Section B form help for a short story, 3rd person?

[apoorva1996]

Hey guys so I was planning out this Section B prompt for encountering conflict and was looking for what kind of forms I could do. For this particular prompt I thought I could do a short story of an event from the movie, I could skip between the minds of the people and see what they are thinking individually. But I also wanted to describe the atmosphere of the room and say what happened after they left. I was just thinking would this kind of short story be under 3rd person, are you allowed to skip back and forth in 3rd person? If not what would you call this? Thankyou

[meganrobyn]

Firstly, don't worry about what you'd call it. You don't need to label the piece you're doing in any way - just write something *good*.

Otherwise, I think you're getting confused between narration and focalisation. Narration is about the 'person' telling the story. Third person is where author-god/fly-on-the-wall/voice-outside-the-story is telling the story. Focalisation is about the perspective of the story. If it's told from one character's perspective, it's called internal focalisation; if it's told from purely outside perspective, not knowing what anyone is thinking or feeling, it's called external focalisation.

You can mix up both narrative voice and focalisation, but you just need to be aware of what you're doing and do it logically for your reader. For example, author-god third person narration can see inside people's heads and hearts, so it's okay to focalise through different characters at different times.

[apoorva1996]

Thank you so much I just didn't want the assessors to be confused with my piece and wondering about who's talking now