Limited Third Person explained (hopefully!)

A lot of students managed to establish their limited third person viewpoint without taking advantage of that. Once you’ve established a viewpoint character, even if you’re going to alternate viewpoint character from chapter to chapter, you can give your reader direct access to their thoughts and feelings. This avoids unnecessary repetition of pronouns or your character’s name. It also leads you to less telling and more showing.

Here’s an extract from Christos Tsiolkas’ Slap. It’s told from the viewpoint of Rosie, the mother of the child who has been slapped. See how Tsiolkas establishes the viewpoint character and then speaks directly from her voice. Can you also please notice that this is told in the simple past but we it read as the fictional present. The immediacy is created in the writing, not by the tense.

…Hugo had already watched it [Finding Nemo] right through earlier in the day. It had become his favourite over the last few weeks and now she too almost knew it by heart. Sometimes she would pretend to be Dory to his Nemo. She wished he could be in the bath with her (except it would be too hot for him, the little fella). They could pretend to be Dory and Nemo, under the water, in the pretty sapphire world underneath the sea. She’d pretend to be Dory, forgetting everything he told her, trying not to giggle as Hugo got more and ore excited and frustrated.

Her eyes flung open. Damn. It was around lunchtime that she received the letter, just after she had come back from the park with Hugo. Rosie had gone pale as she read the dry words stating the date and time for the hearing to be held at the Magistrates Court in Heidelberg.