POV - 3rd Omniscient

[Joanclr]

Can anyone give me advice about this method of writing? I have mostly written in 3rd limited and 1st, but for a new project I am thinking about, I feel 3rd omni would work better: namely, the mc has secrets, and 3rd omni would keep them hidden until the time is right for them to come out.

Does anybody have any tips or pointers for writing this POV, and/or any good sample books to check out which are written in this style?

Thanks,
Joan

[maestrowork]

Why do you think you need 3rd omni to keep the protag's secrets? You can do that with 3rd limited -- you simply won't allow your protag to "tell" us her secrets.

3rd omni is usually not a good idea -- it's hard to do well. What you want probably is 3rd rotating limited: basically it's 3rd limited, but you can switch POV between scenes or chapters. This works well with a large cast of major characters.

Or you can simply tell the story using a different POV character, thus keeping the main character's thoughts out of the readers. It also allows you to interpret things through your POV character. Agatha Christie used that to great effect (Hastings narrating about Poirot).

[DanALewis]

A classic 3rd omniscient book (and one of my personal favorites) is Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. It has a rotating viewpoint but the author feels free to intrude.

[Jamesaritchie]

Using omniscient still doesn't mean you should hide things from the reader. Omniscient is usually more intrusive, rather than less. Third person linmited means you intrude on one character. Omniscient means you intrude on every character.

[Kate Nepveu]

Omniscient means you intrude on every character.

Not necessarily. _Pride and Prejudice_ is in omniscient, for instance, but by and large it stays tight with Elizabeth Bennett's perceptions.

On a more relevant note, I do agree that omniscient isn't necessary if one wants to hide secrets of a POV character, and that there are other ways to do that.

Some suggestions: _The Murder of Roger Ackroyd_, Christie (1st person mystery). _Use of Weapons_, Banks (third-person SF; OOP in the US). _The Devil in Music_, Ross (omniscient mystery).

[Writing Again]

My advice.

If you are a beginning writer just learning your trade, master third person limited first.

In other words write the story from one person's view only and explore one person's mind solely.

Once you have mastered third person limited then you will have the skills to use the various omniscient POV's without making hash.

Beginning writers who don't master the hardest one first tend to confuse readers who may not be clear whose thoughts they are sharing, or who the main char of the story is. Beginning writers also tend to slip in and out of character's thoughts without a clear purpose in mind, and without solid justification for doing so.

[Shadow Ferret]

Hmm. I never heard of 3rd person limited. The novel I'm writing, you get into everyone's head. That seems natural to me. As the focus of the story moves to each person, you sort of view things from their perspective and listen to their thoughts as needed. I don't make it dizzying, I simply change perspective as I change scenes. The story is sort of an ensemble cast, there is no one main character.

[Writing Again]

This is from Wikipedia:

Third person, limited
"She walked into the room, feeling nervous, and saw the man sitting in a chair with his fists clenched and jaw set." (The narrator tells the story from the general point of view of one character; the interior mental state of only one character, the woman, may be described.)

When you say,

I simply change perspective as I change scenes. The story is sort of an ensemble cast, there is no one main character.

Is that you apply 3rd person limited to each character in their own scene.

Third person omniscient can read like this,

She smiled smugly, knowing she had been right from the beginning. "I will refrain from saying 'I told you so.'"

"Thanks," he said, wishing he had never brought the subject up and then she would not have known.

"I'm glad that is over," smiled Jim, wondering why his two freinds seemed to be angry with each other.



While I believe the foregoing is understandable, it can quickly get to be over done.

[Shadow Ferret]

It reads more like the first. I've never read anything like your second example.

[HConn]

Really, Shadow? Never?

[Jules Hall]

I simply change perspective as I change scenes

This is normally known as 3rd person shifting limited (although I've heard some other names for it, too) and it seems to be the most common way of writing novels today. It's the form I usually use, too.

[maestrowork]

Yup, Shadow, that's called 3rd person shifting (or rotating) limited, not omniscient. It's a more flexible form of limited, so that you're not telling the story only from one character's POV -- it's good for a story with quite a few major characters (for example, Lord of the Rings) and many things going on at different times and places. But you're still controlling it so that the readers always know who is telling the story in every scene/chapter.

Omniscient is when you shift POVs at will:

Sam thought Howard was a moron. She hissed at him. When Howard saw that, he thought about killing her. He'd been wanting to do that for a long time. With that thought he grinned. Sam thought, there's that moronic grin again.

[Jamesaritchie]

Third person limited is far and away the most common method for writing novels. I think it was in 1990 or 1991 that Publisher's Weekly reported that just over 90% of all current novels were written in third person limited. This has dropped some, but not a great deal.

Most of the rest were divided between first person and omniscient, with a smattering of second person and objective or dramatic POV.

I've never heard it called third person shifting or rotating. This sounds like third person limited, multiple viewpoint, to me. It's generally used in long, saga type novels, though it can be used in shorter novels.

It's still just third person limited. Third person limited has no limit on the number of characters you can use, it just means you only get inside the head of one character per scene. When the scene or chapter changes, you're free to get inside someone else's head. But whether you're using only one POV character, or fifty POV characters, it's still just third person limited, as long as you only get inside the head of one character per scene or chapter.

Omniscient just means you get inside anyone's head anytime you wish, whether it's in the same scene or not. I do think third person limited should be mastered before tackling omniscient. I'm not sure third person limited is really any more difficult than omniscient, but it is what most editors want from new writers, and it is what most readers prefer reading.

If you just jump into a secondary character's head within the same scene now and then, it's called head-hopping, and it makes for bad writing. Consistency really separates head-hopping from omniscient.

Personally, I'd like to see more novels and short stories written using objective viewpoint, but not many seem to know what this is these days.

Generally speaking, it's a bad idea to withhold information the POV character knows. If he or she knows it, the reader should know it, as well. This is the main reason Doyle used Watson as the POV character, rather than using Holmes. The reader doesn't necessarily have to know he knows it, but it should be there, if he's smart enough to see it.

[maestrowork]

I like to write in objective POV, but it's not for everyone. I think it's a remarkable thing to be able to convey the character's thoughts simply by her actions and dialogues and things that happen. It's the most evocative form. Scripts are written mostly in objective POV (thoughts could be conveyed, however, by voice-over).

With books, most readers, however, like to get inside a character's head (the main character, at least) to see what they're thinking. It gives them the intimacy. Objective works well for movies (obviously that's the only way in that medium and also because of the actors), but may not for books. So, if you have to power, as the author, to get inside someone's head, why not? Whether you can do it well is another matter.

[Shadow Ferret]

Really, Shadow? Never? Not that I recall. If I did, whatever it was obviously didn't leave much of an impression. ;)

[reph]

Once in a while, I see head-hopping in a New Yorker story – and those are written are experts. Typically, a story will have just one instance of that, if it has any. It always looks like a mistake, and it always disappoints me, like Miss Manners forgetting to say thank you.

[Joanclr]

Hmmm... all this is very interesting. I am seeing that I've had a mistaken idea of what 3rd Omniscient is - rather than a rotating viewpoint getting into each person's head, which I now understand it is, I was thinking it would have been a perspective where no one's thoughts were conveyed at all, only their actions. So this is known as Objective viewpoint, then?

At any rate, all this has given me some food for thought as I consider what POV would best cover my story. I agree about writers not "keeping secrets" from readers, however there are times when that is necessary to the story. In this case, the mc's motivation behind his actions stems from a previous traumatic situation which is not made clear until the climax; that's crucial to the story, as to know this from the start would take away the tension and drama. However, I see it's important to do it in a way that the readers will not feel cheated or lied to.

Interesting discussion, everyone :)

[zerohour21]

I did some research on the third person perspectives. My novel is written in third person; I thought it was omniscient, but the novel doesn't just randomly switch heads, but only switches the perspectives once the scene is done. This method, according to the site I found, would be called third-person rotating. Anyway, here is the link:

teenwriting.about.com/cs/...Person.htm (http://teenwriting.about.com/cs/writingfiction/ht/ThirdPerson.htm)

Clive Barker writes in the third person omniscient (or at least he did with most of the stories in Books of Blood and Hellbound Heart) though he still does a good job of telling the story, so I guess maybe some authors can pull it off, though handling one perspective at a time does make it seem more organized.

[HConn]

I was thinking it would have been a perspective where no one's thoughts were conveyed at all, only their actions. So this is known as Objective viewpoint, then?

I've heard it called third-person camera viewpoint. The reader is told nothing except sensory information, not character thoughts. _The Maltese Falcon_ is a classic example of this viewpoint.

[zerohour21]

I've considered doing the objective with no perspective approach, but the story ended up being third-person omniscient, probably about the only story I wrote that is third-person omniscient, as most are either first person or third person limited (with a few being third person revolving). *shrug* Oh well, the story was still decent, I guess. :)

[Jamesaritchie]

Yes, it's rightfully called "Objective" viewpoint, which just means you don't get inside anyone's head. One of the most famous short stories written in this manner was Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants." It can be read at www.angeltowns.com/member...hills.html (http://www.angeltowns.com/members/shortstories/hemingwayhills.html)

Dramatic viewpoint is pretty much the same thing, but is more often used in stage plays and movies. Movies and stage plays aren't always in objective or dramatic viewpoint, of course, but they are more often than not.

Stage plays are the purest form. You almost always see a stage play from the outside. The story is told through the drama, rather than through internal thought and motivation.

Objective viewpoint can be very difficult for a new writer to handle well, but when done well it's wonderful.

[reph]

A short summary from Damon Knight, Creating Short Fiction:

"The omniscient viewpoint, in which the author can enter any character's mind; limited omniscient, in which he can enter the mind of only one; the detached viewpoint, in which he refrains from entering any character's mind; and finally the single-character viewpoint, in which the story is told entirely through the perceptions of one character."

[Flawed Creation]

as i understand it

3rd person limited (also known as inner limited) is limited to telling the story form one character's point of view. inside one character's head.

3rd person outer limited or objecttive, or fly-on-the-wall, is writing which conveys only what an observer might see. no thoughts.

3rd person omniscient can include anything. this is what makes it very difficult to do.

generally speaking, i prefer limited to omniscient.

omniscient can be useful when the story revolves around no single character, you want to show events that take place where no characters are, or the overall storyline is more complex than any one character realizes, and you need to show a lot of points of view.

the same effect can often be achieved by using 3rd person limited, but changing the point of view character.

1st person is the same as 3rd limited, only differently written.

2nd person is not generally used in fiction, but makes appearances in instruction manuals.
for an example of 3rd omnisicnet, see Dan Brown's works. (angels and demons, and digital fortress. i haven't read any others.)

[maestrowork]

There seem to be a lot of different terms to mean the same things, but I guess everyone should, by now, get the gists of all the viewpoints.

The "objective" (or dramatic/camera/detached) viewpoint is like the omniscient, where the narrator knows everything, except the thoughts of the characters. He can follow any characters and report everything that goes on, except he can't go inside the characters' heads and know how they feel or think. It's really hard to pull it off, but when you do, it's a great thing because you convey all the thoughts and feelings through action and dialogue only. It takes a master to do that well.

[mr mistook]

It strikes me that when you are using third-person-limited (shifting or not) that all the supporting characters in a given scene must be presented in the "objective" POV.

That's how I write anyway. You get the thoughts of one character, and only see the actions of the rest. Very sparingly you get to read what the MC is thinking about the other peoples behavior, but most often I have the MC showing his/her thoughts through reactions which are presented from the objective standpoint. The private thoughts mostly come out in moments of solitude.

I think "Head-hopping" can be used to good effect in certain critical scenes of an otherwise "limited" story. After having spent chapters of time in one head or another, a scene where all characters come together might best be portrayed in true "omnicient" style... but only a scene.

A whole novel of fully omniscient head-hopping would seem to prevent the reader from forming any attachments to the characters.

I think the whole key to an interesting story is to have certain characters who the reader identifies with strongly, and others, whom the reader understands, but is free to disapprove of? Does that make sense?

[reph]

There are interesting stories in which the POV character isn't very likable, so that identifying with him is harder. It's been done.

In true omniscient POV, not only can the author go inside all the heads, she can also describe characters as they are, independently of how any character sees them. That is, there's a narrator's POV in addition to all the characters' POVs.

[Jamesaritchie]

Well, Objective Viewpoint means you go inside of no character in a scene. If you go inside even one, you aren't using objective.

As for head-hopping, it's always bad writing. I've yet to see a case where it didn't make everything around it stink on ice. There's enver a reason for it except lack of skill and knowledge not to head-hop.

There isn't any thing you can do with head-hopping that you can't do better without head-hopping.

[maestrowork]

I agree. Try to avoid omniscient. If you must know the thoughts of all your main characters, use 3rd limited rotating. At least your reader would know who to "root" for in each scene or chapter.

[HConn]

As for head-hopping, it's always bad writing.
I can't help but read this sort of thing as a challenge.

[Gala]

I avoid head-hopping in my novels, for all the reasons stated.

But I must remind you. There are successful, famous, and Nobel prize winners who head hop.

Yet...I have critiqued head hopping that made the work impossible to follow. One person had written 17 unpublished novels. She refused to believe we couldn't follow her writing, never knew where we were.

But Larry McMurtry, John Grisham, Faulkner and others get away with it.

Rules can be broken. I'm not convinced Grisham knows any better, but others do it for effect.

I prefer to stay in one head at a time, thank you.

<img border=0 src="http://www.ezboard.com/image/posticons/pi_freak.gif" />

[Shadow Ferret]

I wrote a parody of Hills Like White Elephants (http://home.ripway.com/2004-8/157187/) when I was in college.

[mr mistook]

Well, anyway, I'm guilty of head hopping to a degree in one (and only one) scene, where I've got three characters hanging out together.

The scene starts out quite objective. They're all just chatting and you don't know what's going on in any head. But then one character falls silent while the other two continue to chat. For that breif moment you get a glimpse inside her head. It goes back to objective and then later, another character zones-out and we get a glimpse of what he's preoccupied with.

[Jules Hall]

But Larry McMurtry, John Grisham, Faulkner and others get away with [head hopping].

Rules can be broken. I'm not convinced Grisham knows any better, but others do it for effect.

I don't know about the others (I've never read anything by either of them), but on the one occasion where Grisham head-hopped in Runaway Jury, it _really_ confused me. I ended up wondering how one of the characters knew about things that he clearly couldn't know, before realising what had happened. It pulled me out of the story because I had to think about what had been written, how I had interpreted it, and what Grisham actually meant by it (which was, of course, something different).

I haven't noticed it in any of his other novels, although I've only read three or four of them.

I suspect he knew what he was doing -- it just didn't work quite as well as he hoped it would.

[maestrowork]

I see the occasional head-hopping or shift of POV within a scene by a known author as a slip up... something that she or her editor didn't catch... I haven't read Runaway Jury so I don't know. But in the few books I've read that have an instance or two of head-hopping, it always seems to me that the author didn't pay attention. To me it almost always feels like there is no need for it. I have a feeling also that their editors don't really edit that much, except maybe using a line-editor to correct spelling and grammatical errors... everytime I come across a head-hopping scene I feel like were I their editor, I'd have corrected that... maybe it's just me.

[Writing Again]

As for head-hopping, it's always bad writing. I've yet to see a case where it didn't make everything around it stink on ice. There's enver a reason for it except lack of skill and knowledge not to head-hop.

People read Mary Higgins Clark and never even notice it. I've seen Danielle Steel do it as well.

I find it hard to agrue with the quality of someone's work who earns more in a single year doing it than I will in a lifetime.

[Gala]

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>As for head-hopping, it's always bad writing. I've yet to see a case where it didn't make everything around it stink on ice.<hr></blockquote>

I don't agree. Too many great writers head hop. Including Nobel winners; people who have written masterpieces.

There is excellent head hopping going on in published writing; if it's done well the reader may not notice.

But as I said before, it is a matter of craft. Not everyone can do it well, and most average writers can't. Including me.

Writing books and teachers say not to head hop--but they're often those of the "those that can't do teach; those that can't teach critique" ilk. IMHO.

Don't believe everything you read on the Internet.

<img border=0 src="http://www.ezboard.com/image/posticons/pi_geek.gif" />

[maestrowork]

Can someone point to some excellent books with head-hopping? I admit I don't read as much as I should. So far, I haven't been able to find one book in which the author head-hops as the norm. Mostly they're written in 3rd rotating.

[HConn]

_Swan Song_ by Robert R. McCammon

[maestrowork]

What do y'all like about omniscient?

My personal preference would be 3rd limited, followed by objective.

[Kate Nepveu]

The omniscient narrator can have a different perspective on the story than the characters.

In fact, the omniscient narrator can _be_ a character in the story.

[Writing Again]

Danielle Steel once had a conversation in a restuarant between two people and jumped into the head of someone two tables away to disclose their thots upon the conversation. This person was never involved in the story prior to that, they never came into the story after that, and their name was never even mentioned.

Perhaps the pont was, "If you don't want total strangers to have opinions of your conversations don't have them in public restuarants."

[Gala]

a few days ago someone asked for specific books that demonstrate head hop writing. I already mentioned authors.

No time to get the book and type in quotes but in addition to examplies I already cited take a look at dialogue in Lonesome Dove for a fun head-hopping experience.

Head hopping is everywhere in more literary writing it's not as noticable as say John Grisham. One of his books head hops in the very first sentence; one of his older books I no longer have it.

[HollyB]

A couple of examples of head-hopping in books I've read recently:

Dune by Frank Herbert (SF classic)

Bel Canto by Ann Patchett (winner of the PEN/Faulkner award)

Both books had a large cast of characters, and both sampled nearly all their character's thoughts, even within the same scene.

I think it's tough to do, but both of these writers pulled it off.

[Writing Again]

That is the whole point, Holly.

Or to put it another way, it is easy to do, and horrifyingly easy to screw up, but extremely difficult to pull off.

Unless you are a genius you need to master the craft. POV is part of the craft.

Like any other craft you start out in stages, mastering one part or phase at a time until you are ready to move on.

Third person, limited to one character's thoughts and emotions, is a good place to start.

Some people do not realize it but first person has a lot of pitfalls and is sometimes harder to pull off than 3rd limited. However some people write in it naturally.

Once those two have been mastered you are ready to move on.

However you do not have to write entire novels to master them. Short stories are a great way to train. For training purposes you can pick short stories that create problems for you to solve rather than attempting to create salable fiction.

[sugarmuffin]

Well, I'm 50-odd pages into a novel, using 3rd person limited, but I'm still not fully committed to it--can't decide. I'm getting hankerings to do 1st person. So I'm going rewrite the first 5-10 pages of it in 1st person. It will make it a totally different story, in a sense, but a great exercise in POV exploration. I also think I can inject some humor into the story this way.

As you can see, I have trouble making decisions.

Well, not really.

Well, maybe sometimes.

(sigh)

[pianoman5]

Since we're on POV, I thought I'd share my thoughts on that rare beast, second person narration.

It's mentioned in most articles on the subject, usually with dark warnings about the difficulties associated with it, and I've often wondered how it would read, and feel.

Inadvertantly I chose an example from the library, where I was looking for anything by Iain Banks, whom someone recommended to me. He writes good action stories (in SF as Iain M Banks) in an effective literary style. This one's called 'A song of stone', and is set in a lawless post-apocalyptic world with marauding bands of rival soldiery.

I'm half way through it, and while I find his writing style generally pleasing, if a little overwrought in descriptive passages, the second person narrative is really grating on me. The narrator and protag is relating the story as a kind of memoir to his lover (his sister, I suspect), so it continuously breaks one of the taboos of writing - 'in exposition, don't have a character tell another something they already know.' He mixes past and present tense to describe past events to break it up a bit, but I'm finding I 'notice' almost everything he's done to try to sustain the illusion. I find that the regular occurrence of 'you' (when he's addressing his lover, not the reader) distances me from the action and never pulls me in.

JMO, but I think it stinks. I guess it would be an interesting exercise to try to write in second person to develop one's skills, but I'm not tempted, since even in the hands of a good writer like Banks it doesn't come off.

<a href="http://crustworld.blogspot.com" target="_new">My blog - crustworld.blogspot.com</a>

[Jules Hall]

I haven't read it myself, but my understanding is that the novel "Das Boot" by Lothar-Gunther Buchheim (or at least the English translation) is written in 2nd person present tense and is an absorbing, compelling narrative. If you're looking for a good example, it's certainly worth a try.

I suspect the hardest problem with 2nd person is choosing the right POV character. The reader must identify very clearly with that character's actions, or else they'll be thinking "no I don't" whenever he does anything...

[Kate Nepveu]

There's one and a half second-person stories in the excellent SF anthology _Starlight 2_, edited by Patrick Nielsen Hayden. The half is a story like the one pianoman5 refers to (I haven't read _A Song of Stone_, as I understand it's one of the really really depressing Banks), the truly amazing "Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang: while it uses "you," the narrator is addressing someone, so it's really first-person.

The one story is M. Shayne Bell's "Lock Down," which I think works.

[Flawed Creation]

do the people of this board have any advice on how to write omniscient well?

i was using 3rd limited, focusing on one character per scene, but two problems developed.

since adding a frame story, the entire story is being narrated by a few surviving characters. as a writer, telling it strictly from the pov of a character who is no longer around in the frame feels awkward, even for a scene. the story has been reconstructed through sharing of notes and posthumous telepathy, and in essence i have chosen to use an onmiscient narrator overall rather than worry about what present-day narrator is telling or knows about what past characters.

the other reason i'm using omniscient, and finding it neccessary to head-hop, is magic. there's a lot of magic in the story, and it's not very visible objectvily. people don't chant, draw arcane sigils in the air, and do anything dramatic. they just will something, and it happens.

i came across a scene in which a monster is leaping towards the POV character, and his friend uses telekinesis to shove it aside, saving the POV character's life.

the problem was, that although the POV character understood what was going on, being familiar with his friend's abilities, the reader isn't, and there wasn't any convenient way to clue the reader in, other than to show the reader the mind of the one using the maigc. same for some divination earlier in the chapter.

is there any way to make this work? can i avoid omniscient? if not, how do i use it effectively?

[maestrowork]

Flaw, do you watch movies or TV? If not, try to watch some films and TV. The reason I say this is, in movies or TV, you very rarely go inside a character's head (sometimes you do, through voice over or projection) but if told well, the audience would have no trouble understanding (through action, expressions and dialogue).

I'm not saying novels are the same as movies. But those storytelling techniques can be used in writing books if you want to avoid going into every character's mind or showing ALL that is going on. A lot of movies are done in 3rd limited objective, and that would be something to study -- how the writers tell a story without going into a character's mind at all.

[Flawed Creation]

that's a good idea. i'll definitely see how movies have handled it.

in my other WIP (untitled as of yet) magic is very visual and dramatic, and 3rd lmited is working fine.

in Flawed, the problem is that magic is not visible-only it's effects. one character can sense magic but he's not the POV character in msot of the scenes.

in objective mdoe, all the reader would see is stuff going flying for no apparent reason, and the large amounts of telepathy in the book would be lost.

even in 3rd limited, i'm forced, whenever magic is used, to either have the characters explain what they're doing in dialogue, or to have the POV character think about it so the reader can see. since the character wouldn't think much of it, the thought becomes an as-you-know-bob thought, almost as bad as as-you-know-bob dialogue.

[Kate Nepveu]

If a non-POV character shoved a monster aside magically, saving the life of the POV character, _and_ the POV character *knew* what the other character did--what's the problem? Just have your POV character nod to the other character in gratitude, or think to himself "Damn, that's another one I owe him!", or say "Thanks, you know I could never the hang of that telekinesis thing," or something.

Since your POV character is there and knows what's going on, I fail to see why you need to head-hop.

[Flawed Creation]

thanks. I tried writing in omniscient but felt uncomfortable with it. when i read the omniscient i wrote i realized that it was in fact outer limited- the objective POV. this worlked perfectly for that scene and a few others, but there are some thoughts i need to show.

is it permissable to use outer limited for some scenes and inner limited for others?

I find I prefer objective for scenes featuring confusing action (it's clearer with a bird's eye view) lots of important characters (give them equal weight)or much description (i feel more comfortable with an impersonal narrator, who can say what is interesting to the readers, not limited to what a specific character would be interested in)

in contrast i generally prefer inner lmited because showing the thoughts and feelings of my characters internally is critical for some parts of the book, and I find it provides the reader with a useful perspective. additionally, in scenes where i don't want the reader to know everything, it's easiest if they see through the protagonist's eyes, rather than an omniscient, since the omniscient knows what the characters dont.

can i switch between the two? or is that just laziness?

[maestrowork]

If you can do it well and not confuse your readers, then do it. Ask your betas.

I just reread Rowling's first book and realized she headhopped a lot too. At first I thought she pretty much kept it to Harry's thoughts and POV but no, she even went into minor characters' minds. Not a very good example, but she sells millions of books. Go figure.

[Writing Again]

I think the answer is that readers read what they enjoy.

The "don't do this" and the "don't do that" crowds are privy to writing qualities the general reader neither knows nor cares anything about.

It is better to write an interesting story poorly than to write a boring story perfectly.

Story is everything.

[pianoman5]

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>It is better to write an interesting story poorly than to write a boring story perfectly. <hr></blockquote>

Not sure I can agree with that value judgement, W.A.; it's difficult to settle the proportion of iniquity between them.

The first suggests a competent tale teller who can't be arsed to learn the skills, while the second implies a superb craftsperson who lacks imagination or judgement and would be better employed as a copy editor.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Story is everything<hr></blockquote>

Is it? Not quite, I think. It's most of the thing, but the 'rules', such as they are, don't exist solely for the purpose of torturing writers. They've only been conceived and generally agreed upon because they make writing work better. The carpenter who has never mastered his tools can make furniture that is recognisable as such, but not worth buying.

[vstrauss]

>>Story is everything.<<

I agree with pianoman. "Story is everything" is a large part of the problem I have with many, many of the fantasy, science fiction, and mystery/thriller books I pick up, in which premise is allowed to trump execution. I used to slog on to the end where the story was interesting but the execution was bad, but a good story is just not enough anymore if the writing stinks. There has to be a balance.

- Victoria

[aka eraser]

I think I've thrown more fantasy novels against the wall, somewhere between pages 1 and 501, in the last five years, than I've finished.

[mr mistook]

I'm starting to think that when story and rules come into conflict, the story does trump the rules. We can all give examples of how a great writer broke the rules, but how many examples can be given for the opposite? - when following the rules at the expense of the story somehow prevailed?

I think it's important to know the rules, as I'm still grappling to do, but I suspect that in the end, the difference between good and great is in knowing when and how to break them.

[Writing Again]

Is it? Not quite, I think. It's most of the thing, but the 'rules', such as they are, don't exist solely for the purpose of torturing writers. They've only been conceived and generally agreed upon because they make writing work better. The carpenter who has never mastered his tools can make furniture that is recognisable as such, but not worth buying.

Depends on what rules you are talking about. Most of those who are adamant about adverbs; Apoplectic about adjectives; Stentoriously frantic about sentence fragments: Have neither heard of nor read about: Aristotle's Poetics or The three act structure or Unity of action.

A story is not a piece of funiture; A story is a house. The rules of grammar are not the tools with which we build a story. Grammar contains the rules with which we decorate it with spit and polish and paint and siding. The tools with which we build a story consist of a sound knowledge of story structure which provide the foundation and framework to build the story upon.

You can read tomes upon tomes of grammar and spend your life in its study and what you will be is a good copy editor: But if you spend the time it takes to understand and master Aristotle's Poetics -- you will be a story teller.

[pianoman5]

True, but I don't think we're discussing the minor, anal aspects of technique here on this POV thread. Those who complained of book-throwing episodes were not put off because of punctilious punctuational pedantry, nor for the lack of grammatical grandiosity in the books, but because they were potentially good stories, poorly written.

[maestrowork]

And yet they were published. Go figure!

[debraji]

Ursula K. Le Guin has a lovely, detailed chapter on POV in her writing book, Steering the Craft. I'd like to quote a bit:

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Involved Author ("Omniscient Author")

The story is not told from within any single charcter. There may be numerous viewpoint characters, and the narrative voice may change at any time from one to another character within the story, or to a view, perception, analysis, or prediction that only the author could make....The writer may tell us what anyone is thinking and feeling, interpret behavior for us, and even make judgements on the characters.

This is the familiar voice of the storyteller....

Involved author is the most openly, obviously manipulative of the points of view. But the voice of the narrater who knows the whole story, tells it because it is important, and is profoundly involved with all the characters, cannot be dismissed as old-fashioned or uncool. It's not only the oldest and the most widely used storytelling voice, it's also the most versatile, flexible, and complex of the points of view--and probably, at this point, the most difficult for the writer.<hr></blockquote>

Later in the chapter she goes on to say:

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>In fiction, inconsistent POV is a very frequent problem. Unless handled with awareness and skill, frequent POV shifts jerk the reader around, bouncing in and out of incompatible identificaitons, confusing emotion, garbling the story....A writer must be aware of, have a reason for, and be in control of all shifts of viewpoint character.<hr></blockquote>

She gives examples from Dickens, Stowe, Tolkien, Tolstoy, and Virginia Woolf.

Omniscient voice is a difficult tool, but worth learning to use well.

[mr mistook]

I'm finding that the difficulty is in the need for holding back information in order to build interest and suspense.

As the omniscient storyteller, I have the power to give away everything about every character, but if too much is given away too quickly, the story just falls flat.

[Writing Again]

Flawed asks,

do the people of this board have any advice on how to write omniscient well?

Yes, I believe I do.

First and most important: Always make sure you provide sufficient signals so the reader is never in doubt as to whose head they are inside of. Never, ever, under any circumstances confuse the reader. This is the big mistake amateurs make.

Second, and just as important: Always make sure the shift contributes something to the story. Usually a character's thoughts tells the reader three things: How they think; how they think about themselves; how they think about someone or something external to themselves. The shift should include all of these, plus give the reader information they could have no other way.

Third is just as important as the second and is almost a part of it: Make sure you shift to the right character's thoughts. If there are only two characters this is easy. You can only hop from one to the other. If there are ten characters in a scene there is little chance all ten will have thoughts and feelings worth contributing. If two or more characters feel essentially the same, pick one to represent them. Take care and be sure you have the reader in the character's head who contributes the most to the story.

Fourth and also just as important: Resist the temptation to tell all. Remember part of your job as a writer is to create interest in what is going to happen next. Tell only as much as will keep the reader wondering. Never tell so much the reader has no reason to continue.

Fifth and last and equally as important as the other four: Pay attention to timing. When you hop into this character's head is just as important as whose head you hop into and how much information they reveal. This is one reason why I do not like the "Write 2000 words a day" school of writing. I have spent two or more days agonizing over the best possible place to put a one sentence line that I had already written.

If you master these five elements of the third person omniscient, then you can have confidence you have done it well. Maybe not perfectly, but you will be head and shoulders above the average.

[mr mistook]

thanks "Writing Again" for the above comments. They help a lot!

[MariaL]

I'm writing in shifting/rotating limited 3rd POV (just read start of this thread!) and recently read a post somewhere else in AW where it was suggested that keeping secrets from the reader was cheating them.

So I'm writing this scene and suddenly fretting that by revealing only half the story I'm cheating the reader. For example:

Etlinn fell silent. She yearned to go but the risk was too high. The truth would devastate her family. Patrick revered his father, even as Cian Morgane’s mind deteriorated beyond recognition.


(Patrick's her husband, Cian's her father-in-law.)

What I'm not revealing is that if she goes she will meet the protag whom she gave up as a new teenage mother. The protag's father is Cian. This is what will be going through her mind in the scene above, but I'm only revealing an aspect of it despite the scene being written in her PoV.


What I want is to foreshadow the protag learning the identity of his mother (and father) later on in the novel. I want enough hints that the reader will start to either 1) anticipate it, or 2) discover the identity of his parents along with the protag and accept it.


Am I cheating the reader in this scene or simply foreshadowing?

[RichardGarfinkle]

If you think of 3rd Omniscient as simply a story-teller telling the story to the audience (the POV is the story teller) then there's nothing wrong with concealing information. The narrator has the same motivation you do in making the story come across properly to the reader.

This way of thinking also makes it easier to develop a narrative voice that is right for the particular story.

[MariaL]

Thank you. Sorry to sound completely dense, but is 3rd omniscient the same as shifting/rotating limited 3rd POV? I thought omniscient was more distant. Although reading the posts above mine it seems the same thing.

[Bufty]

I think you are confusing 3rd Limited where one can use multiple POV characters but are limited to one at any given time, with Omniscience, where the POV is that of an all-seeing and all-knowing narrator.

How distant or close one gets in any given scenario is up to the writer.

Thank you. Sorry to sound completely dense, but is 3rd omniscient the same as shifting/rotating limited 3rd POV? I thought omniscient was more distant.

[Cyia]

Thank you. Sorry to sound completely dense, but is 3rd omniscient the same as shifting/rotating limited 3rd POV? I thought omniscient was more distant. Although reading the posts above mine it seems the same thing.

No.

Shifting POV --

scene 1; Joe's POV, in Joe's voice
scene 2; Mary's POV, in Mary's voice
scene 3; back to Joe

Omniscient POV --

All scenes in the voice of an outside narrator, who is neither Joe nor Mary, who speaks in a voice which is neither Joe's nor Mary's, yet knows what both characters and their dog Fluffer-nutter are thinking at any given time. This voice never changes, no matter whose thoughts said narrator is letting the reader in on.

[MariaL]

Ok, that makes sense, thanks both Bufty and Cyia. So going back to #69... where I am definitely using 3rd limited, with each POV in the character's own voice, I'm still okay to keep back information as I would be if writing 3rd omniscient? The post I remember about cheating the reader made an impression and I'm second guessing myself.

[BethS]

What I'm not revealing is that if she goes she will meet the protag whom she gave up as a new teenage mother.

Do she know this? Because if she does, that will factor into her decision and it needs to be part of her reasoning.

If she doesn't know it, then the reader will find out when she finds out. There's no need to reveal it in advance; it would just spoil the surprise.

[artemis31386]

Third Person Omniscient is very hard to pull off and not a popular choice for narrative these days.

[thothguard51]

Currently reading a series by a writer I recently discovered. He is very well known in the Historical Fantasy genre. The first book I read by him was 1st person narrative and I immediately was hooked on this style. I ended up reading all six books in the series in a month.

Recently, I started on a second series by him and its third person omniscient and I am rather disappointed in this PoV because he jumps around too much from head to head and sometimes in the same paragraph. Not sure I will finish this series...

[MariaL]

Do she know this? Because if she does, that will factor into her decision and it needs to be part of her reasoning.

If she doesn't know it, then the reader will find out when she finds out. There's no need to reveal it in advance; it would just spoil the surprise.

Yes she does know and it is part of her reasoning. So in this case I would be cheating the reader because I'm having my POV character make a decision but only teasing the reader as to why.

[BethS]

Yes she does know and it is part of her reasoning. So in this case I would be cheating the reader because I'm having my POV character make a decision but only teasing the reader as to why.

Even then, it depends on how it's handled.

If you mention all her reasons for going (or not going? I can't remember the context now) except that one, which happens to be a major motivating factor, then yes, that's a problem.

If you mention all her reasons for going except that one, and have her think something like--

"But there was one final reason to go and that one trumped all the others." [end of scene]

--then we'll will know there's another reason, but will realize we'll have to wait to find out what that reason is.

Does that make sense?

[MariaL]

Even then, it depends on how it's handled.

If you mention all her reasons for going (or not going? I can't remember the context now) except that one, which happens to be a major motivating factor, then yes, that's a problem.

If you mention all her reasons for going except that one, and have her think something like--

"But there was one final reason to go and that one trumped all the others." [end of scene]

--then we'll will know there's another reason, but will realize we'll have to wait to find out what that reason is.

Does that make sense?

yes that makes lots of sense, thank you!

[BethS]

yes that makes lots of sense, thank you!

Oh, good. Because I read back over it and it seemed very jumbled to me. :)

[jclarkdawe]

The strange parties I get invited to. Marie asked me to look at this. Now I've got to figure out what a POV is and why people look at me askance when I say I write in fifth person while in the sixth dimension.

Fortunately for me, I'm not sure the question here is so much a POV one as it is about secrets. Or maybe another way of saying this is who gets told what why.

Let's look at the players in a story. We have the narrator, who may or may not be the protagonist, we have the good guys (supporters of the protagonist), we have the bad guys (antagonists of the protagonist), and last but not least, we have the reader.

So the question becomes who is the writer keeping the secret from? And we have to remember that we're keeping a big secret from the reader. As the writer, we know the end of the story. Obviously, we're not going to share that with the reader, although you can tell you've got a good story when people tell you that they enjoy the book for a second read, knowing the ending.

The hardest time for the writer to keep secrets from the reader is in first person. Because in first person, the reader should know exactly what the protagonist/narrator knows. Right? Well, actually no.

If the only person who doesn't know the secret is the reader, then yeah, you've got a problem. But what about if the protagonist isn't telling anyone his/her plan? If not even the protagonist's best friends don't know the secret, isn't it reasonable for the reader not to know? Because sometimes the protagonist wants to spring a surprise, on both their best friends and the reader. And the reader is accepting of that because the reader is in the same boat.

So the question in third person is whether the reader who is the only one who doesn't know the secret? But if most of the people in the book also don't know, then the reader is happy.

Here's a typical scenario for a thriller. The protagonist comes up with a battle plan. He/she is going to take war to the enemy and wreck havoc. The protagonist will discuss this plan with his/her buddies/allies off-screen. Left out of the discussion are the bad guys and the reader. The reader doesn't have any problem with this.

Secrets are an important part of story telling. But it never should be obvious to the reader that the author is keeping secrets just from the reader.

Best of luck,

Jim Clark-Dawe

[Sarah Madara]

Secrets are an important part of story telling. But it never should be obvious to the reader that the author is keeping secrets just from the reader.

QFT