CI5 hq

I wouldn't presume...and I happily swap between heads. It may not be right, but I do it unapologetically.

To my mind, so long as it's clear to the reader whose head they're in, it's a perfectly fine way to tell a story. But each character can only know what they know, so character A can only surmise or be told what character B is feeling. Whereas a narrator would know.

Maybe this blog might help?

http://theeditorsblog.net/2012/07/26/point-of-view-part-three/

Or you could wait to hear from someone who actually is a beta :0)

From:

Here's a good, brief write up of omniscient (http://pcwrede.com/viewpoint-problems-2-omniscient/)

The difference is the "who" of the viewpoint. Third person means the pov is that person. In a single scene, you wouldn't want to slide from Bodie's POV to Doyle's POV. Think of is as a physical thing, if you like: you can't physically be in two people's heads at the same time (in the same scene). You can, however, leap into the brains of whoever you want, as long as it isn't at the same time. The point is, for any given scene, you're in that one character's POV.

Omniscient is the POV of "someone else", but not a character in the story. So, it's an author's voice, an "omniscient" voice--like God. The writer can be overt about that--"So you see, reader, Bodie thought he was the most important person in the world to Doyle, but Doyle thought differently." Or it can be more hidden than that: Bodie thought he was the most important person in the world to Doyle, but Doyle had no idea of this, and indeed thought entirely the opposite."

POV choice is one of the great things about writing. You can tell utterly different stories based on your POV choice. In any of these choices, you're gaining some benefits and sacrificing others. So, with omniscient, what do you sacrifice? Generally a closeness the characters, the narration is a bit removed, and everything must be described. (Bodie thought X). With the other POVs, you are inside someone's head and so the reader is much closer to the character--experiencing the story as the character is experiencing it. It's more intimate. But it does mean you need to be strict about where you are at any given time in the story.

So, lots of different options about how to tell a story, and no right or wrong answer. But you must be consistent with whatever you choose--omniscient, multiple 3rd person, tight 3rd person, etc.

From:

I should be asleep, and I expect any moment now I will be, but I found that very interesting, especially since it implies that most people are not comfortable with omniscient. I'd've thought it was everybody's 'go to' choice.

If asked, I'd say it was my natural style. Perhaps that's just old age? It does suggest it's out of fashion.

I don't claim any particular skill at it, but it is the style I fall into most easily. I have never really attempted first person, I rarely enjoy reading it (although I find it less irksome than I once did, although, oddly, it distances me from the character) and I don't feel comfortable claiming another identity as my own. Perhaps the exception to this is my sorry attempts at verse.

Sometimes a story comes to me entirely from one pov, but normally, even if it's strictly third person, it'll be more than one viewpoint.

And I'm not so sure it's wrong to swap between styles. So, for example, first person when your protagonist is in the chapter, but omniscient in the next when explaining what's happening 'back on the ranch'. The Victorians were prone to that sort of thing.

I'm thinking the discipline lies in understanding that that's what you're doing. They always say you have to understand the rules before you can break them.

Anyway, lots of food for thought, so thank you.

From:

An interesting discussion. I love that story - it was one of the first Pro's stories I read. At the time the thought of writing my own fic had never occurred to me, so I really didn't pay attention to the "style". I was seduced by the writing just like Doyle had been beguiled Bodie! So whatever style Sebastian used [and after reading through the comments and links here i think it is omniscient] it was very effective.

Thanks for the link! I may have to go and re-read now. :-)

From:

Thanks for the link. It was helpful. And yes, staying in one person's head at a time is important but I sometimes manage to get one sentence in the scene wrong. Thank goodness for betas!

From:

Thank you for this! It explains it very well. Kiwisue sent a link to an earlier discussion on "Hyperion to a Satyr" - there was a difference of opinion - at least at first as to whether it was omniscient or multiple third. The first paragraph is omniscient, I'm pretty sure of that. But then it seems she's in the characters heads - each in the seduction scene - mostly Doyle but there are some bits that have to be Bodie: We're in Doyles head as they are climbing the stairs to Bodie's flat and Bodie touches Doyle's bum. The POV then shifts to Bodie as Doyle turned his back again and continued to take the steps three at a time, now, unseen, Bodie smiled again.

And this is where I get confused. Is she mixing styles or is it all omniscient? Is it ok, in omniscient to "switch heads" in the middle of a scene? And if so - why is it ok in one style and not another?

From:

Yes, it's okay in omniscient to switch heads in the middle of a scene--the whole point of omniscient is that you can dip in and out. But what you're not doing is telling the story from within the character's head. So, in the bit you quoted above, I'd argue it's omniscient because the "narrator" is watching what's going on with Bodie and Doyle--inside and outside their heads. Think of it like a camera dipping in and around, swooping around, etc. The reader is the camera, along with the author.

In 3rd person, the reader is seeing the world through that character's eyes--through his impressions, his filters, his world. The reader isn't a camera but, rather, is the character, at least for that scene. That's why it's jarring if suddenly "you" are someone else. It can actually make the story fall apart.

3rd person became the default way to tell a story somewhere int he 20th century. Again, it's not "better" or anything. It might be that you really want to be writing omniscient, but then you can't have the reader"be" Bodie. You can only bring the reader to observe Bodie's thoughts. Heh. That probably makes no sense. I think it is something where we'd have to have a lot of text to go over together.

From:

You know, it's an odd thing, but--and I hate generalizations--it seems that British fannish writers, of a certain age, tend to gravitate more naturally to omniscient than American writers, who tend to gravitate more naturally to tight 3rd person. Was it the books we read growing up? I certainly read all the famous omniscient books, and loved them, yet I naturally write tight 3rd. The omniscient Pros writers I can think of tend to be British. Interesting, isn't it?

I'd argue that the Victorian writers were, in fact, doing a version of omniscient--a subset that includes first person. (I'm thinking David Copperfield, for example.) At any rate, I don't see anything wrong with switching from first person to omniscient in different chapters/scenes. You could tell a really interesting story that way. Why not? But what I would object to was first person sliding into omniscient in the same scene--that would lead to madness. *g*

From:

Yeah - I get the difference in the styles and understand what each is trying to do - but when the omniscient narrator seems to be in Doyle's head in scenes before the staircase comment, I'm not so sure. But it does work and I'm not really "thrown" from the story.

we'd have to have a lot of text to go over together Save that thought for the next BistoCon!!

From:

Yes Dickens does play with omniscient, Great Expectations is another, I think. I sometimes wonder if writers like Dickens and Conan-Doyle developed their particular styles because they were serialised, and Dickens would have expected to be read aloud.

We don't ordinarily read aloud like that any more, except to children. Talking books, I suppose, is the closest we come.

I think you can slip from first person to omniscient perhaps more easily than by using third person. I'm thinking of film now, which is almost universally omniscient, but things like David Lean's Great Expectations juxtapose first person narration with omniscient 'showing'. Sunset Boulevard is another which uses the same technique. And maybe I'd argue Dickens with A Tale of Two Cities does something similar, it's a strange one that because sometimes, it seems to me, as if the narrator Dickens and Sydney Carton are one and the same voice.

Maybe it's the tradition of saga? Robin Hood is told from an omniscient stand point, Arthurian legend that way too. I can't think of a traditional tale which isn't. They're all told by a story teller.

Someone bought me the Twilight books (I'm stalled on the third one, I'm really not a Cullen fan - I'd have dumped him pretty early on. I also got a bit thrown by things like the medieval sewers of London - a city which famously didn't have any until the mid nineteenth century - but then it didn't have werewolves or vampires either- so I went with it). I was surprised to find them in the first person, but actually they're written quite conversationally, so my stalling had nothing to do with the unexpected style of them. But Harry Potter is written as I'd expect.

I don't actually think I could write a long story without the omniscient narrator. Off the top of my head, I can't think of anything long (by my standards) I've written which is told entirely from one person's perspective, or even several people's perspectives, without the addition of a narrator.

But then I never think about that at all when I'm writing. I just write it the way that seems natural for the story, it's never a conscious decision, it always evolves naturally from the plot.

From:

What I love about 3rd person POV is how you can play around with the perceptions and filters. Since no one person can perceive everything (that is, be omniscient), the story is always told from within a tunnel of sorts, and you can gradually reveal just how "wrong" that perception of the tunnel was. It's fun. Particularly in fandom where the reader brings her own perceptions and knowledge to the story. You can do the same in omniscient, but it's much more the author playing with the audience and, at times, feels unfair to me.

I suppose I can see how a story might demand one type of pov or another, but I think it is far more down to the preferences of the author. The story can change radically with different pov choices. If your natural preference is for one...well, I'm not at all certain you'd even see the option for what the story might be in another POV, unless you deliberately thought about it. So, what seems natural to the story is really just natural to the author, if that makes any sense.

ETA: Which is not to say that I don't see how the story might demand a certain POV. The one time I wrote omniscient was because I couldn't tell the story I wanted to tell in any other way. And it is true that I discovered that as I was trying to write the story, so that might be what you mean by "natural"...but it had to be a deliberate decision on my part, and I had to recognize the story wasn't working in 3rd. (We're probably more in agreement here than it seems. *g*)

Edited Date: 2015-09-22 11:35 am (UTC)

From: