Point of View - 3rd Person Limited (cont.)

In third person, action comes easily for most writers. Ben dashed down the street. But getting inside your character is easy, too. You just need to be aware that you need to do that. First, you can tell us what his senses know. He could hear the heavy feet pounding after him. Or you can do it this way, because if we're inside Ben we know he is the one hearing: The heavy feet pounded after him.

It's also easy to get inside Ben's head and tell us what he is thinking. One way is direct thought. Will they get me? he thought. That does the job, but it's hard to go on with direct thought for very long. It interrupts the flow of your narrative the way dialogue does. So if this chase is going to be a long one, direct thought begins to be awkward.

Most of the time what works more smoothly is indirect thought. You simply stay in the past tense and third person of your narrative and go on writing. Were they going to get him? What would happen if they did? He had been stupid to walk down that alley. Really stupid. He knew those guys always hung out there. We know that we are inside Ben's head and we are drawn into his panic.

The problem with third-person limited isn't that it's difficult to let your readers experience the world through your character. It's that action is so easy, you can easily forget to write through your character's senses, her thoughts and feelings.