Omniscient narrator

[XerXesXu]

I wonder how well it can work, writing in first person, if I try using an omniscient narrator to set the stage for the next scene.

It's not uncommon. Stick to 'historical' fact - what wasn't seen or known to your 1P narrator - don't relate the thoughts, feelings, or intentions of others.

 

[SinclairGroupLLP]

Holy shit, this brings back a memory...

George Segal, Goldie Hawn, and Blackjack the Wonder Horse. The movie was called The Duchess and the Dirtwater Fox. The critics thought it sucked, I thought it was hilarious.

If you ever decide to do it, I'm going to read it

I’ve been working on an idea for Geek Day and I think I can fit it in there.

 

[Britva415]

I wonder how well it can work, writing in first person, if I try using an omniscient narrator to set the stage for the next scene.

In my opinion, this is missing something which is fairly important to me unless there is some kind of a frame which makes that make sense.

That omniscient third-person narrator can provide that frame. The first-person narrator could, too, and in a story which only has their POV, then only they can do so, and it’s not hard. But in this scenario, where there’s another voice in the manuscript and presumably the first-person narrator can not be directly aware of them because they’re omniscient and therefore supernatural, then, it would be a lot harder for the first-person narrator to pull that off and far easier for the third-person narration to provide such a frame.

What do I mean by “frame?” The story should contain an explanation for where these different voices came from and why the story is composed this way. When I say “why,” I don’t mean a reason like “because the author thought it best,” I mean some kind of an in-universe reason.

Or, if not a “why,” then at least a “how” - or, we could take those to mean the same thing, in this case. The point being, if there is a first-person narrator narrating, how did that come about and who are they narrating to? If the third-person narrator is omniscient, then it can’t be an in-universe character with any relationship to the first-person narrator, so, again, how did it come about that this manuscript contains both these points of view? Who is the reader to either of those parties?

You see what I mean by “frame?” An omnisciently-narrated story by itself doesn’t necessarily need any frame to frame the narration in. But a first-person story should have at least a minimal veneer of one, in my opinion, and then when these two voices are combined in one manuscript, that’s not as simple as the more trivial configuration and calls for more effort.

Basically I as a reader want to feel like the first-person narrative is not just an omniscient party pretending to be an in-universe character and speaking in that character’s less-than-omniscient voice. This is already a problem I have with a lot of first-person POV stories - they lack the element of “why am I (or anyone, or who is) hearing this from this character in this universe.” And so introducing another separate narrator amplifies this shortcoming, hangs a lampshade on that, really highlighting the absence of a frame, making it glaring.

 

[Britva415]

That's the recipe for a big info dump - now, I'm not against that per se, as my readers know I tend to do this all the time. But there are ways you can get the info out there while doing it that might not need the omniscient narrator - at least, unless part of the background info is something in the head of another character.

Great point, I completely agree with this.

If the omniscient “narrator” is just infodumping and not delivering plot motion, then they aren’t narrating a story at all, they’re just reciting facts.

And if those facts aren’t even known to the first-person narrator, maybe they shouldn’t be the one telling the story at all.

I mean, it is possible to pull this off, it just won’t be easy. If I had to guess, I imagine that OP thinks that introducing an omniscient POV is the “easiest” way to introduce these facts, and maybe it is, but I would really think carefully about whether that’s the easiest way to succeed at the storytelling. What makes one goal easy (documenting) doesn’t make some other goal easy (storytelling). They aren’t the same skill.

I would also want to be really really sure about why these facts are necessary to the story at all if the first-person narrator isn’t aware of them. I venture that most of them probably aren’t. And if they are, doesn’t the first-person narrator discover that on their own as their experience of the plot develops?

What necessary story element would never become revealed, in at least some fashion, to the one telling the story?

 

[MillieDynamite]

A first-person narrator can't be omniscient unless they're a god. A second-person narrator is just an annoying way to tell you a story, as you read this, you read that, who gives a fuck about you.

That brings us to the third-person narrator. The story is told by an outside narrator, using "he," "she," "it," or "they." Third-person narration has further subcategories: Third-Person Omniscient: The narrator knows the thoughts, feelings, and actions of all characters. Third-Person Limited: The narrator knows the thoughts and feelings of only one character. Third-Person Objective: The narrator is a detached observer, only reporting what characters say and do. However, the Omniscient narrator may only be interested in the feelings and thoughts of the main characters and doesn't have to share the lesser characters' internal thoughts and feelings. This is my preferred format for reading and writing in third-person tales.