What I will do, though, fo r purposes of discussion, is post a quote from a thread on POV and OMNI that we had on my newsgroup on SFF Net a few years ago. Since it was a public post, I’m going to assume it’s okay to post it here, with attritutions to the two in that portion of the conversation:

> So, moving to a more general discussion, I have a welter of questions.
> What would be the characteristics of an omni POV? Would there always be
> an external narrator?

Thinking about this lately… I would say the feature that really
distinguishes omniscient from multi-3rd is the presence, not necessarily
of an external narrator-persona who explicitly comments on the story or
addresses the reader directly, but of an external narrative frame of
reference. This frame of reference contains knowledge that may not be
available to any of the characters; it potentially contains awareness of
past, present, *and* future; and from this frame of reference the
narrator can dip into any character’s perspective to access thoughts,
reactions, and motivations at will. When the omnisicent narrative
resides temporarily in a character’s POV, it doesn’t settle in and get
really comfy — it always retains the freedom to move about and visit
other characters, or float about in the ether for a while.

One of the other characteristics of good omni, I think, is that it is a
fluid approach. With multi-3rd we’re normally encouraged to stick to one
character through a whole scene, or at least signal explicitly when the
POV shifts. With omni, however, it’s entirely possible to float from one
POV to another within a single sentence.

Cameras come to mind. With limited-3d POV you have fixed cameras. You
can do close-ups and wide shots with them, you might have multiple
cameras to get different angles on the scene, but each camera always
stays in position. The author, as director, gets to pick which shots to
use within this specified set of options. With omni, the cameras
themselves are moving around and pointing at different things, some of
them on dollies and cranes, some of them just sitting on somebody’s
shoulder and wandering through the action. The author/director has a lot
more flexibility here, a lot greater range of possible shots and fancy
effects, and a lot more of the scene can be captured, but there are also
a lot more opportunities to create confusion rather than narrative sense
if you don’t keep it under control.

>Can you have omni if one or more scenes are
> primarily in one character’s POV? And if you do start with one POV, how
> can you signal to the reader that this is omni and not third?

It’s tricky when you’ve grown used to the restrictions of limited-3rd,
but I think you need to establish that external element: to stand
outside the character as well as inside, to provide occasionally a
perspective that doesn’t coincide precisely with the internal POV of the
character. Its easier if you bring in multiple character-POVs in all the
scenes, of course, even if it’s just for a line or two at a time.

> And to make this complete, does anyone have opinions on the pros and
> cons of omni vs. third person POV?

Something about omni as a technique intimidates me, so I haven’t tried
omni myself yet. I like reading it when it’s well done. It potentially
gives a richer, more comprehensive view of a story than limited-3rd. If
it’s done poorly, it’s just head-hopping, or addresses to the Dear
Reader. And there are plenty of times it would just not be appropriate
to particular story.

My reaction is: try not to begin with the weather. The first line is always more effective as a hook, not a neutral painting of setting. My eye wanted to skim until I saw ‘Miranda”–character! Interest!

Now, it’s not the same if a character is reacting to the weather, especially in this context: Pele in gloomy Seatle.

MKK

There is probably a good text somewhere, but damned if I’ve ever seen it. Viewpoint and viewpoint shifts were some of the arcana I learned through writer’s workshops years ago and have had to explain down the way. So I suppose I’ll just have to write that Ur text here:

First person: You write a first person story and everything is in the viewpoint of your narrator. Everything your narrator says is taken with a large grain of salt as his/her opinion. It’s all written “I did this, I did that” and while not the easiest point of view to pull off, is certainly not the hardest and is pretty much immune to viewpoint shifts.

Second person: Rarely used except for horoscopes, travelogues and the occasional “Choose Your Own Adventure” book. The whole “You are a Leo and are contemplating murder and pie, not necessarily in that order” sort of voice.

Third person limited omniscient: The usual viewpoint for most novels these days. The story is set in third person, focusing solely one one character and what he or she thinks and observes. It’s very much like first person in focus.

Third person serial limited omniscient: This is like first person limited omnscient except that the viewpoint changes from character to character, usually at scene or chapter breaks, so one chapter is told from Bob’s viewpoint, the next from Sue’s and so forth.

Third person full omniscient: The narrator sees all, knows all, and tells a fair bit. Not everything, but enough to make the story entertaining. Something like “Miranda was working on her laptop when Pele, the Polynesian Goddess of Fire, walked into the coffee shop. Thankfully she was not made of magma at the moment, but had incarnated as a statuesque woman in a flame-colored gown more appropriate to the Oscars than a rainy day in Seattle.” In more old fashioned versions of full omniscient, the narrator occasionally becomes a character in and of himself, even if one not appearing in the story. A good example of this would be Daniel Handler’s “Lemony Snickett,” the narrator of A Series of Unfortunate Events.

Viewpoint Shifts are a flaw in the third person limited omniscient style where we are all into a particular character’s viewpoint when suddenly we get some tidbit of information from someone else’s viewpoint, be it another character or cosmic narrator. The most common viewpoint shifts are sensory details. Things like “Susan eyed a delicious cake” which are problematic because how does Susan know the cake is delicious if she’s not eating it? It can be “appetizing,” “attractive,” “delicious-looking,” or even “sinful” but if we’re in her viewpoint, the only time the writer gets to say something is delicious is if the viewpoint character is currently eating or has recently eaten it. Some of the worst viewpoint shifts are what is known as “author intrusion,” which usually happen when an author is writing about a character with completely different beliefs and values from his/her own and starts having his own perceptions color his character’s thoughts, or worse, puts in editorial comments about the character.

But your points are good ones and echo what Eileen said to me about another story I’m working on. Is there a good text/explication of POV for the nascent writer? I’m not sure I fully understand the subtleties and ramifications of the various permutations.

MKK

Nice to see you here. Now on to the critique.

First, show don’t tell. Second, imply don’t show.

Telling us it’s Seattle in January is acceptable shorthand, however, if not terribly original, but if you do that, you don’t have to go to all the bother of describing the gloom. Beyond that, while the description of the computers is nice, the repeat of “lighted screen” is awkward. After that, we’re into the story of a writer, which is rarely done well and a touch narcissistic even when you pull it off.

The “remarkable” woman who comes in in the next paragraph does sound a bit out of place, but not enough to interest me. Even if she’s the devil here to witness Miranda’s impious oath, which is the only possible SF element I can find here.

My suggestion is to go from the full omniscient you have here to the limited omniscient, because if you go with the full, it’s just dirty pool that the omniscient voice isn’t coming out and saying she’s the devil. Also, play around with the writer’s tricks. Let’s see some of Miranda’s frustrated writing. And what if she’s doing a writer’s exercise called “What would you sell your soul for?”