Point of View and Authorial Intrusion

Avoiding Author Interruption in Third Person and other POV

Sep 8, 2009

Authorial intrusion is a literary device where the author inserts his own thoughts and opinions into the story.

Authorial intrusion occurs when the writer interjects his own personal moral views or opinions into the novel. Such intrusion was once acceptable, but as time passed it fell more and more out of favor. Today, agents and publishers more often than not frown on authorial intrusion.

Authorial Intrusion in the Victorian Novel

In Victorian literature, it was common for the author to directly address the reader. Passages that started with a phrase such as Dear Reader often digressed into a monologue designed to influence the captive reader or to inform them of the author’s own opinion on moraity or politics. These passages contained explanations and observations about the character that came directly from the author’s viewpoint, and were intended to pass judgment or to express their own views about the behavior of the characters.

Authorial Intrusion as Foretelling

Authorial intrusion was also a common device in gothic literature to serve as a foreshadowing of events to follow. .Many classic gothic novels started out with sentences such as, had she but known what terrors awaited her, she would never have traveled to Briarwood. These passages were intended to draw the reader into the story.

Authorial Intrusion and Third Person Limited Point of View

Authorial intrusion is least acceptable in a story written in third person limited point of view. Intrusion occurs when the author unintentionionally steps into the story to make a comment that is out of range of the main character’s thoughts or vision. Sometimes authorial intrusion goes by virtually undetected.

For example, in a story written from Mary's point of view, take the sentence, Mary looked so nice in her new blue dress, and wearing it boosted her confidence. Who’s saying this? Whose opinion is it? Not Mary. She is not thinking it, either. It is the author who is making an outside observation.

It would be correct to state, “I sure look nice today in my new blue dress,” Mary thought, "and my confidence is at an all-time high." In this instance, Mary is making the observation through her own thoughts. In third person limited, the thought must be connected to a character or the opinion belongs to a disembodied voice, who is breaking in with an observation that seems to come out of the blue.

Sometimes author intrusion appears in the form of a phrase set off by parenthesis. Mary thought she looked nice in her new blue dress (and was she ever right!) Again, who’s affirming her opinion of herself was right? To avoid author intrusion of this kind, look for phrases in parenthesis or ones that should be in parenthesis, as they are often the opinion of the author, not the character.

Third Person Omniscient Point of View and the Unseen Narrator

In third person omniscient point of view, the viewpoint shifts from one character to the next, and the reader is able to get into the heads of all of the characters. In this point of view it is more acceptable for the author to provide information the characters may not know themselves because the story is not in anyone's particular viewpoint. However, it becomes authorial intrusion when the author speaks directly to the audience with such a phrase as Dear Reader. This is a cue that the author is breaking in with an opinion entirely of his own.

As a general rule, most agents and publishers prefer writers to stick to a traditional point of view. They expect characters to stay within the range of what the characters can realistically see, think and observe within the limitations of that viewpoint, without the author breaking in and interpreting events for them.

Examples of Novels that Contain Authorial Intrusion

Intrusion Red Flags

The copyright of the article Point of View and Authorial Intrusion in Fiction Plots & Pacing is owned by Vickie Britton. Permission to republish Point of View and Authorial Intrusion in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.