Writing the Intimate Character

The darkest eyes he’d ever seen, wet with light. [In the omniscient you can jump suddenly into the mind of another character. Here, we’ve left Materia’s POV and enters James’s.]

[James] had already removed a few ivory keys and was bent under the lid behind the piano’s gap-toothed smile, so he didn’t see Materia when she stepped into the archway. [Omniscient POV allows for the narrator to reveal things the character can’t see. Here, James didn’t see Materia, but we see them both.]

The omniscient POV provides cues to what the characters are feeling and thinking in a different way than more intimate POVs. Some of the cues will be the same, but omniscient also allows for more shortcuts, as the narrator can simply tell the reader what the character thinks or feels. In other words, due to the fluidity of the POV, the subset emotions may actually be more evident than in other POVs.

Just remember that more than a few paragraphs of this type of characterless perspective will eventually slacken the pace. Make sure to intersperse historical context alongside action and dialogue.

Surface and Subset Feeling Cues in Omniscient

Rowling uses the omniscient POV to reveal information about the spooky Riddle house, which plays an important role in major plot revelations later in the story, and in the series overall. The information isn’t revealed through any character’s POV; it’s the all-knowing librarian at work, telling us what we need to know in order to delve deeper into the story.

Using Omniscient to Provide Historical Context

Take this example from J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire:

who suffers from cystic fibrosis:

Using Omniscient to Provide Information Characters Cannot Know

The omniscient viewpoint is most commonly used in two ways: (1) as an all-knowing external narrator, and (2) as a series of “roving heads.”