So far, we’ve covered first person and gleefully skipped over second person (all you really need to know about second person is that it’s the same as Choose Your Own Adventure). This leaves us with our last two points of view—

• Third Person, Limited
• Third Person, Omniscient

Third Person, Limited—
Third person limited is told by a narrator outside the story itself while limiting the narration to one character’s vantange point. Unlike first person, where we can only see what our character sees, in third person, we can see everything the narrator sees, which can encompass things which our main character doesn’t.

That was a mouthful.

At any rate, it gives us more flexibility in terms of description. Another handy trick is that we can switch the character vantage point at certain key points (either at the start of a new chapter or after a significant scene break). While it’s possible to do the same thing in first person, it can be jarring for the reader. In third person limited, as long as the transition is done smoothly and at the right time, it’s not jarring at all.

So let’s take a look at the scene we just had with Mike, only now we’ll do it in third person limited instead of first person.

After Mike’s comment, no one spoke. Actually, they all pretty much stared at Mike and wondered why he’d yet to burst into flames from the captain’s glare.
 
Mike wondered the same thing.
 
As Mike wondered, Worf began to hover over the lieutenant. When Mike neglected to react to the hovering, Worf grabbed Mike by the shoulder and hauled him unceremoniously from his seat. Mike, of course, managed to smack his knee on the console. Hard.
 
He’d hit his knee hard enough that when Worf let go of Mike’s shoulder, expecting the wayward lieutenant to stand under his own power, Mike’s knee buckled under him and sent him straight to the deck. Now in a crumpled heap, Worf hovering over him again, Mike’s hands reached for his knee. There, he discovered that his kneecap had decided to migrate itself to the side of his leg instead of remaining at the front, where it belonged.
 
Apparently, migration wasn’t a strong suit of Mike’s body parts, and once his brain connected the collapse to the pain to the now wayward kneecap, Mike blacked out.

But wait! There’s more! Because Mike has just blacked out, this makes for a good time to switch to another character’s vantage point. How about we pay a visit to our captain?

Jean-Luc Picard stared at the now-unconscious heap of a crewmember on the deck in front of him. Around him, the rest of his crew—responsibly still conscious—did the same. In his over twenty years of captaining a starship, Picard had never encountered a moment like this. In fact, the captain still expected to wake up at any moment with a hell of a dream to tell Beverly about when she showed up for breakfast.
 
Then he realized that he’d never tell Beverly about this dream, because it would require telling her about the comment that the Starfleet-uniformed-heap had make prior to passing out.
 
Picard faintly heard someone asking him a question. He blinked and pulled himself out of his thoughts. “What was that, Mr. Worf?”
 
“Sir, what would you like me to do with him?”
 
What Picard wanted to say was fire him out of the same torpedo tube as he’d fired that shot earlier, but he didn’t say it, because he was a Starfleet Captain. Instead, withholding a significant sigh, he said, “Take him to Sickbay.”
 
“Right,” came the voice of the first officer. “We’ll let Dr. Crusher deal with him. And I definitely wouldn’t want to be Mr. Michaels when he wakes up to find himself face to face with the doctor in a fit of pique.”
 
Picard wanted to command them all to never tell Beverly about a certain comment the lieutenant had made. Picard wanted to close his eyes and have it all go away. Picard wanted to wake up and have it all be a dream. Picard wanted to wake up and have Beverly wake up next to him after a night of passion—
 
The captain quickly interrupted his thoughts and said, “Go ahead, Lieutenant. Get him to Sickbay to have that knee treated. Then remain with him and be sure he ends up in the brig afterwards.”
 
The entire bridge crew watched as Worf grabbed Mike and placed him in a fireman’s carry before entering the turbolift.
 
The doors shut.
 
“All right, show’s over, back to your duties,” Will immediately said.
 
Picard strode towards his office. “I’ll be in my ready room.”
 
“Captain, do you want to discuss what just hap—”
 
“No.” The ready room doors shut behind him before Riker could mount a protest. But Picard wanted to never discuss the matter with anyone. Ever.
 
Except now he had to contact the planet of origin of that unmanned survey ship and explain how they’d blown it to pieces instead of tractoring it into their cargo bay to be fixed as requested.
 
He found himself standing in front of the lone, long window and contemplating the dissipating cloud outside. A cloud that had once been a fine vessel, if in a bit of a state of disrepair.
 
And now there would be no way that Beverly wouldn’t find out about the lieutenant’s comment and, knowing Beverly, there would be no way for him to escape her merciless teasing over it.

 
Suddenly, the captain wanted whatever strong drink the lieutenant had imbibed the night before. But because he was a captain and had duties to which to attend, he reached for the tea he requested from the replicator. On his way back to his desk, he glanced again at the cloud outside.
 
He would’ve sworn that the damn thing looked like a pony.

Next lesson, Third Person, Omniscient and We Put Everything Together for Poor Michael.