In Defense of the Omniscient PoV

[Steerpike]

My problem is that with limited we go by what the character knows. Even if its wrong. We may know the truth, but we are lead to believe it is the truth.

With omniscient this, by definition, can't be done. So the writer can't purposefully mislead the reader.

Is that true? An omniscient narrator can dip into any head he wishes, but isn't obliged to do so. I can dip into the head of a character who is mistaken about something. Think of something like The Brothers Karamazov. That's an omniscient narrator, as I recall, and yet there is certainly some misdirection as to who committed the murder, and the reader doesn't know all along who it was.

 

[Steerpike]

Also, another thought: The Lord of the Rings uses an omniscient POV, and yet Tolkien allows the reader to wonder about the 'white wizard' who appears when Gimil, Aragorn, and Legolas are trying to find Pippin and Merry in the forest, not letting on as to their mistaken belief that it is Saruman rather than Gandalf returned to them.

 

[Ankari]

Perhaps my problem is that I don't read a lot of omniscient books. I couldn't read LotR. The first chapter made sure of that. I've read Robert E Howard books and those are straight forward. I can't recall any misdirection. As I said, Glen Cook's Dread Empire seems to use omniscient in parts.

 

[FireBird]

I'm still not sure I follow. Why does limited work better? What are you thinking that you can do with limited that you can't do in omniscient? Seems to me you can do the same thing with an omniscient POV. Can you think of an example of what you mean?

In my opinion omni is best at setting immersion. Seeing the same thing through so many character's povs can be downright amazing at times.

To me limited is much more grounded and feels so much more real than omni. I want to NOT know everything the characters know. Sometimes I want to be left in the dark to wonder. In limited I can put myself in one character's head and be them. I can feel their emotions and empathize with them because I don't know anything that they don't know. In limited I can truly feel an emotion like fear in all situations. In omni I will know whether that fear is justified or not. I don't want to know that. Reading about a character that is afraid and yet knowing that they have nothing to be afraid of isn't interesting to me. To me character immersion can sometimes be more about what you don't know than what you do.

I guess the whole idea of omni doesn't appeal to me. Knowing what everyone is planning and just watching the outcome is not as interesting as not knowing what everyone is planning. Right now in the back of my mind I'm imagining reading A Song of Ice and Fire in omni.

 

[Ankari]

In my opinion omni is best at setting immersion. Seeing the same thing through so many character's povs can be downright amazing at times.

But wouldn't multiple third person limited work even better?

 

[Steerpike]

Firebird - an omniscient narrator doesn't have to tell you what every character knows. Often they don't. With an omniscient POV, the narrator can do if desired, but there is no requirement for it.

Using LOTR again, for example...Gandalf knows he isn't Saruman when he is in white in Fangorn. But the reader doesn't find out it is him and not Saruman until the three characters who come upon him do. Likewise, in The Brother's Karamazov, the narrator knows the murderer, and the murderer knows who he is, but the reader doesn't find out until the confession.

An omniscient POV means a narrator can pull back as far as he wants, or jump freely into the head of whoever he wants at any time. He is not obligated to divulge every bit of information that every character knows.

 

[FireBird]

An omniscient POV means a narrator can pull back as far as he wants, or jump freely into the head of whoever he wants at any time. He is not obligated to divulge every bit of information that every character knows.

Wouldn't this be jarring though? Randomly hopping into someones head and then pulling back, only to jump again. When you head hop and then you skip a head, that tells you something. I'm starting to think that I'm misunderstanding omni a bit.

Likewise, in The Brother's Karamazov, the narrator knows the murderer, and the murderer knows who he is, but the reader doesn't find out until the confession.

I was under the impression that omni followed one pov at a time hopping between paragraphs when needed. If someone is narrating the whole story is it still omni?

 

[Penpilot]

In my own experience, & this might be specific to me, I grew as a writer when I stopped viewing scenes like movie footage and started thinking through a character's emotional or sensory experiences.

You're definitely not the only one. This is my experience too.

Wouldn't this be jarring though? Randomly hopping into someones head and then pulling back, only to jump again. When you head hop and then you skip a head, that tells you something. I'm starting to think that I'm misunderstanding omni a bit.

This is one of the reasons writing Omni is so difficult. To have the skill to move around from head to head without it giving a reader epileptic seizures is paramount.

I was under the impression that omni followed one pov at a time hopping between paragraphs when needed. If someone is narrating the whole story is it still omni?

Third person, from my understanding, is all one narrator. In Omni the narrator knows all and can relate all. In limited the narrator is limited to the POV character's knowledge of the world. In each you can express a very distinct voice and personality or not.

Think of Omni as your grandfather taking you on their knee and relating a story about their youth to you. He knows the whole story and all its secrets, so he can tease you in its telling, leaving bits out or expanding on things using his knowledge of future and past events.

FYI: One classic book I know that's written in Omni and reveals all the characters motivations is Dune.

 

[Lorna]

I think writing omniscient is immensely difficult to do. The main problem I've had with writing omniscient is when and where to feed in information. In 1st person / 3 person limited you give away what your character knows / thinks as they move through the plot.

Also, an omniscient narrator is a character in themselves, the person who gives voice to the world and colours the world as much or more than the characters.

I've found this viewpoint in older books such as Leguin's Earthsea Quartet and Michael Moorcock's Eternal Champion series. Whilst I enjoyed these stories immensely I often wonder what it would have been like to see Ged and Elric's experiences through their eyes and experienced their sensations and emotions.

@ TAS

In my own experience, & this might be specific to me, I grew as a writer when I stopped viewing scenes like movie footage and started thinking through a character's emotional or sensory experiences.

I definitely agree with this. When I first started writing I began with omniscient and experimented with a bit of what I've seen termed here as 'head hopping.' My novel improved when I began using third person limited but is still a far cry from being as engaging as I would like it to be. For this reason I'm thinking about experimenting with writing in the first person.

 

[FireBird]

Third person, from my understanding, is all one narrator. In Omni the narrator knows all and can relate all. In limited the narrator is limited to the POV character's knowledge of the world. In each you can express a very distinct voice and personality or not.

Thats just the thing. In 3rd limited there is no outside narrator. The character is telling us everything. Narration is a completely different type of pov. In omni I'm not sure if you can pull out and explain things as a narrator or have to use a character to do it. I feel like I've completely botched this subject.

 

[Steerpike]

In omniscient, you can pull out and explain. The writer can editorialize, if she wants to. The narrator may become a "character" in and of itself, dipping into heads for a close perspective through the character's eyes, pulling out to give a broad perspective or even to comment, and so on. I think part of the reason people have a hard time writing it is precisely because you can do anything along these lines, and it is difficult to make it all work well together.

 

[Penpilot]

Thats just the thing. In 3rd limited there is no outside narrator. The character is telling us everything. Narration is a completely different type of pov.

Actually there is an outside narrator in 3rd limited. By definition third person is told by well... a third person. If the character is telling us everything then it's first person. In limited, the narrator's knowledge is limited to what the POV character knows and the only thoughts the can be heard are from the single POV character. Third limited is often described as riding on the POV character's shoulder.

I think you may be getting confused between narration and hearing a character's thoughts. In third limited it can be hard to tell which is which because the narrator tends to be invisible and the prose is more subservient to the character's voice.

 

[Butterfly]

Third person limited is also known as third person intimate... because you can get inside your character's head. The issue seems to be how close or how distant you choose to be with that, zooming in or out so to speak. The psychic distance - where the reader/narrator stands in regard with the character and how it moves from one to the other. E.g being deep inside one character's head, to jumping deep inside another is where the problem of jarring the reader arises - too quick to catch the transition, it's how to do it slowly that's the problem.

 

[FireBird]

I think you may be getting confused between narration and hearing a character's thoughts. In third limited it can be hard to tell which is which because the narrator tends to be invisible and the prose is more subservient to the character's voice.

This.

The narrator should be invisible, which is why I really don't think there is one. You can say that someone is telling the story, but it is the voice of the character that is telling it to you.

 

[Steerpike]

But it is not the case that the narrator should always be invisible. It is a stylistic choice. Some authors may want the narrator to be conspicuous at times.

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

But it is not the case that the narrator should always be invisible. It is a stylistic choice. Some authors may want the narrator to be conspicuous at times.

Yes. In some cases the narrator must be visible to carry the story as intended. Most of the time we read things where the narrator should disappear into the background but some excellent books have been written where the narration is as much a character as any single entity in the story.

 

[Penpilot]

The narrator should be invisible, which is why I really don't think there is one. You can say that someone is telling the story, but it is the voice of the character that is telling it to you.

If that's the way you prefer to think of it fine, but it's still not the character's voice. The narration can be and is generally colored by the pov character's voice but it's still not them. It can be subtle, but there is a difference.

As for unique authorial voice, Gaiman has a unique voice/presence in his third limited books. To me it's a part of his appeal.

 

[ChristielleKeenan]

There is no reason you can't create character immersion with an omniscient point of view. In fact, the omniscient POV can allow you to immerse the reader in the thoughts and feelings of as many characters as you like, without limiting that perspective to a few viewpoint characters. That is one of the reasons one might choose an omniscient POV.

This is a major issue for me for some reason. I begin writing in Omni pov. I think I am doing it wrong though. Does one need to put an actual page break between each pov as it changes from one character to another? or is it acceptable to just continue on. I have read many things about this and many times, the suggestion is to start a new chapter when pov changes from one character to another. Can someone help me with this? thank you

 

[Steerpike]

This is a major issue for me for some reason. I begin writing in Omni pov. I think I am doing it wrong though. Does one need to put an actual page break between each pov as it changes from one character to another? or is it acceptable to just continue on. I have read many things about this and many times, the suggestion is to start a new chapter when pov changes from one character to another. Can someone help me with this? thank you

Typically, people suggest at least a break in the page. Some people like to see you start a new chapter. The advice of using a break is provided because it can be difficult to transition effectively without them. In other words, the break provides an easy visual cue for the reader that says you are changing POV.

That said, there is no reason you can't hop between heads within a given paragraph. I've seen this done effectively by good writers. I believe Virginia Woolf, in at least one story, switched through multiple POVs in a single paragraph and even switched between two POVs in the course of a sentence. The danger in trying this approach is that it won't be half as effective as you think it is, and that will have a negative effect on the reader. As writers, we always know what we mean, so sometimes it is hard to determine whether a reader will be able to follow it as well.

 

[ChristielleKeenan]

Typically, people suggest at least a break in the page. Some people like to see you start a new chapter. The advice of using a break is provided because it can be difficult to transition effectively without them. In other words, the break provides an easy visual cue for the reader that says you are changing POV.

That said, there is no reason you can't hop between heads within a given paragraph. I've seen this done effectively by good writers. I believe Virginia Woolf, in at least one story, switched through multiple POVs in a single paragraph and even switched between two POVs in the course of a sentence. The danger in trying this approach is that it won't be half as effective as you think it is, and that will have a negative effect on the reader. As writers, we always know what we mean, so sometimes it is hard to determine whether a reader will be able to follow it as well.

Very well put. I need to go back and re-think how I am doing things. See if there is a better way of transitioning between my characters. Perhaps I will write it several ways, then post them here? thank you