What Does Good Omniscient POV look like?

[Naruzeldamaster]

I've decided to go with Omniscient as Close Third feels a bit too restricted.
That being said I'd like to see some examples of it being done well.
Even if they aren't super detailed examples, just something that I can springboard off of.
Note: It doesn't have to be an example from something you've written? Just something fresh and quick that I can reference. (Maybe with notes on 'why' this is the 'correct' way to do Omniscient)

 

[A. E. Lowan]

It looks like god or whatever is telling the story. Think about how 3rd Limited is like having a camera inside the narrator's head. In Omniscient the camera is above the action and has total freedom of movement. The voice is also always the same. There are no heads to hop to, barring changing up tenses or PoV's. It's the PoV where the author's voice really gets to shine through.

 

[Prince of Spires]

Two big examples are Lord of the Rings and Dune. They are both omniscient, though in very different styles. The Hitchhicker's Guide to the Galaxy is another classic that's omniscient. A more modern (and subtle) example is Lies of Locke Lamora.

There are a few ways of doing omiscient. The classic is to have a narrator telling you the story. In Lord of the Rings, Frodo is writing down the story, and he's the (in-world) narrator. It shows you the interesting bits and tells you what's in someone's head if it's interesting, though only in limited amounts. Note that in Lord of the Rings, the narrator doesn't explicitly step forward and announce himself. There is no chapter at the beginning with Frodo sitting you down by the fire and telling you "here is the story of Lord of the Rings". He's just there telling you the story.

Dune (and the Hitchhiker's Guide) are slightly different. In those, you are in everyone's head all the time everywhere. In this style, there's less a feeling of a narrator telling you the story and more a kind of cinematic following the events. In this style, there are also fewer places to "hide" as it were. In Dune there is a chapter where someone is planning to betray everyone to the bad guys. Since we're in everyone's head all the time, when this guy walks into the room, you can read when he thinks "I'm going to betray all these people."

This is different from Lord of the Rings, where you can keep stuff from the reader for dramatic effect. We get hints that Borromir is being taken over by the Ring, but it's never mentioned that he thinks "I should take the ring". You can't get away with that in a Dune like POV, since the reader would feel cheated with that sort of surprise.

It's good to keep in mind that omniscient doesn't mean that you can just throw in POV's and jump in and out of heads as you like. You want to be consistent throughout the novel. If you dive deep into all heads as soon as they have something interesting to say, then don't stay out of one for dramatic purposes. And in Lord of the Rings, we get told the story, which results in never being very deep into people's heads. You're fairly distant all the time. So if you do that, then don't suddenly give us a scene where you're very deep in someone's feelings while you ignore everything else.

It's probably one of the hardest POV styles to write well.

 

[TheCrystallineEntity]

Discworld.

 

[Incanus]

It's a great question to ask. I don't have a good answer. I've never written in this POV style because it seems to be the most difficult to pull off. Without the limitations of the other POVs, I don't know what to include/exclude in the narrative.

Since 'head-hopping' does not technically violate an omniscient POV, it seems to simply be a matter of opinion as to whether it is done 'well' or 'poorly', which is not a great guide.

In an omniscient POV, you can change from one character's perspective to another. With 'head-hopping', you change from one character's perspective to another. I guess the main difference is that with omniscient, you establish it right away, but 'head-hopping' seems to violate whatever POV was established at the outset. That's about the only difference I can see.

A 'good' omniscient change of POV and a bad 'head-hopping' technique look to be about the same to me much of the time, which is one of the main reasons I have not written in omniscient POV.

If you figure it out, let me know-----

 

[Malik]

All my books are in Omniscient Third Subjective. The narrator is a character, who either witnessed the story or had it told to them and is now relaying it to you. This means the writing style has to have its own voice separate from the other characters. Done right, Omniscient Third Subjective reads like someone is standing in your living room telling you a story and doing impressions. It's almost first-person; it feels so much so that I get asked often how much of the books really happened. And they're fantasy novels.

One of the best examples of this writing style, IMO, is The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

 

[Mad Swede]

All my books are in Omniscient Third Subjective. The narrator is a character, who either witnessed the story or had it told to them and is now relaying it to you. This means the writing style has to have its own voice separate from the other characters. Done right, Omniscient Third Subjective reads like someone is standing in your living room telling you a story and doing impressions. It's almost first-person; it feels so much so that I get asked often how much of the books really happened. And they're fantasy novels.

One of the best examples of this writing style, IMO, is The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

I'm having trouble working out how to reply to this, but I'll give it a go.

In many ways Omniscient Third Subjective is what good verbal story telling is all about. My grandmother could tell stories like this, especially folk tales, sagas and legends. It is a real art form, and one I've never been very good at - which is why I don't write like that. What is sometimes not understood about Norse/nordic sagas and folk tales is that they should be told like that for full effect. It isn't just a matter of textual styles, rhyming prose or anything else. It's almost all in the telling.

 

[Naruzeldamaster]

It looks like god or whatever is telling the story. Think about how 3rd Limited is like having a camera inside the narrator's head. In Omniscient the camera is above the action and has total freedom of movement. The voice is also always the same. There are no heads to hop to, barring changing up tenses or PoV's. It's the PoV where the author's voice really gets to shine through.

I'm equating this to video games so bear with me a bit if you don't understand it exactly (It's fairly simple stuff related to the position of the camera)

Third Limited is more like having what we call 'first person' perspective (Generally in gameplay, looks like you're seeing what they see, we only typically hear that characters thoughts etc) and the one 'telling' the story is the 'main' character. Like they're recounting the events of the story in the future to an audience.

Omniscient would be like what we typically call 'over the shoulder' view (exactly what the tin says, over the shoulder but you see the whole character) but with the ability to switch to different playable characters and hear their thoughts/feelings. BUT This has to be established at the start of the book and not switch from any other perspective to this Randomly.

Both have their advantages and disadvantages, but it's important to stick to one of them from outset and through the entirety of the book?

 

[A. E. Lowan]

I'm equating this to video games so bear with me a bit if you don't understand it exactly (It's fairly simple stuff related to the position of the came

Third Limited is more like having what we call 'first person' perspective (Generally in gameplay, looks like you're seeing what they see, we only typically hear that characters thoughts etc) and the one 'telling' the story is the 'main' character. Like they're recounting the events of the story in the future to an audience.

Omniscient would be like what we typically call 'over the shoulder' view (exactly what the tin says, over the shoulder but you see the whole character) but with the ability to switch to different playable characters and hear their thoughts/feelings. BUT This has to be established at the start of the book and not switch from any other perspective to this Randomly.

Both have their advantages and disadvantages, but it's important to stick to one of them from outset and through the entirety of the book?

I tend to default to 3rd Limited, in part because messing around with the reader is one of my favorite things. All hail the Unreliable Narrator! So, I've got tons of examples of that. but this is probably the only thing using Omniscient that I have in a condition to show off. This was also our very first fiction sale.

~~
The signs had all indicated he would come here, and so she waited. She haunted hospital nurseries and sun-dappled playgrounds, watched the children come and grow, the swaddled babies age and die. She searched their eyes, eyes in all the colors of humanity, but none were his. As the years passed a cloying fear coiled in her mind that somehow she had missed him, that he had been born and aged while she hunted in vain, and had died unknown. Or worse, that he was rotting and neglected in one of the warehouses for the aged of which mortals were so fond. Horror-filled, she searched oubliettes scented with decay and talcum powder, where men with eyes like children had long forgotten their own names.

Vampires did not forget.

Alone in shadow in the bright of the day, she dreamt of the taste of his skin, the heat of his flesh against her moon-cool body. His laugh, rumbling in his chest beneath her cheek, still echoed in dearly held memory.

~~

And this is my default mode.

~~

Alerich conjured a small flame and relit the joint, taking another bitter lungful that made his head start to spin. The lamppost blotted out most of the stars, but Alerich fancied he could see some of the brighter ones. It was a cold, cloudless night.

“You have enough of that to share?”

Alerich let out a stream of smoke and looked up at Stephen. Surely, he wasn’t so stoned that he’d missed the street musician walk up from across the car park. “Are you here to yell at me, too?”

“Nope.” Stephen crouched beside Alerich and leaned back against the car, accepting the offered joint. “You look like hell.”

“It’s been a rough week.”

“So I’ve heard.”

Alerich watched him for a moment, trying to puzzle him out. “Do you know what happened here tonight?”

Stephen took a slow drag, his expression grim. “It’s been a long time coming. At least the kids survived.”

Alerich sighed. “I don’t suppose if I asked you how you know that you’d tell me?”

“Not tonight.” Stephen took another hit and passed the joint back. “How are you doing?”

Alerich thought that if he squinted just a bit, he could make out some more stars. “I am going to singlehandedly destroy this town by the weekend, I think.” He took another hit. His lips tingled.

Stephen shook his head, his long, curling hair falling over his shoulders. “No, you’re not Seahaven’s destruction, Alerich. You’re its salvation.”

A snort escaped from Alerich’s lips. “Mate, do you have me confused with someone else?”

Stephen smiled and it was as if the stars got just a little bit brighter. “Everyone stumbles at the beginning. You’re right where you’re supposed to be, doing exactly what you’re meant to do.”

Alerich turned and met the musician’s gaze in the dark. “I promised I would make things better.”

“And you will. You already are.”

Alerich looked away. “Hardly.”

“There are dozens of does who would disagree with you tonight. They know you made a positive difference.”

Alerich was quiet for a long moment. “You really think so?”

“You’re one of the good ones, Alerich Ashimar. Winter has faith in you. So do I. You are very young and just getting started. You need to find a way to forgive yourself and get off the mat.”

Alerich sighed again. “Forgiving myself is not my strongest suit.”

Stephen looked up at the stars. “I’m something of an expert at forgiveness. Trust me. This wasn’t on you. There is nothing you could have done to stop it. If you hadn’t come to Seahaven, this still would have happened tonight. But there would have been a lot more dead deer. Winter would be dead. You’re going to have to learn to take the wins with the losses without losing your faith that your cause is a just one.”

Alerich’s voice was quiet. “I don’t have any faith left.”

“Then borrow some of mine. And get back in there. These people need you tonight, even if they don’t see it.”

 

[Malik]

So, hey, y'all. For those of you who don't know me, I've been here for a minute or two. I have an English degree with a dual concentration in sociolinguistics and the philosophy of language. Also, I had, at the time, the best-selling independent fantasy debut novel in history. I may still hold the title; I quit counting.

So, with that in mind: I have a couple of blog posts on voice vs. POV at my website.

(Mods, if this isn't allowed, go ahead and delete this post. I won't take offense.)

Narrative voice as a subset of POV:

Voice Redux: Tears of a Clone | Joseph Malik

On Craft: Voice Basics | Joseph Malik

josephmalik.com

My Short and Scrappy Guide to Novel Writing discusses, among other things, choosing your POV at the outset and why doing so will keep you from going insane. Did you know there are at least six First Person POVs? If you don't, read the links above, then read these:

The Short and Scrappy Guide to Novel Writing: Part 1 | Joseph Malik

josephmalik.com

The Short and Scrappy Guide to Novel Writing: Part 2 | Joseph Malik

josephmalik.com

Because there are at least six more in Third. Pick the wrong one and your story dies on the vine. Switch between them unconsciously, and you lose the reader.

Have fun.

 

[Karlin]

All my books are in Omniscient Third Subjective. The narrator is a character, who either witnessed the story or had it told to them and is now relaying it to you. This means the writing style has to have its own voice separate from the other characters. Done right, Omniscient Third Subjective reads like someone is standing in your living room telling you a story and doing impressions. It's almost first-person; it feels so much so that I get asked often how much of the books really happened. And they're fantasy novels.

One of the best examples of this writing style, IMO, is The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

"The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County". Mark Twain. If anyone remembers him.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

"The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County". Mark Twain. If anyone remembers him.

Wasn't he that one guy who did a thing and now Hannibal, Missouri is famous. Highly recommend the winery. Last known refuge of Winchell's Donuts.

Also there may be a cave. It's a good cave, too. We've got rather a fair bit of limestone, here at the bottom of the shallow, primordial sea. But remember, first wine, then cave. It is known.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

~~

Alerich conjured a small flame and relit the joint, taking another bitter lungful that made his head start to spin. The lamppost blotted out most of the stars, but Alerich fancied he could see some of the brighter ones. It was a cold, cloudless night.

“You have enough of that to share?”

Alerich let out a stream of smoke and looked up at Stephen. Surely, he wasn’t so stoned that he’d missed the street musician walk up from across the car park. “Are you here to yell at me, too?”

“Nope.” Stephen crouched beside Alerich and leaned back against the car, accepting the offered joint. “You look like hell.”

“It’s been a rough week.”

“So I’ve heard.”

Alerich watched him for a moment, trying to puzzle him out. “Do you know what happened here tonight?”

Stephen took a slow drag, his expression grim. “It’s been a long time coming. At least the kids survived.”

Alerich sighed. “I don’t suppose if I asked you how you know that you’d tell me?”

“Not tonight.” Stephen took another hit and passed the joint back. “How are you doing?”

Alerich thought that if he squinted just a bit, he could make out some more stars. “I am going to singlehandedly destroy this town by the weekend, I think.” He took another hit. His lips tingled.

Stephen shook his head, his long, curling hair falling over his shoulders. “No, you’re not Seahaven’s destruction, Alerich. You’re its salvation.”

Totally forgot I had a point to this. lol In the bolded, I'm leaning in on the Unreliable Narrator hard. You can totally do this with 1st or Omniscient, but it takes a tiny amount of more effort. Here, Alerich has some thoughts and suspicions about Stephen, but I don't want him on that particular train of thought quite yet. Instead, I have him distracted. He's not going to think about it too much right now, between the pot and what he's just seen. No time to ruminate, and Stephen is also quick with a misdirect. He's not keen on Alerich asking smart questions. At least not yet.

 

[Prince of Spires]

Third Limited is more like having what we call 'first person' perspective (Generally in gameplay, looks like you're seeing what they see, we only typically hear that characters thoughts etc) and the one 'telling' the story is the 'main' character. Like they're recounting the events of the story in the future to an audience.

Omniscient would be like what we typically call 'over the shoulder' view (exactly what the tin says, over the shoulder but you see the whole character) but with the ability to switch to different playable characters and hear their thoughts/feelings. BUT This has to be established at the start of the book and not switch from any other perspective to this Randomly.

I would say you have this wrong.

First person is a story written in the "I" form. I did this, I did that. You are stuck in the head of a single character, who is living the story and you hear their internal thoughts in first person (so I). The game equivalent is first person perspective (like in Skyrim or most shooters).

Third person limited is where you look over the shoulder of a character. You only see from their point of view, and you only get their thoughts. It's in 3rd person, so he/she did this, he/she did that. Here you can switch between characters, but you can only look over the shoulder of a single character at a time.

Omniscient is a story told to you from an all-knowing narrator. It would be like looking down on the game and seeing all the pieces. So more like playing Civilization with the whole world visible.

There is a whole lot of nuance in this of course. For instance, in third limited, you can get very deep into a person's head. So you would read their most inner thoughts when in their POV, almost like when you'd be in first person. However, you could also be a lot more distant and pretty much only get surface level thoughts. And everything in between. But that's more or less the basics.

As a side note, go read Malik 's blog. It's awesome. (I really liked the post on Prologues. It's the best explanation of how to use them I've found anywhere...)

 

[Finchbearer]

Omni works best when you don’t even realise you’re reading it.

 

[Malik]

I would say you have this wrong.

First person is a story written in the "I" form. I did this, I did that. You are stuck in the head of a single character, who is living the story and you hear their internal thoughts in first person (so I). The game equivalent is first person perspective (like in Skyrim or most shooters).

Third person limited is where you look over the shoulder of a character. You only see from their point of view, and you only get their thoughts. It's in 3rd person, so he/she did this, he/she did that. Here you can switch between characters, but you can only look over the shoulder of a single character at a time.

Omniscient is a story told to you from an all-knowing narrator. It would be like looking down on the game and seeing all the pieces. So more like playing Civilization with the whole world visible.

There is a whole lot of nuance in this of course. For instance, in third limited, you can get very deep into a person's head. So you would read their most inner thoughts when in their POV, almost like when you'd be in first person. However, you could also be a lot more distant and pretty much only get surface level thoughts. And everything in between. But that's more or less the basics.

As a side note, go read Malik 's blog. It's awesome. (I really liked the post on Prologues. It's the best explanation of how to use them I've found anywhere...)

Thank you.

And to reiterate: there are SO MANY DIFFERENT VERSIONS OF FIRST AND THIRD PERSON. You don't just pick one and go.

The POV and narrative voice that you choose--because once you choose, you're stuck with it (unless your skills are God-like)--determines the information that your reader will receive. This determines HOW you tell your story. It determines what the reader takes away from the story. Your POV is your story.

It's not as easy as just saying, "This is in First-Person, so I'm just going to use 'I' for everything."

In first person, there are at least six distinct narrative voices.

• Subjective narration. This is the most common first-person POV in commercial and literary fiction. This is a narrator interjecting their own commentary while telling a story about something that happened to them. There are angles and shades to this, including the Unreliable Narrator, which is exactly what it sounds like. Alex in Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange is drunk for the entire book, and we know that he’s a sociopath on top of it. He’s as unreliable as a narrator gets. See also Moll Flanders, or the unnamed narrator of Palahniuk’s Fight Club.
• Interior monologue. This is less common, and there’s a trick to it: the audience for the interior monologue is the narrator themselves. The narrator doesn’t speak to the reader; the reader is looking into the narrator’s mind. If this sounds confusing, it’s because it is. But it’s powerful when it’s done well.
• Interior monologue with stream of consciousness. Less common still. This is interior monologue, but the writing flows as if it’s just words going through the narrator’s mind–there’s no way that this is possibly happening holy shit this thing totally happened and yet the words keep flowing OMG make it stop. There can be lots of run-on sentences. Again, this is spectacular when it’s done well. The Catcher in the Rye is interior monologue with stream of consciousness.
• Memoir. This feels a lot like subjective narration, and reads similarly on its face. And more confusingly, “memoirs” are often written in first-person subjective. However, “memoir” as a voice tends to be more emotionally and temporally distant, and generally more factual, than first-person subjective. It’s more of a stylistic consideration than a point of view in and of itself. It’s a feel thing, and it’s hard to dial in except that you’ll know it when you see it after you’ve read enough of it. Memoir voice is typically done in past tense, but often jumps around in time, as well, interjecting current considerations and follow-on effects into the narrative. The scenes in Garth Stein’s The Art of Racing in the Rain where the main character (the dog) is narrating about his family–the scenes where he is NOT the main character, but a peripheral character–are told in memoir. The scenes where the dog is central to the story are told in subjective narration. The Art of Racing in the Rain is one of the best recent examples of different voices inside one POV. It should be on every author’s bookshelf. It’s practically a textbook on first-person voice.
• Detached. Memoir voice from even further away, emotionally and temporally. A narrator telling a story about something that happened to them either long ago, or far away. Rarely enters present-day, and rarely refers to follow-on effects. Detached often has a clinical feel. I don’t know of any examples off the top of my head where detached first person is used for the entire book, but I can see it being used, say, in a murder mystery where the narrator is a medical examiner and is writing clinically about a case. Maybe a really gritty detective novel could pull this off, but it might get hokey and gimmicky pretty quick.
• Cinematic. This is a relatively new one on me, but I’ve certainly seen enough of it in genre fiction and especially among fledgling indie authors, and I’ve heard the term a few times, so I finally asked. As I understand it, cinematic first person describes a writing style that is almost entirely action and/or description oriented, with minimal emotional or intellectual focus. No real deep dives into why things are happening or what they’re doing to the narrator emotionally, just a bunch of shit popping off for three hundred pages, typically in present tense. Cinematic fiction is bereft of all the stuff that makes a pile of words into a novel: characterization, chemistry, allegory, metaphor, imagery, tension, hope, loss, triumph, contingencies of rhetoric. All that writer shit goes out the window. I don’t know if this kind of fiction is written as a conscious choice, or if the term “cinematic first person” developed as a way to politely describe the writing style of people who don’t like to read. If you don’t read, you can’t write.

Unless you are truly gifted--and not to be a dick, but most of us aren't (I sure as hell am not)--you're playing Russian Roulette with your manuscript if you don't AT LEAST plot it out and pick a POV and narrative tone that will make your point. When books die on the vine, it's almost always because you chose a narrative tone and POV that don't allow you to tell the story you need to tell. I know a few authors who just instinctively know their voice and can "pants" their novel without painting themselves into a corner. Most of us aren't that smart, which means you probably aren't.

If you're not doing this, and you make it to the end of a manuscript, you beat the odds. Congrats; bet you can't do it again.

 

[Malik]

And if you don't understand these delineations--if you don't know that there are this many First Person voices and at least as many voices in Third Person, probably more--and you switch between them willy-nilly? Your readers are going to know you're an amateur. They won't know why--no reader is going to say, "The author kept shifting from Subjective Narration to Stream of Consciousness and it threw me off." They'll just find your prose disjointed and amateurish.

And if you're only now learning that there are six First-Person voices and more in Third, and you have a book out? I guarantee you have readers who DNF'd your book because your prose is disjointed and amateurish.

This is why writing is a craft. It's a skill, like being a watchmaker, or a jeweler, or a master woodworker. You don't just sit down and do it. You sit down and START doing it. Then you study your ass off, whether it's college, books on craft, or finding a mentor. And then you practice for 20 or 30 years until you know what you're doing.

I had the good fortune to go to a university that has turned out amazing authors for generations, back when you could afford your tuition by working part-time. (I played in several bands around town at night and worked a couple of days a week as a high-rise window cleaner, which paid spectacularly.) I appreciate that this doesn't exist anymore.

I'm not trying to gatekeep. I'm just saying, this is a craft. There's a whole generation raised on instant gratification that doesn't want to hear this. But you can't get good at this until you do it a LOT.

Also, I was lucky because after college, I spent probably 15 years getting turned down by publishing houses--this was before indie publishing and ebooks--so I kept rewriting, coming up with new stories, and resubmitting, year after year. My "debut" novel was, IIRC, my 10th or maybe 12th completed novel. I'd been writing since I was a teenager--I wrote my first novel in high school--so I had a good 30 years of failing miserably, but using those failures to learn, and study, and work with writing groups (back in the day, you'd get together with your writer friends every few weeks with printed-out copies of what you'd written, and you'd tear each other to pieces). I had all this of the way when I self-published.

That first self-published novel has now crossed 30,000 sales and is still selling quite well almost ten years later. I sold the film rights to my latest, a stand-alone novel set in the same world, to a VFX producer whose creds include Ridley Scott and Ryan Reynolds. But you don't--can't--get there/here without understanding how, and why, novels work. How stories work. What voice is.

Please, for the love of God, visit the writing blog posts on my site. Just as a beginning. And Google everything you don't understand, and go down those rabbit holes. Because there are so many authors out there offering advice who know so much more than I do.

This is the only line of work in which you are guaranteed to lie on your deathbed wishing you still knew more about your craft and had done better, no matter how successful you were.

But hey. Have fun with it.

 

[Karlin]

Malik, why do you write? Personally.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Third Om can be so many styles. Tolkien is fairly casual, Herbert is in your face. Dickens is one of the all-time greats for 3rd Om IMO.

 

[Malik]

Malik, why do you write? Personally.

Nobody else was writing the books I wanted to read.