Don't Confuse Omniscient and 3rd Person Points of View

The other day I was watching the game show Common Knowledge when it had a question about point of view. The question went something like this: “Which point of view is it if the narrator knows what every character is thinking?” The choices were A) 1^st person, B) 2^nd person, and C) 3^rd person. I wanted to yell at the TV, “None of them, you idiots. It’s omniscient.” But I didn’t because I never call anyone an idiot even if they can’t hear me.

The host stated that the correct answer was 3^rd person because in that POV a story can have multiple narrators. Yes, it can, but that doesn’t make the original statement true. Even in multiple 3^rd person the current POV character doesn’t know what the other characters are thinking. And we never see inside the heads of the many secondary characters who don’t have their own POV sections.

Given the options, I would have chosen the answer the show was looking for because I would have assumed that they knew it wasn’t 1^st or 2^nd. Still, their wasn’t that unusual an error. Even experienced writers can confuse 3^rd person and omniscient.

I have never written a story using omniscient POV because it is too hard. Yes, you heard me. Some people assume it is easier because you don’t have the limitations of the other POVs, but that’s a trap. I have read my share of books where I can’t tell if the writer is attempting to use omniscient or 3^rd person. If omnisicient POV is done wrong, it looks like a multiple-third-person POV riddled with errors: a mistake rather than a choice.

Done right, omniscient immediately clues the reader into the POV.  It also helps to have a narrator with a distinctive voice, as in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Or the narrator can tell us up front that he or she is telling a story that took place many years ago, as George Eliot does in Mill on the Floss.

But however it is done, a good writer will know and honor the distiction between the omniscient and 3^rd person points of view.