Omniscient narrator
An omniscient narrator is an all-knowing narrator who can report any character's thoughts and any part of the story world, rather than being confined to a single character's perception.
An omniscient narrator knows everything: every character's thoughts, what is happening in the next town, and how it will all turn out. Here is one at work:
Nobody in Harrow Cross trusted the new doctor, and the doctor, who knew it, trusted them even less. Mrs Pell at the post office had decided he drank. He did not. What he did was worse, and it would be October before anyone found out.
Why it works: the narrator reads two minds, corrects one of them, and knows the future. It also has a personality: dry, a little amused, and in control of what we learn and when.
A point of view of its own
Omniscience is not the absence of point of view. It is a point of view of its own, with a voice, a vocabulary and opinions, and it should be built as deliberately as any character in the book. Classic novels such as George Eliot's Middlemarch use it openly. Most modern fiction runs on close third person instead, which is why omniscience now reads as a choice and gets judged as one.
What it gives you is range: the whole town at once, the irony of knowing what a character does not (see dramatic irony), and a narrator who can comment.
What goes wrong
- Rough transitions between a character's free indirect discourse and the narrator's own voice.
- Inconsistent rules for moving between characters, so the reader cannot tell when a switch is permitted.
- Losing the physical scene while moving between thought and narration.
- One voice in costumes. Several characters get a viewpoint, but none gets a distinct voice.
- Over-explanation. An omniscient narrator can show the whole board, and showing it drains the drama, because the reader has nothing left to wonder about.
Omniscient narrator vs head-hopping
Both move between minds, so they get confused. The difference is control. An omniscient narrator is a steady presence above the characters, and the moves between minds come through that voice. Head-hopping is a close-third story that slips into another head by accident, because the writer needed a fact only the other character had. The trust to leave some things unexplained, and some minds closed, is what separates a wide narrator from a wandering one.
Frequently asked questions
What is an omniscient narrator?
An omniscient narrator is an all-knowing storyteller who stands above the characters. It can tell the reader what anyone is thinking, what is happening elsewhere and even what will happen later.
Is an omniscient narrator always third person?
Almost always. The narrator uses 'he', 'she' and 'they' for the characters, though it may speak as 'I' or address the reader as 'you' when it comments on the story.
What is the difference between omniscient and third person limited?
Third person limited, or close third, stays with one character at a time and knows only what they know. An omniscient narrator can move between minds and share things no character knows.