My unfinished novel started out as 50,000 words of notes on a story set in an exclusive five star spa resort. It’s centered around the people who work there, and in particular, the protagonist, a male massage therapist. I then wrote out scenes and chapters without clear character arcs nor plot, and ended up with a jig-saw puzzle of almost 140,000 words. After more work I finished a very rough first draft done with 78,000 words written in first person narrative, from the perspective of the male protagonist.

But now, I have become stuck and stopped writing/editing that draft. I’ve been trying to figure out how I might free up this log jam with my story. Writing it in the first person came relatively easy, as it does to most people writing their first novel. But my story is complicated. I fear that it will be misjudged by the reader, as it is full of ethical dilemmas.  I also have a large number of characters, which might confuse readers as to who’s who. I wasn’t happy at all with my draft and felt that I had hit a wall and didn’t know how to adequately tell the story.

The solution didn’t come to me in a dream. It came in a book, ‘Little Fires Everywhere’ by Celeste Ng. It’s a story about class, relationships, culture, and family. It’s written in third person omniscient narration. There were many situations in the book which were similar to those in my own novel, that the author handled so respectfully and competently. I said to myself, This is how I need to write my story. And I have become, once again, excited about finishing my book. I’m going to have to start over from the beginning. Changing all the narration from first person to third person omniscient. Which I am excited about because I’ll have a chance at getting it right. It’s an opportunity to better manage the parts of the story that had me so concerned.

Yet, I have heard how only the most talented authors can attempt to write well in Third Person Omniscient. So even though I really do feel it will be the best way to narrate my story, I’m half afraid to attempt it. I’m worried that it might be too complicated for me.

My main character is wanting to live a meaningful existence. He wants romance in his life. He wants to be best friends with women. He wants to make love to some women and just have sex with others. He wants to be kind and caring to people. He wants to explore the periphery of what is socially acceptable behaviour between men and women. He wants to feel connected to others. He wants to be a ‘good person’.  As the male protagonist, Daniel, tells the story, I have been bamboozled as to how his intentions might be perceived as he acts on, and is acted upon by others. Especially because Daniel doesn’t really know his own self that well. He is still, in middle age, discovering who he is, where his passions lay.  

I also have many characters in my novel who only appear briefly. When writing using omniscient narration I believe I’ll be able to give some of these characters depth and meaning. That I’ll be able to better develop the personalities of my central characters and their unique motivations. With the omniscient voice, I can relay specific characters’ backstory and history to the reader without filtering it through a character’s own perspective. I can let the reader know more about the character than they might know about themselves.

Novels in the 19th century generally were written from the third person omniscient point of view. In the 20th century most authors switched to the third person limited point of view in order to create more emotional closeness between the reader and the characters. In the 21st century there seems to be more and more first person narrated books. Readers like the intimacy created by that point of view. Agents and publishers often don’t want to read manuscripts written in third person omniscient because there are so many potential problems a writer faces with that point of view. It is one of the most difficult ways to narrate a book. First person offers intimacy, where third person omniscient can create a distance. But I am hoping that third person omniscient will allow me to better manage the emotional perceptions of the reader. That the characters will come off as having more depth than if I kept the story in the first person.

There is the potential to ‘tell’ more of the story in third person omniscient POV, instead of ‘showing’ it. To decide when to show action and when to transition into the mind of a character can be tricky. Yet, it’s important to remember that more stories fail because the author didn’t get inside the head of the main character, than for any other reason. While backstory is a valuable part of most all stories, third person omniscient can lend itself to overdoing this, along with asides and lectures that can really slow a story down. As well, omniscient narration can fall into recklessly moving the narration between characters (head hopping), which often causes the reader to become confused. It’s best to alternate narration using new chapters or after section breaks. The writer can also signal a transition to another character’s perspective by drawing the reader’s attention to the character in some way, such as through their physical movement or actions.

Lastly, it is very easy for the all knowing omniscient narrator to be tempted to tell and show the reader too much, too soon. Readers are smart, so you must be very careful when hinting, foreshadowing, any upcoming plot twists and reveals.