Forum: Author Hangout

In relation to #3, I took exception to the above comment. 3rd person omni is Not told from the author's perspective.

I believe that came from the omni where the author, such as Jane Austen, spoke directly to the reader.

But when the omni narrator is not a character in the story, such as Death in "The Book Thief," it really is the author. Who else is telling the story?

This is the Purdue University definition: "THIRD-PERSON OMNISCIENT NARRATION: This is a common form of third-person narration in which the teller of the tale, who often appears to speak with the voice of the author himself, assumes an omniscient (all-knowing) perspective on the story being told: diving into private thoughts, narrating secret or hidden events, jumping between spaces and times. Of course, the omniscient narrator does not therefore tell the reader or viewer everything, at least not until the moment of greatest effect. In other words, the hermeneutic code is still very much in play throughout such narrations. Such a narrator will also discursively re-order the chronological events of the story."

And all godlike means is all-knowing. Knows everything that happened in the past, present, and future. It doesn't mean to be literally God.

That can either be an identified character (say speaking from some point in the future) or one the characters in the story. But, in most cases, it's not the author who's speaking.

I believe it's rare to have the omni narrator a character in the story. I believe that would be written in 1st-person.

In Stephen King's "The Green Mile," the story is told from the former supervisor of the Green Mile. He's a character telling a story that happened in the past. It's written in 1st-person.

Since it happened in the past, he knows a lot that he didn't know at the time. For instance, he would say something like, "I found out later after reading the report..." But he isn't an omniscient narrator that's all-knowing. He couldn't possibly know every thought every character had.

I believe it's rare to have the omni narrator a character in the story. I believe that would be written in 1st-person..

Maybe you only have two wayside to tell a story, but believe me, there are thousands.

When I'm writing, no matter whether if it's first, twenty-third person or 3rd Omni, I always have a feel for who's telling the story, even if they're never identified. My narrator in "Stranded" was an incredibly paranoid wac-a-doodle, that had few similarities to me as the author. Instead, I put myself into a paranoid 'frame of mind' in order to write the story. When I wrote about Alex fooling around with his sister, Cate, in my "Catalyst" series, I wasn't writing about my own dark fantasies, but was addressing where the two originated from (sorry, you'll have to read at least 4 books to understand). In fact, the entire "Catalyst" was written from the POV of one character, although you don't meet her until the final epilogue.

Authors are not either their characters nor their narrators. If Ernest sets his stories in America, and uses American spelling and phrasing, does that mean that he's an American, since 3rd Omni is always told from the author's perspective? Or does he simply slip into a fictional personna in order to create a convincing story?

I refuse to be defined out of existence. I write my stories, not based on my own POV (though that has a lot to do with which stories I pick), but on the needs of the story. But then, as the article stated, I write in 3rd Omni because I'm trying to capture an 'Epic' adventure, which really doesn't work (as well) any other way.