POV - 3rd Omniscient

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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

omniscient

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

Re: omniscient

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

Re: omniscient

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

Re: omniscient

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

Re: omniscient

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

Re: omniscient

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

Jules Hall

Re: omniscient

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

Re: omniscient

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

omniscient

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

Re: omniscient

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.
 

reph

Re: omniscient

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

Re: omniscient

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

Re: omniscient

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

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

Re: omniscient

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

Re: omniscient

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

objective

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

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

Re: objective

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

Re: objective

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

Re: objective

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

Re: objective

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?
 
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