POV question

[bcomet]

I recently heard a puzzling comment (from a very knowledgeable source) about omniscient point of view: that it had to be either from the narrator OR inside a head.That to do both was weak.

I thought that omniscient could go outside and inside, i.e. the narrator could also know the thoughts of a character.
I re-looked it up in several places to re-check but found little about POV that contradicted what I thought it to be.

Polymath? Anyone? Please speak more on this if you understand this better, so I can too.

Thanks!

[sierramcconnell]

I get blamed a lot for omniscient POV.

But then again, I have angels and God on my roster. Of course they know more than most people.

I don't have a narrator though.

I would think, having a narrator and a character in omniscience, would cause a problem. You would have multi-omniscient POVs, and it would cause the problem of lying. Distrustful, misguiding narrators and trisksy talking that would make someone not want to read you if you don't get your stories straight.

[bcomet]

Much of my understanding of Third-person, omniscient includes:

Third-person omniscient narrative

Historically, the third-person omniscient perspective has been the most commonly used; it is seen in countless classic novels, including works by Jane Austen, Leo Tolstoy, Charles Dickens, and George Eliot. This is a tale told from the point of view of a storyteller who plays no part in the story but knows all the facts, including the characters' thoughts.

Overview/Narrator: example: John and Sue walked into the library. (Action)

Inside His head: example: The room reminded John of his grandfather's home. (thought of a character)

[Watcher55]

"The rules of good writing are taunting me so I broke them."

I'd be more than a little dubious if someone told me that. Inside, Ouside, sideways - pick one or two or three (make one up). Tell the story and maintain a consistent POV - it's all good.

[sierramcconnell]

I've always seen narrator as, "Once, there was a boy and he was very pale, with wide eyes of which he hated." Someone not connected to the story, who's telling the story.

Not one of the characters living the story. That would be more of... "Looking at his skin he saw it was growing pale in his months long sickness, and he was worried his mother might think something wrong. At an attempt to cover it up, he wore long sleeves with trailing lace, and powdered his face with the same lead-based makeup his sister used to trap suitors and tempt them to her bed. It was this that caused so many to tease him that he was such a doll. A beautiful, rouge-cheeked doll of delicate skin and wide eyes. Oh, how he hated his eyes."

See the difference? Of course, I just pulled that out of my butt so I have no idea who this guy is or why he would want me to write him. CRAP.

[polymath]

Every narrative has a narrator. A narrator is in some sense an extension of a persona of an author. Not every narrator is apparent. Some are so covert they're nonexistents. Nonnarrating narrators in the sense Seymour Chatman suggests in Story and Discourse for nonnarrated narratives are nonexistents within a story's framework, but they are existents as narrative intermediaries reporting viewpoint characters' perceptions and cognitions to readers. If there were no narrator reporting there'd be no narrative report. There'd only be an author reciting to readers and probably not much of an audience in today's challenging fiction environment. The fashion of writing back when the novel form was young was for authors to directly address readers as if they were orators speaking to them from a lectern. Talented folklore storytellers back when did all they could to make a story about the story and not about the storyteller.

An existent in Chatman's sense of the term is something that exists within a narrative's setting.

Chatman outlines the participating personas of a narrative;
Real author >> implied author >> narrator >> [narrative setting] << narratee << implied reader << real reader
(Narrative setting is my inclusion.)

A nonnarrated narrative doesn't easily fit within that framework. The Potter saga is an example of a nonnarrated narrative, no overt intermediary between narrator and narratee. Readers experience the unfolding action as though they are Potter himself. He is the viewpoint character, protagonist, the reader surrogate, and the attitude holder. However, it's a third person fictional account reported by a completely covert bystanding narrator.

If a writer has performed the narrative distance magic well, as Rowling does, the words and the page and the book and the narrator and readers' alpha settings fade away and the reader is transported into the secondary setting of the narrative. The secondary setting becomes a primary proxy reality where readers accompany the viewpoint character as an invisible bystander observing the external and internal action and discourse. Then there can seem to be no narrator. That's the magic of close narrative distance for creating profound participation mystiques.

I add a viewpoint locus to Chatman's outline that fits the magic of narrative distance;
Real author >> implied author >> narrator >> readers share and become viewpoint characters' perceptions and cognitions within the narrative setting << narratee << implied reader << real reader

Omniscient reporting is also a subject Chatman discusses. In the case of a nonnarrated narrative, an omniscient narrator seems completely covert, but makes selective incursions into character thoughts, in other words selective omniscience. A fully omniscient narrator would report a chaotic babble of thoughts from multiple sources with very few of the thoughts furthering dramatic flow. In fiction, the real author in the persona of the narrator selects omniscient incursions that further dramatic flow.

Chatman also distinguishes omnipresence as a feature of psychic access--access to thoughts--again, selective; access selective of who, when, where, and so on. Psychic motility allows selective omniscient and omnipresent access to character's thoughts--internal existents--and selective reporting of external existents.

In the alternative, a fictional report pretends to have selective omniscience and omnipresence, otherwise a narrative would be nonfiction, memoir, autobiography, essay, expository composition, etc., about the author or author's interests, in other words. Nonfiction wraps the real author, implied author, narrator phenomena into one persona addressing narratee, implied reader, and real reader in one persona.

about omniscient point of view: that it had to be either from the narrator OR inside a head.That to do both was weak.

I think there's a miscommunication there. Or a personal opinion without good standing. Inside a head could mean what I've outlined above for a fully covert narrator nonnarrated narrative, though from a single viewpoint character's perceptions and cognitions. Perceptions are mostly of external existents, like reporting sensations of settings, characters, and actions, though viewpoint characters do have internal perceptions, pain, mood, passion, etc. Cognitions are volitional thought internal existents reacting to external or internal perception existents.

However, omniscience and omnipresence and covert narrators and multiple viewpoint characters are not mutually exclusive. Clancy and Grisham and Franzen write novels with all four narrative point of view aspects well and magically coordinated.

[bcomet]

Thanks Polymath! I knew you could shed some light!

Here is what the person wrote:

The main weakness of the excerpt is the point of view, which is shifting and not well defined. For example, "No doubt, it was the same . . ." (an internal thought inside the main character) conveys the main character's thoughts to us, so the viewpoint is in his head. On the other hand, "The boy and the girl stepped out . . ." and "They bounded gracefully, two thin children . . ." (description and action) are told from an omniscient narrator's viewpoint, detached from either character. The POV seems to waver between these two options, which is distracting and keeps me from becoming attached to the main character or as involved in the situation as I'd like to be.

It's hardly enough to be certain what they mean, but perhaps it will make some sense to you.

The person also referenced Characters and Viewpoint by Orson Scott Card.

[polymath]

The main weakness of the excerpt is the point of view, which is shifting and not well defined. For example, "No doubt, it was the same . . ." (an internal thought inside the main character) conveys the main character's thoughts to us, so the viewpoint is in his head. On the other hand, "The boy and the girl stepped out . . ." and "They bounded gracefully, two thin children . . ." (description and action) are told from an omniscient narrator's viewpoint, detached from either character. The POV seems to waver between these two options, which is distracting and keeps me from becoming attached to the main character or as involved in the situation as I'd like to be.

It's hardly enough to be certain what they mean, but perhaps it will make some sense to you.

It does, perfect sense. Though I might have worded it differently for best results. The first sentence is imperatively declarative when it might best be recouched as a subjective statement. A shortcoming I feel the excerpt has is an unsettled narrative point of view.

Unsettled narrative point of view is my number one concern with most if not all projects in progress I evaluate. And wow, a reader commenter who's going on a pragmatic consideration, not just an aesthetic hunch, is a deeply insightful and helpful reader. I'm sensing the reader and the writer are at that pivotal yet elusive threshold of full realization. Have no worries the struggle's end is in sight, just the veils of uncertainty and wandering in the dark are finally coming down.

What I'm interpreting from the above reader response is the excerpt has an unsettled narrative point of view between a narrator who's at times covert and at times overt with abrubt, artless, untimely transitions between them. I also think the reader wants to have a close rapport with the main character rather than the narrator, or a close rapport with the situation, which I interpret to mean the setting, idea, event, and/or main dramatic complication, rather than the main character or narrator.

Settling narrative point of view to me means focusing on who's reporting who to who about what and when, and when viewpoint transitions are indicated, structuring them artfully and timely.

[bcomet]

Once again, Polymath, can you please condense this for my layman's senses? I want so much to follow you.

You seem to get it with the reader, but I am still baffled trying to follow. Most of all, I want to get it too.

[polymath]

I understand where you're coming from and will stay with it until you do get it. And please don't feel as though this is easy. I've been on this trail alone for years and only lately come to a useful understanding. At least I can now discern and process the methods of authors I want to emulate and practice reproducing their methods. And recognize methods short of the mark and avoid, or offer opinions on how to improve them. Even if I'm not that great at communicating them, which I'm working on.

The internal thought "No doubt, it was the same . . . " of the main character is his private thought reported in Free Indirect Thought, the narrator stepping out of the picture so readers are right there within the main character's thoughts. Showing plain and simple in Free indirect Thought what the main character's thoughts are. The word "doubt" is a volitional thought verb, an attitude verb that sets up a transition from a perception to a cognition without the intrusion of an overt narrator reporting it's a thought. It's like the main character is speaking only to himself and we readers have access to it as a thought without the intermediary of a narrator reporting it as a thought.

FID (Free Indirect Discourse) and FIT (Free Indirect Thought) and FIS (Free Indirect Speech) are principal narrative methods, mostly FIT, used to convey a viewpoint character's personal point of view in place of a narrator's viewpoint and point of view.

Some background first by way of a more formal syntax to show "doubt" is a verb in the given context. He doubted that it was the same . . . In that sense, the narrator is telling what "he" thought rather than showing the thought as immediately from him.

FIT (Free Indirect Thought)
A blue ball bounced past her headed for the river. [Perception] No doubt, the Spangler boy was loose in the street again. [Cognition]
TIT (narrator Tagged Indirect Thought)
A blue ball bounced past her headed for the river. No doubt, she thought, the Spangler boy was loose in the street again.
FDT (Free Direct Thought)
A blue ball bounced past the girl headed for the river. The Spangler boy was loose in the street again.
TDT (narrator Tagged Direct Thought)
A blue ball bounced past the girl headed for the river. The Spangler boy was loose in the street again, she thought.

The differences are subtle, but have potent potentials for understanding how to close narrative distance and exercise psychic motility. The latter three are direct narrator tells reporting sensations (perceptions) and thoughts (cognitions) and therefore from an overt narrator. The FIT example slips loose from the narrator and magically seems to be reported by the viewpoint character, a show, yet it's reported by a covert narrator.

Anyway, free or tagged, indirect or direct, depicting a causal sensation sets up a transition into a character's thoughts. Following up on "No doubt, the Spangler boy was loose in the street again." Somebody's going to have to do something with that wild boy before he gets run over by a truck. More thought. Transitioning out of the thoughts might begin with another thought leading into a sensory perception. And here he comes, the little demon, running headlong down the street after his damned ball.

The other reader hit, "The boy and the girl stepped out . . ." and "They bounded gracefully, two thin children . . ." seems to me a purely overt narrator direct report of characters' actions and descriptions due to the "The boy" introduction. A simple change markedly alters the context from purely overt narrator to covert narrator reporting the boy's viewpoint from the boy's sensory and thinking perspective. "[He] and the girl stepped out . . ." and "They bounded gracefully, two thin children . . ." Though I can't resist more changes just for illustration purposes; He and the girl stepped out of the shadows and they bounded gracefully across the meadow, two skinny kids rejoicing in silver moonbeams.

[bcomet]

I understand where you're coming from and will stay with it until you do get it. And please don't feel as though this is easy. I've been on this trail alone for years and only lately come to a useful understanding. At least I can now discern and process the methods of authors I want to emulate and practice reproducing their methods. And recognize methods short of the mark and avoid, or offer opinions on how to improve them.

Hi Polymath. Again, thank you for hanging in there with me. So, would you rephrase "No doubt..." to "It reminded him of..."
or how would you suggest a more compelling rewrite to distinguish the breach (as it were) between POVs (that I still don't really get)?
(It seems so esoteric.)

[polymath]

It is esoteric with several basic overlapping principles poeticists, narratologists, linguisticians, stylisticians, and semioticians agree on, soft sciences with a very few hard and fast principles that nonetheless the rest is open to widely varying interpretations.

Actually, the breach, as it were, the reader is concerned with is whether the narrator is intended to be overt or covert but is unsettled, shifting back and forth between the two with little discernible purpose.

The "No doubt" excerpt suggests a covert narrator and the "The boy" excerpt suggests an overt narrator. I'd go the other way with the No doubt excerpt, keep it and work on any other areas where the point of view shifts abruptly into overt telling narrator. The No doubt excerpt can do the job of introducing a FIT passage artfully, admirably, and succintly for the purpose of closing narrative distance in on the viewpoint character. Unless your style aesthetic is going for closer rapport with an overt narrator than a viewpoint character, then I'd rewrite the No doubt passage so it is an overt narrator tell."It reminded him of . . ." seems like it would do that.

A risk with overt narrators is the ease of lapsing into burdensomely intrusive tells. In other words, overt narrators tell more than show, and covert narrators show more than tell. Neither of which is wrong or right, per se, just it's a best practice to be consistent and use artful, timely, smooth transitions between overt tell and covert show when it's indicated, or stay in one mode and avoid straying far.

It's my sense that most readers far prefer close narrative distance over remote narrative distance. Overt telling narrators create remote distance.

[bcomet]

Polymath,
Well this is a LOT of information to try to process. And, again, thank you.
And what if it's more than a passage. And what if It's the whole work?
My question again is: how does an omni-third perspective go into a character's head and be out of it at the same time with/without all this controversy ( of this conversation?)?

[polymath]

I don't like making explicit statements about writing principles because every one I've encountered has fallen into question in my assessments from one or another critically acclaimed and/or popularly acclaimed author contravening them.

But here goes anyway. How third-person omniscient perspective can be both in and out of a viewpoint character's head at the same time. From the narrator reporting the viewpoint character's sensory perceptions of what's before the viewpoint character's senses. Reporting what he sees, what he hears, what he touches, what he smells, what he tastes, what he feels from within his head.

Good;
Gray ashes coated the valley floor.
Poor;
He saw gray ashes coating the valley floor.
Worse;
He looked at gray ashes coating the valley floor.

In the good example the narrator reports what the viewpoint character sees of the external world from within the viewpoint character's head. In the poor and worse examples the narrator reports the viewpoint character looking at the valley floor; in other words, the narrator reports what only the narrator sees and can only logically see. The viewpoint character cannot see himself looking at the valley floor. Both the poor and worse examples are entirely external to the viewpoint character's perception, outside his head.

Yes, an entire work or dramatic unit ideally stays in one or the other narrator mode, overt or covert. Kurt Vonnegut contravenes that principle, among other writers.

[bcomet]

Thank you so much, Polymath. I really appreciate the detail you have gone to to help me.

overt/covert

much to ponder

And so, would a story in 3-Person Omniscient, that, like a camera, focuses on a scene and, like only a written work can, has moments inside a character too
be a failure?