I don't like the strictly objective viewpoint [in which all of the characters' actions are described in the third person, but we never hear what any of them are thinking.] Which is much more of a cinematic technique. Something written in third person objective is what the camera sees. Because unless you're doing a voiceover, which is tremendously clumsy, you can't hear the ideas of characters. For that, we depend on subtle clues that the directors put in and that the actors supply. I can actually write, "'Yes you can trust me,' he lied." [But it's better to get inside the characters' heads.]
George R. R. MartinWhat was it Catelyn Stark had called them, that night at Bitterbridge? The knights of summer. And now it was autumn and they were falling like leaves.
George R. R. MartinThere is no shame in loving. If your septons say there is, your seven gods must be demons. In the isles we know better. Our gods gave us legs to run with, noses to smell with, hands to touch and feel. What mad cruel god would give a man eyes and tell him he must forever keep them shut, and never look at all the beauty in the world? Only a monster god, a demon of the darkness.
George R. R. MartinHis dagger was out, poised at her throat. โSing, little bird. Sing for your little life.
George R. R. MartinFrom where I sit, battles are hard. Iโve written my share. Sometimes I employ the privateโs viewpoint, very up close and personal, dropping the reader right into the middle of the carnage. Thatโs vivid and visceral, but of necessity chaotic, and it is easy to lose all sense of the battle as a whole. Sometimes I go with the generalโs point of view instead, looking down from on high, seeing lines and flanks and reserves. That gives a great sense of the tactics, of how the battle is won or lost, but can easily slide into abstraction.
George R. R. Martin