What Is Psychic Distance? Hidden Key to Stronger Storytelling

Table of Contents

1. What does psychic distance mean?

2. How psychic distance connects to point of view

   • Third person narration: a special case

3. Psychic distance in action

   • Example: omniscient third

   • Example: viewpoint shift

   • Example: first person, past tense

4. Common mistakes I see as an editor

5. How to evaluate psychic distance in your writing

   • Smooth the movement of your camera lens

6. Using psychic distance to deepen emotion

7. Psychic distance and "show, don't tell"

8. The power of psychic distance

If you’ve been writing fiction for a while, you may have stumbled upon the term psychic distance (or narrative distance) and thought, What on earth does that mean?

You’re not alone. It’s one of those craft terms that sounds more complicated than it really is. But once you understand it, your writing becomes instantly more immersive and emotionally powerful.

At its core, psychic distance describes how close or far the reader feels from your character’s inner world. The more “told” your prose, the greater the distance. The more “shown,” the closer we get.

So if you’ve ever wrestled with the classic “show, don’t tell” advice (and let’s be honest—who hasn’t?), mastering psychic distance might just be your missing puzzle piece.

I first came across this concept years ago when training as a line editor. I’d actually read the book that coined the term long before, but it didn’t click until I started applying it to real manuscripts.

Suddenly, scenes that once fell flat began to come alive, simply because I understood how to move the reader closer to the character.

If you’ve ever reread a scene that should hit hard emotionally but somehow doesn’t—or noticed a POV shift that feels jarring—psychic distance could be the key.

Let’s unpack what it means, how it connects to point of view, and how to use it intentionally in your fiction. By the end, you’ll know exactly how to spot when your prose feels too distant or erratic and how to fix it.

What Does Psychic Distance Mean?

The term comes from John Gardner’s The Art of Fiction, where he defines it as “the distance the reader feels between himself and the events in the story.”

Now, full disclosure: I didn’t love that book (it’s been sitting half-finished on my eReader for years). But Gardner was spot-on about this concept.

According to Gardner, “careless shifts in psychic distance can be … distracting” (chapter 5). And he’s not wrong.

To illustrate, he gives an example which you can find on just about any blog post on the topic. But for completion’s sake, here it is:

1. It was winter of the year 1853. A large man stepped out of a doorway. (You may recognize this as a distant third person omniscient narrator).

2. Henry J. Warburton had never much cared for snowstorms. (Getting closer, as it tells us something about an individual person and their emotions or personality.)

3. Henry hated snowstorms. (Now we’re closer, blending the character’s perspective with the narrators voice, giving more personality to the narrative.)

4. God how he hated these damn snowstorms. (We get inside the characters head, using free indirect style.)

5. Snow. Under your collar, down inside your shoes, freezing and plugging up your miserable soul… (Stream of consciousness; there’s no kind of storyteller at all.)

Each line moves the reader closer—from an external narrator describing a man, to the raw, unfiltered thoughts inside Henry’s head.

Good writing often moves between these levels seamlessly, zooming in and out like a camera lens. Problems arise when the zoom jumps too abruptly:

It was winter of the year 1853. A large man stepped out of a doorway. God, how he hated these damn snowstorms.

That leap feels jarring. But with smoother transitions, you can guide the reader naturally from distant to intimate:

It was winter of the year 1853. Henry J. Warburton stepped out of a doorway. How he hated these snowstorms.

Now the reader’s camera glides naturally from wide shot to close-up.

How Psychic Distance Connects to Point of View

Psychic distance and point of view (POV) are deeply linked. Your POV choice determines your baseline distance:

• Third person: usually the most distant (there’s a narrator between reader and character).

• First person: the closest, since the character tells their own story.

• Second person: emotionally intimate for the reader (“you”), but not always close to the character, and it’s not that common.

Within each POV, you can still adjust the zoom lens of your narration.

Third Person Narration: A Special Case

Third person narration comes in a few “flavors”:

• Omniscient: the narrator knows everything about every character.

• Limited: the narration sticks to one character per scene, but still sounds like an external storyteller.

• Deep: we experience the story entirely through the character’s inner voice and thoughts—almost like first person, but grammatically in third.

Deep third is has risen in popularity over the years, and you’ll notice it more in modern fiction.

Psychic Distance in Action

Let’s look at two examples, one in third person and one in first.

Example: Omniscient Third

The Hobbit (J.R.R. Tolkien)

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. … This hobbit was a very well-to-do hobbit, and his name was Baggins. … All that the unsuspecting Bilbo saw that morning was an old man with a staff. … “Good Morning!” said Bilbo, and he meant it. The sun was shining, and the grass was very green.

Tolkien moves us gradually from an all-knowing narrator to Bilbo’s point of view. That slow zoom creates the cozy, “once upon a time” tone we associate with classic fantasy.

In psychic distance terms:

• In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. PD 1.

• This hobbit was a very well-to-do hobbit, and his name was Baggins. PD1/2

• All that the unsuspecting Bilbo saw that morning was an old man with a staff. PD2, still clearly from a narrator’s standpoint (“unsuspecting Bilbo”).

• “Good Morning!” said Bilbo, and he meant it. PD3

• The sun was shining, and the grass was very green. PD3/4

Example: Viewpoint Shift

He [Bilbo] had only just had breakfast, but he thought a cake or two and a drink of something would do him good after his fright.

Gandalf in the meantime was still standing outside the door, and laughing long but quietly. … Then he strode away, just about the time when Bilbo was finishing his second cake and beginning to think that he had escaped adventures very well.

When Tolkien switches viewpoint, he takes care to create a little distance (notice the filter word for Bilbo, “thought”):

• He [Bilbo] had only just had breakfast, but he thought a cake or two and a drink of something would do him good after his fright. PD3

• Gandalf in the meantime was still standing outside the door, and laughing long but quietly. PD2

• Then he strode away, just about the time when Bilbo was finishing his second cake and beginning to think that he had escaped adventures very well. PD2, then PD3

Example: First Person, Past Tense

Assassin’s Apprentice (Robin Hobb)

My memories reach back to when I was six years old. … Sometimes it seems too complete, and I wonder if it is truly mine. … The remembrance is almost physical: the chill grayness of the fading day, the remorseless rain that soaked me, the icy cobbles of the strange town’s streets, even the callused roughness of the huge hand that gripped my small one. … A tremor shook the hand that gripped mine, but whether of anger or some other emotion, I shall never know.

Here, the first-person narrator starts at a distance (recounting the past) and moves closer as memory becomes vivid and sensory.

If we break it down:

• My memories reach back to when I was six years old. PD1, character as narrator.

• Sometimes it seems too complete, and I wonder if it is truly mine. PD1 to PD2, character as narrator, but getting closer to their experience (“I wonder”)

• The remembrance is almost physical: the chill grayness of the fading day, the remorseless rain that soaked me, the icy cobbles of the strange town’s streets, even the callused roughness of the huge hand that gripped my small one. PD3, character as narrator and actor overlap.

• A tremor shook the hand that gripped mine, but whether of anger or some other emotion, I shall never know. PD3, character as narrator and actor overlap (note this is mainly because of the interpretation given by the character as narrator).

Both examples show how distance can shift within the same POV—and that’s what gives prose texture.

Common Mistakes I See as an Editor

After line editing dozens of manuscripts, here are the biggest psychic-distance pitfalls I spot:

• Head-hopping: jumping between characters’ thoughts mid-scene without clear breaks.

• Inconsistent tone: starting in distant narration and suddenly dropping into deep thoughts without transition.

• Telling emotion instead of showing reaction: “She was sad” keeps readers far away. “Her throat tightened, and she bit the inside of her cheek” pulls them in.

• Overusing deep POV: being “too close” all the time can feel suffocating. Readers need breathers too.

Good storytelling isn’t about picking one distance, but about controlling it with intent.

How to Evaluate Psychic Distance in Your Writing

Luckily, you can test the narrative distance in your own work! (In fact, it's one of the first steps in my framework for self-editing prose.)

First, make sure you're ready for the line editing stage (so no more structural issues).

Take a scene and label each sentence with a number (1 = farthest, 5 = closest). Notice any sudden leaps. Ideally, your prose should glide smoothly between levels.

Most narratives hover around distance 3 (close but not internal monologue), with subtle movements closer or farther for emotional effect.

It can be very educational to mark your sentences for your first couple of scenes, until you get the hang of identifying the distance and potential issues.

Smooth the Movement of Your Camera Lens

Here’s an example of a paragraph that has some issues with psychic distance:

The city of Avenmor had stood for nearly five centuries, its marble towers gleaming like teeth against the horizon [PD1]. Captain Rhael considered it a fine view, one he had always found reassuring before battle [PD3]. Blood on the stones again. Always blood [PD5]. He adjusted his gauntlets and glanced at his men, who awaited orders in perfect formation [PD3]. Rhael wondered if they feared death as he did—though of course, he didn’t fear it, not really [PD3 to PD4]. Liar. Every breath tastes like iron and ashes [PD5]. The wind carried the scent of smoke from the lower wards, and Rhael, ever a dutiful soldier, prepared to march. [PD1/2]

As you can see, this paragraph jumps much too often between distant narration and deep inner thought. Let’s fix that:

The city of Avenmor had stood for nearly five centuries, its marble towers gleaming like teeth against the horizon [PD1]. Captain Rhael considered it a fine view, one he had always found reassuring before battle [PD3]. He and his men waited on the road leading into the city, a good distance before its defensive walls. [PD2]

There will be blood on the stones again, Captain Rhael thought. [PD3]

He adjusted his gauntlets and glanced at his men, who awaited orders in perfect formation. [PD3] Rhael wondered if they feared death as he did—though of course, he didn’t fear it, not really. [PD3 to 4]

Liar. [PD4]

Every breath tasted like iron and ashes. [PD4] The wind carried the scent of smoke from the lower wards, and Rhael, ever a dutiful soldier, prepared to march. [PD3 to 2]

We’ve now smoothed the transitions and added some setting details at the start to ground the reader more and transition more naturally to Rhael’s thoughts about the blood on the stones.

We’ve also put those in as direct thoughts with a tag to indicate it’s his thougts, pushing it more toward standard narrative. When the next Liar comes, we can understand it’s his thinking.

Now the camera zooms in and out gracefully, helping readers follow the emotional rhythm.

Using Psychic Distance to Deepen Emotion

When you want readers to feel what your character feels, bring the distance closer. When a scene risks overwhelming them (grief, trauma, violence), you can pull back slightly to give breathing space.

As Donald Maass calls it in The Fire in Fiction, this creates “negative space”—letting readers fill the emotional gap themselves.

The magic lies in choosing when to zoom in and when to step back.

Let’s look at our Captain Rhael example, in particular this sentence: Rhael wondered if they feared death as he did—though of course, he didn’t fear it, not really.

It’s clear he is afraid; something that’s waiting for him has him thinking he’ll meet his death, and that scares him. But he can’t afford to be. He has a battle to fight and soldiers to lead.

Yet with just this sentence, particularly the first part, we don’t truly get the sense of his feelings. So let’s revise it to bring the distance closer and make his fear and dissociation palpable.

He adjusted his gauntlets, even though they needed no adjusting, and glanced at his men, who awaited orders in perfect formation. [PD3] His stomach tightened. [PD4] Did they fear death as he did? [PD4] Though of course, he didn’t fear it, not really. [PD4]

Liar. [PD4]

Rhael squared his shoulders. [PD3] Every breath tasted like iron and ashes. [PD4] Like death. [PD4] The wind carried the smoke from the lower wards. [PD3] No use in stalling the inevitable, Rhael decided. [PD3] And ever a dutiful soldier, he prepared to march. [PD2]

We dive more into Rhael’s experience: what he’s feeling, how he’s trying to convince himself he’s not afraid, and what he notices from the smoke.

By the end of the fragment, we move into a further distance again. I’ve added a filter word to help with the transition (Rhael decided). And the final sentence then goes back to more told narration.

Psychic Distance and “Show, Don’t Tell”

“Show, don’t tell” is one of the hardest concepts in writing, and psychic distance helps make it concrete.

Distant narration tells:

• It was winter of the year 1853. A large man stepped out of a doorway.

• In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.

• My memories reach back to when I was six years old.

Close narration shows:

• God how he hated these damn snowstorms.

• He [Bilbo] had only just had breakfast, but he thought a cake or two and a drink of something would do him good after his fright.

• A tremor shook the hand that gripped mine, but whether of anger or some other emotion, I shall never know.

By manipulating distance, you decide how much the narrator interprets events versus how much the reader feels them directly. Instead of only having an objective narrator somewhere detailing what’s going on, you add specificity and personality to the word choices.

The Power of Psychic Distance

Once you grasp this concept, you’ll start feeling when something reads too flat or detached and know exactly how to fix it.

When you master psychic distance, you’ll be able to:

• control emotional intensity

• create smoother POV transitions

• bring readers closer when it counts

• strengthen your “show, don’t tell” instinct.

For your next revision, try this 6-step process:

1. Identify your baseline POV. Are you writing in third person limited, deep third, or first person? Know your “default lens.”

2. Identify the psychic distance for each sentence. Like we did in the examples, decide the PD for each of your sentences. If you’re not 100% sure, that’s okay (they’re not distinct stages). Then simply write PD1/2, for instance.

3. Mark any abrupt switches. If you notice any places where the distance switches with 2 or more leaps (like from PD1 to PD4), smoothen that transition. Add sentences or clauses that move closer or further away gradually.

4. Mark your emotional peaks. Have moments you want the reader to feel your character’s emotion? If your distance is still too far in those moments, see if you can zoom in to show your character’s emotion. For intense emotional moments, increase the distance slighly and create negative space.

5. Check your descriptions. This is a prime place for told prose. Do you often use a far distance here? Rewrite it using a closer psychic distance. What changes?

6. Widen the lens between POV switches. If you use more than one POV character, use more distant narration before transitioning to the other character (e.g., use filter words, a clearer narrator voice).

Pro tip: Pick a popular published novel in your genre and identify the PDs for each sentence in a given scene. You will learn a lot about the impact of psychic distance this way.

Mastering psychic distance isn’t about memorizing levels; it’s about learning control. The closer you bring your reader at the right moments, the more powerful your story becomes.

You already have the tools. Now it’s about practicing that lens work until it feels natural.

If you found this helpful, try applying it to one of your current scenes today and watch how your storytelling instantly tightens.

Understanding psychic distance changed the way I edit. It’s one of those small, invisible tools that separate “good writing” from prose that gives readers goosebumps. And as a bonus, it'll make your manuscript cleaner once you've found a line editor.

Once you start seeing it, you’ll never stop using it. And your readers will feel the difference.

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