Omniscient Point of View

Omniscient Point of View

The omniscient POV is most closely associated with nineteenth century novels. Simply put is the author saying to the reader, Let me tell you a story.” Omniscience, means "all knowing,". The authors of these novels allow a third person narrator to assume godlike powers.
  
1) They know everything about the characters and can enter the minds of any one of them, whenever they choose.

2) They can enter the minds of the cat on the windowsill and the spider in the barn also.

3) They know everything that has happened, is happening, and will happen, and they have complete freedom to move through time in any direction.

4) They also have complete freedom to move through space - and so they can move from one room to another (and back again) in the middle of a scene, or to the other side of town, or even to the other side of the world one hundred years ago.

When using an Omniscient POV, new writers believe anything goes, it doesn’t. Some writer assume (wrongly so) that head jumping is an omniscient viewpoint. While I agree with Science fiction author Nancy Kress’ statement: "Writers are gods. We get to create entire worlds, populate them, and even...destroy them. Of course, writers can do this in any viewpoint, but omniscient point of view adds another layer to the process." The omniscient POV can be annoying, especially when it’s mishandled.  

Head Hopping Verses Omniscient POV

As stated before some writers head hop (jumping from character to character in a scene) and try to pass it off as Third Person Omniscient.

In my post on Third Person Multi, I uses the detective in the interrogation room. Let take that and turn it into a Third Person Omniscient. 

Detective Fay laced her fingers together, propped her elbows on the silver table and leaned forward. Tapping her lower lip with her thumbs, she eyed the emaciated man across from her. The interview room, set up only for interrogations, had no paintings on the walls and nothing adorning the tabletop between the Detective and her suspect. The new, enlarged two-way mirror, sat in the wall directly behind her head. She'd been chasing this jackal for months and all Fay wanted now was his confession.

"So Charlie, let’s go over this again. Where were you on the evening of November 26th?"

Charlie’s eyed widened for brief second before he dropped his stone mask in place. He opened his mouth then clamped it shut again. Detective Fay’s stared bored into the man and caused Charlie’s fear level to shoot up like the temperature on an August afternoon in Phoenix.

Charlie baulked. He didn't know what Detective Fay had on him, but a sudden claustrophobic feeling tightened the knot in his gut. Fay had him cornered and he knew wasn’t leaving here without a brand new, shiny set of bracelets decorating his wrists.

The narrator’s telling the story, it may be Fay’s boss, her husband, or a reported close to the police department. The narrator is telling us what going on and the only time we hear from the characters is in their dialogue. 

Now take head hopping.

Detective Fay laced her fingers together, propped her elbows on the silver table and leaned forward. Tapping her lower lip with her thumbs, she eyed the emaciated man across from her. I’ve been chasing this jackal for months. The interview room, set up for interrogations, had no paintings on the walls and nothing adorning the tabletop between them. I know he did it. The new, enlarged two-way mirror, sat directly behind her head. All I need is this cold bastard’s confession. "So Charlie, let’s go over this again. Where were you on the evening of November 26th?"

Charlie opened his mouth then clamped it shut again. What  could she have found? His eye widened for brief second. I cleaned up real good. I never miss anything. His stone mask settled into place as Detective Fay’s stared bored into him. In spite his best efforts, Charlie could feel his fear level shooting up like the temperature on an August afternoon in Phoenix. What-the-hell has she got? A sudden claustrophobic feeling tightened the knot in his gut. I can get out of this, she hasn't got me cornered. I’m leaving here without that shiny set of bracelets she’s been wanting to decorate my wrists with.

That’s a simple scene, but from who’s POV. It’s neither Charlie’s nor is it Detective Fay’s, and there is no narrator. We jump from head to head and never really know who is telling the story. If it’s Charlie, do I really what to read a book where the cold blooded murder is the protagonist. If Detective Fay’s is the protagonist then I want to remain in her POV and let interaction and reactions to Charlie fill in his character for me.

Does Omniscient Point of View Have a Place Today? 

Yes, but not much of one. It has all but disappeared, due to readers' changing tastes. As readers have grown more sophisticate they demand stories told from a First Person POV or a Third Person Multiple POV. The want to be drawn into the story and try to imagine the characters and setting in their own minds, not have a narrator lay out the characters and the story for them. 

However, if nineteenth century omniscient point of view novels are your thing and you think you can write a twenty-first century version, go for it. Just be aware of two things:

1.Technically, it is a most demanding viewpoint to use. You will really have to know what you’re doing to write a third person omniscient novel and not look amateurish. It’s the sign of a novice, or a lazy amateur when they claim to understand the POV and then you read their story and realize just how badly they've mishandle the entire manuscript. The irony is that most of the time, the author, he or she is unaware they've has done so.

2.Giving omniscience a modern twist is imperative. And the way to do that is to use your narrator’s more subtly than did our nineteenth century counterparts. A very similar effect to omniscience can be achieved with a more conventional Third Person Multiple Viewpoint novel.

As I stated earlier, the neutral narrator of such a novel is, "godlike" - and this neutral, godlike narrator had the ability to slip in and out of the bodies and minds of any number of viewpoint characters as they tell the story.

So the question is this.

What Sets a Third Person "Omniscient" Narrator Apart?

The omniscient narrator's voice will be far from neutral. The Omniscient Narrator can be as visible and as in-your-face to the readers as the author wants.

In H.G. Wells, ‘The Time Machine’, the narrator thought about the Time Traveller so along these lines. 

“I think at the time none of us quite believed in the time machine. The fact is, the Time Traveller was one of those men to clever to be believed: you never felt that you saw all around him, you always suspected some subtle reserve, some ingenuity in ambush, behind his lucid frankness.”

As you can tell the narrator isn't exactly holding back with an attitude and the opinion. The neutral narrator of a standard third person novel could never write a sentence like that. It’s just not acceptable

Not only can omniscient narrators share their attitudes and opinions and comments with the readers, they can actually address the readers directly. I have made up the following lines, but they are typical of what you would find in a nineteenth century novel.

So you see, dear reader, had Filby shown us the model and explained the matter in the Time Traveller’s words, we should have shown him far less scepticism.

In case you were wondering, as late as the 1920 & 1930 this POV was still in use in Science Fiction and Early Fantasy Fiction novels. I've read a few when I was a young, bored sailor on duty or stuck on ship with the duty weekend and found them engrossing. If I try reading them now, I can’t get passed the first chapter

Why would anyone want to write a novel in this way, or why would any reader want to read it? Simply put, a well written, opinionated narrator's telling of the story can be as entertaining as the story itself.