3 Differences Between Omniscient Viewpoint and Third Person

I’ve been writing in omniscient viewpoint now for at least a couple of years, and it’s been a real learning experience.  When I started Miasma, there were some things I didn’t know, mainly because the information isn’t available, or worse, just plain wrong.  When I a search on the viewpoint, I got a lot of sites giving quick examples — but the writers not really understanding what it is.  Writers can easily compare third to first — just change the “she” to “I.”  Admittedly, I think that’s overly simplistic and doesn’t get into the benefits and pitfalls of each.

But omniscient viewpoint is the strange bird — it’s actually a category under third, but it doesn’t work the same way as third.  Writers often have trouble with it because they try to  make it fit into their knowledge of a traditional third person, and it’s like trying to fit a peg into a hole that isn’t even there.

These are the things that cause conflict when omniscient is compared to third:

Eyes in the story

THIRD: The viewpoint of a character who is in the story.  That character is making decisions that directly affects the story.

OMNI:  The viewpoint of a narrator is who is outside the story, telling us what’s happening.  This narrator can choose what it wants to tell us about the story or omit, but the narrator doesn’t have any impact on decisions being made in the story.  If it helps, imagine a storyteller sitting down to tell us a fairytale.

Who Sees What

THIRD: The world is seen through the viewpoint character’s eyes.  We only see what he/she sees, know what only that character knows.  So the viewpoint character may have a reaction to what someone looks like, but they aren’t going to describe themselves.  This particular problem of trying to describe the viewpoint character often ends up with the mirror scene — character looks into the mirror and assesses what they look like.

OMNI:  The world is seen through the narrator’s eyes.  The narrator can see everything, and knows everything.  So the narrator can show us what the main character is doing, or what other characters in the same scene are doing.  Because the narrator is telling us the story, it can move from one character to another in the middle of the scene.

Changing Viewpoint

The above two categories cause writers to have a lot of problems with this next one.

THIRD:  More than one character can have a viewpoint in the story.  Often, this can be used for subplots.  When a viewpoint changes, a new scene starts, which is pretty standard.

OMNI:  It’s one narrator telling the story.  That’s it.  That narrator may move from one character to another in a single scene and let us know what that character is thinking — but because it’s one narrator, it never changes viewpoint.

What writers often do when they first try to understand omniscient viewpoint is they put third into it and try to make third fit.  It doesn’t work because the omni narrator isn’t a character in the story, nor is it more than one viewpoint.  We also hear all about head hopping from message boards, so when we see an omni book, we don’t have any other frame of reference other than, ‘Start a new scene for a new viewpoint” — instead of realizing the viewpoint never changed.

So omniscient viewpoint isn’t just about changing pronouns, but really, it’s about changing how we think about the approach for a story.

 

Why I Chose Omniscient Viewpoint

When I first started my contemporary fantasy Miasma, it was in a traditional third person.  I’d written most of my stories in third, so I went with because that was what I knew.  But as I writing the first fifty pages, something didn’t feel right.  I couldn’t quite identify what it was, except that it appeared to be the viewpoint.  It wasn’t the viewpoint character.  He was right for the story.

Along came a viewpoint workshop.  I took it, and the exercises had us write a scene in different viewpoints.  Some were from different characters, but we tried third, first, second, and omniscient.  Based on comments I got, I switched the story to first person.

Hated it.  First was soooo bad for the story.  It brought out the worst traits in the main character, put a magnifying glass on them, and waved a red flag.  First was definitely not a good choice.

Then came omni.  I went out and got the only omni author I could think of: Clive Cussler.  How did he make the transitions when moving from person to person?  How did he approach scenes?  This time, I picked a scene I was about to start, where first and third weren’t giving me what I needed for it.  By its use, the implication was that the main character was right, and that wasn’t exactly the case.  Tried omni, and the story was magic.

Before I started to switch the story over, though, I came up with about eight reasons why I should use it.  Over the years, all I’d heard was “omni is not used today” (an urban legend); that publishers aren’t taking omni (several agents said in the craft books, “Don’t even try omni.  We’ll reject you.”); and omni is old-fashioned.  So it was a risk when it came to submitting to agents.

Yet, I’d never seen an agent put “story written in omniscient” on any of their top ten lists of what not to do.  Except for the two who published craft books quite some time ago, I’d never even seen any agent discuss omni.  But it was best for the story, so my choices were:

1. A viewpoint that worked well with the story and have a great story
2. A more “acceptable” viewpoint and have a not so good story.

The choice was obvious.  Other writers were not happy.  I tried a critique to see if I was on the right track.  I didn’t ask for a critique of the omni, but merely mentioned it was in omni.  Bad.  Very bad.  The writers jumped all over me for use of the viewpoint.  No one said it did it badly or did it well — they just plain hated omni.  They made dire predictions and said no one was using it any more.  One person even said, “I’m sure you know your story, but here’s how you’d write it in third.”  The critique was so negative that I took six weeks off the story to reassess, and still felt omni was the best choice.  All the reasons I’d picked it were still valid.

Now that I’m in final draft of Miasma, the reasons are now blurred.  But I’ve found where other writers naturally jump to first person as their first viewpoint choice, omni is mine.  I feel like I’ve always been writing in it and considering it for my next project.

I hope you’ll check on my article “Critiquing for Omniscient Viewpoint” on Vision: A Resource for Writers.