Writing in Third-Person Omniscient POV

[AncestorDuck]

Does anybody of you writes in Third-Person Omniscient POV?

If yes, why did you choose it, and do you like it?

 

[MasterY001]

I do. I chose it because I have an ensemble cast with many main characters. As for whether or not I like it, that changes every fifteen minutes.

 

[AncestorDuck]

I do. I chose it because I have an ensemble cast with many main characters. As for whether or not I like it, that changes every fifteen minutes.

How often do you include side chars thoughts?

 

[ACertainPassingUser]

I do. I chose it because I have an ensemble cast with many main characters. As for whether or not I like it, that changes every fifteen minutes.

Narrative Consistency across multiple main characters POV.

Omniscient third-person is basically one of the efficient and reasonable way to maintain them. Definitely a good use of basic use-case.

 

[MasterY001]

How often do you include side chars thoughts?

Not often. However, my side characters do get a lot of dialogue

 

[Fakeminsk]

For a (relatively recent) terribly skilled example of 3rd person omniscient, you could try Sally Rooney's Beautiful World, Where Are You? Skims between the four main protagonists, gradually drawing in closer and eventually bringing the four together for the finale. Brilliant stuff.

 

[lambenttyto]

Does anybody of you writes in Third-Person Omniscient POV?

If yes, why did you choose it, and do you like it?

Yeah, I do, and I love it. It allows you to tell things to the reader that the characters don't know. It also let's you reveal the thoughts of the different characters in a scene. It's great for conflict and when you have characters pitting against on another.

Nowadays most writing is third person limited, and in order to find out "what the other guy is thinking" you have to wait for his POV chapter or scene to come, which can be fun, but I like to see the different thoughts right there as the conflict is happening.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

About 2 out of 3 times (the other time it's first person). It sometimes fits the story or genre better.

 

[RainyLiquid]

I don't even know what my writing style is.

 

[dukerino]

This one time I wrote in first-person omniscient.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

This one time I wrote in first-person omniscient.

Neat trick. I recall, I think two stories Ramsey Campbell wrote in second person. One has "you" coming home after visiting the noble in the castle on the hill to find your wife is now afraid of you, hung foul smelling stuff in the windows to try and keep you out, has vitriol by her bed that she splashes you with, and finally pulls out an evil cross that forces you to recoil and realize you don't have a reflection in the mirror...
And the other has "you" as a scientist who was planning on sharing the secret of immortality with your wife, only to discover she was cheating on you. You planned to confront her, but her boyfriend hit you with a shovel. But you would show them, oh you would - just as soon as you got your neck aligned with your spinal chord so that you could control your hands enough to sew the head that had just climbed up a flight of stairs to reunite with its body back on...

 

[Ai-chan]

Does anybody of you writes in Third-Person Omniscient POV?

If yes, why did you choose it, and do you like it?

Ai-chan use it for published work. It's too much work to do it for webnovels. Ai-chan treat webnovels as a playground to test story ideas and motivations to work. So for webnovels, Ai-chan prioritize ease of reading over mass of information.

That being said, Ai-chan doesn't really use third person omniscient much even with published work. It's basically too much information. If you write it once, you need to continue all the way to the end. It's burdensome for Ai-chan who has to think about the many different characters with many different personalities and thought processes that need to be simulated in Ai-chan's mind and also readers quite often get overwhelmed with too much information. It would work if you have few characters, but will not work if you have many characters with differing personalities.

Sometimes, it's better to keep it simple stupid than to be a babbling professor. Alternatively, you could make it limited omniscience, which is more palatable than full omniscience.