Omniscient Narration - Pros and Cons?

[BT Jones]

HNY, folks. Up at 6am, trying to channel all my energies into finally finding a narrative arc for a key character I've been struggling with in my WIP. Was thinking of going with an omniscient narration for him. It's an approach I've avoided thus far - it always seems a bit of a cheat to have the narrator know everything, even the future. It's something that's bugged me with Stephen King's work. Things like 'so and so smiled. But tomorrow they'd be dead.'

In my case, a more tempered approach might work, especially given this perspective is introduced near the end of book 2, to perhaps give readers some world-building reveals that they've been keen for; my regular narration style is pretty much the voice of the reader, so they only know as much as we do.

Anyway, I thought I'd try to gauge people's thoughts on the pros and cons of omniscient narration.

 

[HareBrain]

I think it would mess with my head a bit to have an omni narrator used for just one character, especially so late on. You as author are suddenly revealing yourself as a separate narrative voice, which means you've concealed it so far. Not saying it can't work, but I think you'd need a very good reason, and I'm not sure finding it easier to reveal a bit more worldbuilding would be it.

 

[Montero]

I am OK with omniscient narration, but from the start. I thoroughly dislike the sort of foreshadowing with your example. I think you can do omniscient without the foreshadowing.

 

[msstice]

In my case, a more tempered approach might work, especially given this perspective is introduced near the end of book 2, to perhaps give readers some world-building reveals that they've been keen for; my regular narration style is pretty much the voice of the reader, so they only know as much as we do.

Anyway, I thought I'd try to gauge people's thoughts on the pros and cons of omniscient narration.

I think it would flow better if you had an omniscient POV from the start, even though you didn't use it everywhere. I would not use it for one character specifically, but as a general part of the storytelling technique. So you could have three POV characters and a narrator. Perhaps the narrator could kick off the story and then come it at specific points where some clarification would be good, but can't be done by the characters.

This is used effectively in, say, Lord of the Rings.

 

[Wayne Mack]

Could you clarify what you mean by having an omniscient narration for a character?

I interpret omniscient as changing between the POVs of all the characters in a scene, not focusing on a single character. You also mentioned future, predictive references. I'm not sure I would categorize that as omniscient. Alistair MacLean, a writer I really like, does this frequently in his first person stories. Nevertheless, I try to avoid the 'something bad will happen' thought as I feel it is a cheap way to build tension.

I'm not sure what type of world building is intended. I would fear that any world building done outside the perspective of any of the characters in the story would just come across as info dumping. I would try to keep the world building moments limited to what the POV characters are experiencing.

I'm not sure whether I addressed your concerns (and I certainly avoided the title question). I am a little unclear as what is trying to be accomplished and whether a switch to omniscient POV really solves the problem.

 

[The Big Peat]

HNY, folks. Up at 6am, trying to channel all my energies into finally finding a narrative arc for a key character I've been struggling with in my WIP. Was thinking of going with an omniscient narration for him. It's an approach I've avoided thus far - it always seems a bit of a cheat to have the narrator know everything, even the future. It's something that's bugged me with Stephen King's work. Things like 'so and so smiled. But tomorrow they'd be dead.'

In my case, a more tempered approach might work, especially given this perspective is introduced near the end of book 2, to perhaps give readers some world-building reveals that they've been keen for; my regular narration style is pretty much the voice of the reader, so they only know as much as we do.

Anyway, I thought I'd try to gauge people's thoughts on the pros and cons of omniscient narration.

If the entire story is in the past tense, surely none of it is in the future? If I tell you a story about what happened to me last year but include a reference to last month, it's not that I know the future, it's that it's all the past.

But I think you've highlighted one of the big problems with omniscient with what I bolded.

To quote Le Guin:

"it’s also the most versatile, flexible, and complex of the points of view—and probably, at this point, the most difficult for the writer."

The pro of omniscient is you can do just about everything.

The con of omniscient is you can do just about everything... including stuff readers hate.

Everyone I've heard talk about the bolded dislikes it (okay, all three).

I don't think I've heard anyone complain specifically about what you're talking about doing - using omniscient to give extra worldbuilding details - but I've read lots and lots of complaints and reading advice that are either in the neighbourhood or related. If the worldbuilding details don't happen in the character's PoV are they important? And if they're not important, then should they be in the book?

Or to use another example - one of the big strengths of omniscient is that you can switch PoV a lot quickly... which is also regularly complained about by readers.

I guess one possible metaphor is it's like a cooking competition where one person can go to a supermarket, and one person can get absolutely any raw ingredient but only raw ingredients.

Person One - Limited Third, First Person - can do a hell of a lot, and has a lot of awesome pre-formed options, but there's some things they can't do because they're not stock.

Person Two, the omniscient, can do absolutely everything but there's so many more options and choices and tasks to do. Person Two wants pasta? They've got to make it themselves. Which is the best form of pasta if you get it right... and the worst form if you get it wrong. And Person Two has a lot more chances to get things wrong.

So there it is. The pro is the con and the con is the pro in my book.

 

[BT Jones]

Thanks heaps @HareBrain, @Montero , @msstice, @Wayne Mack, and @The Big Peat. You've definitely helped make my mind up.
For the sake of completeness, all of my characters are amnesiacs and only piece together bits and pieces over the course of the first 3 books whilst they follow the principle trail that leads them home.

I had started writing this segment along the lines of. "John Smith came into the world on a wave of indifference..." with the narrator teasing this character's life before he became an amnesiac. It would have been the first clear indication of who these people were. It wouldn't have known the future, per se, but would have been a bit of a post-mortem on his earlier life and what made him who he was.

But I am getting the impression this would be too jarring, especially as the previous 8 acts of books 1 & 2 did not have this knowledge. I think I will have to revert to my original idea, which was to tell the events from his perspective and let the reader try and piece together what it all means.

Thanks so much, guys.

 

[psikeyhackr]

I kind of doubt that I can be any help but I cannot resist throwing my 2 cents in. I started reading science fiction when I was 9 and I think that is relevant. I was not trying to analyze literary style I was into story, ideas, science and technology.

So when I got to high school English literature and the instructor starts talking about "first person" and "third person", I'm going like, "the who what?"

So I am a kind of Literary Barbarian and like it that way, "Conan the Reader!"

 

[Belake]

Yo I think,

Omniscient PoV can be a bit confusing. If you’re talking 1st p narration, that’s rather easy to manage. I probably read things like that all of the time. Even a documentarian or autobiography can contain this, approaching their story with the sort of analysis of their interlocutor’s patterns.

3rd p can get confusing, meanwhile. I’m not sure that I read it too often, unless I’m reading chapter by chapter insight into one individual character and another. This reads very well for me.

 

[Montero]

My only concern would be every character not knowing what is going on or how they got there might not be very immersive for the reader. I really like stepping into another world in a book and I'm not keen on amnesiac - though am OK with it if it is character I already know well as I can interpret what they are now missing.

 

[tinkerdan]

One question that comes to my mind as far as the OP is do you really need to shove all the worlbuilding into a short narrative at the end? Or; is it just that you thought it would be a neat thing to do?

What I'd suggest is to write that worldbuilding mind buster and then sit for a while and figure out how to put it into this novel or the next novel where it fits organically into the narrative. If it doesn't fit, it may be that the reader doesn't need to know all of that just yet--maybe never.

I think omniscient is like first person--in that it matters more how well you do it rather than that you did it.

 

[psikeyhackr]

Can you name a book written in omniscient narration so I can check it out? Preferably SF but whatever will do.

 

[HareBrain]

Can you name a book written in omniscient narration so I can check it out? Preferably SF but whatever will do.

The opening to Black House by Stephen King/Peter Straub is a good example.

Neatly, so is Bleak House by Dickens.

 

[The Big Peat]

Pretty much everything Guy Gavriel Kay has done is omniscient too.

 

[THX1138]

@psikeyhackr I don't know much about this style of writing either, but I did fine this.
What is an Omniscient Narrator? Examples | Now Novel

 

[Fiberglass Cyborg]

I think it would flow better if you had an omniscient POV from the start, even though you didn't use it everywhere. I would not use it for one character specifically, but as a general part of the storytelling technique. So you could have three POV characters and a narrator. Perhaps the narrator could kick off the story and then come it at specific points where some clarification would be good, but can't be done by the characters.

This is used effectively in, say, Lord of the Rings.

This makes the most sense to me. It doesn't have to be cut and dried that the whole novel is in the same sub-category of narration. Most readers don't think that way. But if the narrator needs to cut away from the characters' viewpoints altogether, it's less jarring if this is set up early on as a thing that can happen sometimes. It might work well to have some scene-setting passages from the more omniscient perspective, before zooming down into the characters.

(I'm assuming the novel is mostly written in close third person, rather than first person? That would be a much more drastic contrast!)