One of the first “rules” every writer gets greeted with is “show, don’t tell.” That is, don’t tell the reader what’s happening, but show the character experiencing it. Kaye Dascus’ blog on Making Viewpoint Work For You says:
When we “tell” that a character saw something (She watched him running down the street), we are holding the reader back from truly being inside the head of the character. When I see something, I am not (usually) cognizant of the fact that I am in the process of “seeing.” I just experience the action going on outside of me.
But in omniscient viewpoint, the narrator is observing the scene and not inside the character’s head, viewing the scene through her eyes, so we do get more telling. Good thing or bad thing? When I first starting using omniscient viewpoint, I imitated writers who used it. Then I got a crit and got the accusatory finger pointed at me because I was breaking one of the rules: “You’re telling!” And I’m thinking, “Yeah, but that’s the way the authors writing in omniscient viewpoint did it.” I did have to relook at what I was writing to ensure that I wasn’t doing too much of it, but it’s tough because it’s breaking commonly accepted wisdom. There isn’t any information outside of everyone rehashing “Show, not tell”–even though some telling is perfectly acceptable in the other viewpoints.
I think the first step is recognizing what’s good telling. When I read a published author who writes in omniscient viewpoint and he does telling, it’s very different than reading an early draft from a beginning writer who is doing a lot of telling. The telling needs to be interesting and engage the reader. In Tamora Pierce’s book Squire, it opens using telling in omniscient viewpoint, but each bit of it pulls us further into the story. We get something about the character, what’s going on, and we’re instantly in the story. In pieces I’ve crtiqued where telling has been done badly, it’s dull and flat, and even difficult to get through. It often doesn’t give us anything interesting, but maybe recites backstory or tries to set up the character.
What are some other ways to identify good telling from bad?
Filed under: writing | Tagged: omniscient, omniscient viewpoint
