassadors and coined the phrase "effaced narration" to describe it, believed this could create high art, and contemporary literary writers seem to agree. The effaced narrator dominates contemporary literary art. James pointed out that in effaced narration, the art consisted of varying the reader's psychological distance from the action, bringing the reader in close for high drama, and further out for ordinary events. For other uses of this name, see Henry James (disambiguation). ... The Ambassadors is a 1903 novel by Henry James, originally published as a serial in the North American Review. ...

Example

Murgatroyd met Madeline on New Year's Eve in 2002. He went to a party and she opened the door. Her hair! Only a goddess could have hair so fine.

The alert reader will notice that the final sentence is in the mind of the character, yet is not identified as a thought. The style has become psychologically close.

An omniscient narrator might report on Madeline's thoughts or events in Beijing, but in effaced narration we stay with Murgatroyd. In this way, the writer is forced to be artful to supply a reader with all that must be known while keeping the experience of reading to be closer to how we in fact experience life--through a single pair of eyes, a single set of ears, one mind, etc.

Exapmles in Literature

- Most Michael Crichton novels - A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin - Harry Potter by J. K. Rowling Michael Crichton (born October 23, 1942, pronounced [1]) is an American author, film producer, film director, and television producer. ... A Song of Ice and Fire (commonly abbreviated as ASoIaF) is a series of epic fantasy novels by American author George R. R. Martin. ... George Raymond Richard Martin, sometimes called GRRM, born September 20, 1948 in Bayonne, New Jersey is an American author and screenwriter of science fiction, horror, and fantasy. ... This article is about the Harry Potter series of novels. ... Joanne Rowling OBE (born 31 July 1965[1]) is an English fiction writer who writes under the pen name J. K. Rowling. ...

See also

• Point of view (literature)
• Narrator