Now what's wrong with 3rd Omniscient

Me thinks you must stop listening to "other people."
The story dictates the POV.
The author's intentions dictate POV.
Critics do not buy books.
Readers do.
A great story well written is the thing.
JMHO

I'm so sick and tired of people who want writers to conform to a particular style and those writers who think conformity is key to success. No, it's not ok to be conventional. It's not ok to even teach how to write fiction academically. Writing novels is an individual experiment.

Nothing is wrong with it, per se. Unfortunately, it tends to be a default POV fall-back for inexperience writers, who don't realize the importance of controlling POV as a major aspect of writing narrative. Properly constructed 3rd-omniscient is probably the most difficult POV to handle effectively. It very quickly drifts into head-hopping.

caw

Some of the trickier POVs are not recommended simply because they are just that, tricky. Tricky to get right, easy to get wrong. However, with that said, "We Need To Talk About Kevin" (winner of the Orange Prize) was written in 1st and 2nd person (series of letters to her husband), and "Dune", which I'm reading now, is 3rd person omniscient. At least I think it is, Herbert jumps around to everyone's heads from paragraph to paragraph.

blacbird said:

Properly constructed 3rd-omniscient is probably the most difficult POV to handle effectively. It very quickly drifts into head-hopping.

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Exactly. There's nothing wrong with 3d-omniscient, only with the abuses that have been committed in its name.

In agreeance with blac bird (caw) the reasons why 3rd person omniscient stories are cautioned against are:

1. It's very hard to do well (The head-hopping issue)
2. You're sacrificing some measure of the intimacy and immediacy you'd have with a Focused POV character.
3. 3rd-Person Omni has been out of vogue for a pretty long time now, and I (suspect) that they may be a harder sell.
4. I've heard the argument that today's reader generally wants to have a POV character to identify with. Omni doesn't offer this as strongly as Limited would.
5. There is a far, far harder time finding current top quality genre-specific 3rd-Person Omnicient stories to study in today's market. Much of the great 3P-Omni fiction was written 100 years ago or greater and it's hard trying to find examples that blend the genre you want to write in with a current writing style with the POV you want to write in (3P-Omni)

This being said, if you want to go for it, go for it. Just keep these limitations in mind so you have a realistic expectation of what stories you can study to help you.

I've heard that it's good to start out a scene in 3rd omniscient and then focus in on a character to become limited 3rd. Actually, now that I think of it, that might be awkward.

I feel my own writing is stronger when I write in 3rd person limited, which is my main reason for doing it. Each to their own preferences.

-Derek

GordonJerome said:

I've heard that it's good to start out a scene in 3rd omniscient and then focus in on a character to become limited 3rd. Actually, now that I think of it, that might be awkward.

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I think if it's done well, it can be beautiful. In Donna Tartt's The Little Friend, she does it really effectively. A section will start with the sense that there is a great, amorphous voice-over telling a story, and then it will gradually focus in on a particular character. There are some things I don't like about the book, but the way she handles transitions from omniscient to close-third is masterful. Also, it takes place in Mississippi

Write whatever is right for the story. Like others have said, the only danger I see with 3rd Omniscient is the head hopping.

As with all things, done well, it's fine.

But the writer should always take care to see that it's done well. And sometimes, things are more difficult to do well than others, and that's when it becomes prudent to possibly avoid.

Paraphrasing Strunk & White, "Unless the writer is sure of doing well, he would be advised to stick with the rules of writing."


So do whatever you want. The rules aren't balls and chains around your ankles, they're crutches, and it's important to remember that crutches aren't things that hold you back, they're supports that you lean on to keep going.

There's nothing "wrong" with 3rd omniscient.

As with everything else in writing, the key is to know the pros and cons of a given writing technique, and choose the option that will contribute the most to the reader's experience of the story.

Third omniscient tends to be more distant than third limited, so it's best used when the story doesn't require emotional closeness to the protagonist and when there is some other aspect of the story that hooks the reader, other than the bond with the protagonist.

JD

It's just fine as long as it does not resolve into third person post-insignificance

There is nothing wrong with 3rd omniscient. Nothing wrong with 1st. Nothing wrong with 2nd, for that matter.

There's something wrong with badly-written stories, whatever POV they're in.

Remember, though, omniscient doesn't mean "head-hopping."

I may already know the answer to this question, but what makes good omniscient third? I know it involves a strong narrator's presence, and the fact that it's a dialogue with the reader, as well as the fact that we can see into any and every character's POV. But is there anything else my little mind is missing? Examples? (preferably ones I don't have to go to the library to read...)

ErylRavenwell said:

Writing novels is an individual experiment.

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True that.

Nothing wrong with it, if it's kept to only the important characters and it's done well.

Writing in 3rd person limited is not a "rule", it is a guideline. As many people on the thread have expressed, it is much easier to go wrong writing 3rd person omniscient than 3rd person limited.

The idea in storytelling is to effectively tell the story to the audience in such a way as it is clear enough and well-written enough that they can stop concentrating on the words and start seeing the story. Third person omniscient, when used effectively, can be a great tool, but it is also much easier to confuse the reader and thus dispel the vision of the story, so third person limited is a good guideline to stick to.

As with any guideline, it can be ignored, but should only be ignored by those who thoroughly understand why it is a guideline in the first place. It's like starting a sentence with And, Or, or But. We're (almost) all taught not to do it when we are younger, but as we progress as writers we come to understand when it is okay to ignore the guideline.

I think to do omniscient well, you need to

- have a consistent, unbiased, strong narrator with a distinct voice
- be impartial to all your characters -- if you want to play God, you need to love all your children, good or bad, and give them equal time
- have clarity in your writing and every word should have a purpose, and every POV should move the story along
- not head hop and confuse the heck of your readers
- not intrude as an author


Good omniscient has a grand storytelling feel to it, and your readers get to stand somewhere further watching everything happening. It's probably suitable for an epic adventure or something, but not so with an intimate personal story.

I don't have any advice for or against because I've flip-flopped my opinion a few times. But I was reading this interview yesterday from Fantasy Magazine with Senior Editor Juliet Ulman at Bantam Spectra and she mentioned that Americans often handle POV diffrent than the British. She also had a vague opinion on POV near the end. For what it's worth, here's the question.

"How is point of view handled differently in the U.K. than in the U.S.?

I find that point of view is significantly more flexible in the U.K. U.K. authors tend not to keep the third-person POV as tight as is typical in American writing, and often deliberately jump from character to character within chapters, scenes, and occasionally paragraphs as a stylistic device. It's often handled very well, but can occasionally be confusing or just subtly offputting to an American reader (who may not even immediately identify what is bothering them about the narrative). I'll frequently ask a U.K. author if it's all right for me to subtly tidy up some of the POV shifts just so that we're consistent within the scene or within the moment.

Regarding point of view in general, I don't mind a bit of shifting to serve the narrative, but in my opinion, it should be at a clear breaking point within the scene and there must be a reason to change perspectives (beyond just "let's see what this character thinks about it"). The worst example I ever saw was changing POV characters at times sentence-to-sentence and occasionally within a sentence, which was not only tremendously confusing, but was a real example of what we mean by "head-hopping" for convenience. The author intended to provide a broad view of all of the action and emotional entanglements, and instead came across as too lazy to do the work to flesh out and delineate the characters without providing windows directly into their thought processes, and too insecure to let the characters be interpreted (and possibly incorrectly or uncharitably) by the reader without having every emotion and response spelled out in detail.

That is not a book we published, by the way."

And if you are interested in the whole article, here's the link.

http://fantasymagazine.blogspot.com/2006/12/conversation-with-juliet-ulman.html

Maprilynne

My pub is delaying my book because of the 3rd person omni. How it got through 4 people before they decided to re-edit 2 days before my release date is what threw me.

weatherfield said:

I think if it's done well, it can be beautiful. In Donna Tartt's The Little Friend, she does it really effectively. A section will start with the sense that there is a great, amorphous voice-over telling a story, and then it will gradually focus in on a particular character. There are some things I don't like about the book, but the way she handles transitions from omniscient to close-third is masterful. Also, it takes place in Mississippi

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Naturally!

Um, What's third omni? I know first person and second person and third limited. Not to clear on the third omni though?

Would it be like a story where the narrator is not involved in the story at all?