I don't often write in omniscient, but I've been inspired recently by various shorts in this style which seem to handle an omniscient viewpoint well, even in a handful of pages. I've often considered this to be best used in very long forms of narration, but apparently it can work well in small-scale narratives. The Lottery by Shirley Jackson and Three Marked Pennies by Mary Counselman are particularly interesting to me as I'm thinking of writing a short story revolving around a town who experiences a kind of 'inverted rapture.' I'll leave you to imagine what that might entail. Anyway, do you think this viewpoint would suit the idea? I want to give a feeling of a narrator looking down upon the town or viewing different households as a certain black force penetrates the town and evaporates lives away. I considered writing this from third or second, but I want to try something else and I quite like the idea of showing different families and moving around the space of the town with ease, following the force. Thoughts? Edit: Apologies about the double post. I think this happens because my mouse is broken and it double clicks quite often.
I killed it for you. Omniscient is great if you can execute it properly. I find it challenging. Very doable, though.
I think omniscient can be tricky because most places that publish short stories tend to favor character-driven works. Sure, it can be done and done well. It's all about the execution, as @Homer Potvin said. I've only sold one story that used omniscient. Most of the time I stick to first person or close third. And even with that most of the time I opt for first person, knowing it has a better chance at getting published or I just pull it off better.
Hm, I was thinking this, you know. I'm not exactly being successful with my dark and aloof stories to begin with, so I might actually steer clear of it for now. Not that it can't be done, but I imagine I might make it off-putting with my lack of experience and already niche style. Thanks for the tip.
Well, I think omniscient works, I do it all the time, whether it gets me published or not is entirely up to the editor.
Are you sure you're talking about omniscient? As I understand it Omniscient requires that you move into the POVs of various characters. I don't think The Lottery does that, does it? It's been a long time since I read it, but I'm pretty sure it's in Objective, not Omniscient. That means a detached outside perspective, similar to omniscient, but it never drops into anybody's internal POV, nor does it need to stick close to one person at a time, like Third Limited does. It's basically the floating, Casey Neistat drone-shot type of POV. Here's an article that covers it it: What Is Third Person Point of View in Writing?
An easy way to remember it is that omniscient (literally "all seeing") is a god like narrator who is in everybody's head all the time (though it can only communicate one at time to the stupid humans). Objective is never in anybody's head at any time. Kind of like a movie camera that can only record and observe but is incapable of delving... though in this case it would capable of scent and tactile interpretation, I guess. But both still have the appearance of a regular, multiple 3rd person POV until it becomes clear that it can either dip into multiple heads or never dips into any heads.
They're both great but they're really, really hard to do well. You won't notice them much in the hands of a master, but when executed poorly it can become unreadable. And there's varying degrees of omniscience. Some only drift casually or occasionally, kind of touching this character and that when needed, but others, like Frank Herbert in Dune, seem to be under an executive mandate to hit every character in the room at least once every 6 sentences. And it still reads great, but there's nooooo way I could ever write that level of engagement myself. Not for any sustained length of time. I wouldn't have the mental real estate for it. Trouble with omni is that it's been associated (probably unfairly) with amateurity. When agents/editors have a zillion manuscripts to review and see that head-hopping on page one you.... Ditto for fluffly/adverbly dialogue tags, early infodumps, character's looking in a mirror, etc.
