
These narrators also know what events happened before the story.

Omniscient narrators know what every character is thinking, feeling, and doing. When identifying whether a story is told in third person omniscient, we have to ask ourselves, “how much does this narrator know?” Remember that omniscient means’ all-knowing,’ so your narrator knows everything about the story as the author does, but they may not tell you everything. Read more about the first-person point of view here. If the story was told through the eyes of a character, we call that first-person perspective.

In other words, the narrator is not a character within the story. A third-person perspective is when a narrator is a person retelling the events from outside the story. The first way to know that you’re reading a story told in third person omniscient is that the story is told in third person. The narrator may also hint at future events of the plot. The narrator has an all-knowing perspective and can relate details of every characters’ thoughts and feelings. Third-person omniscient point of view definition:Ī form of narration, in fiction, where the narrator speaks with the author’s voice. In most people’s minds, they will assume the narrator is the author. For this reason, these narrators will usually not be a character in the story and remain unnamed figure who retells the story from a distance. The narrator is the author, which means they have complete knowledge of the story and its characters. The narrator can foreshadow, to the reader, events yet to come. This kind of narrator also knows the events of the plot. In third-person omniscient, the narrator can get into any character’s head and describe their thoughts and feelings. The narrator has a ‘god’s eye view’ of the narrative. With a third-person omniscient point of view, the author uses a narrator who knows everything about the story.

The first is omni, meaning ‘all’ or ‘universal,’ and the second Latin word is scire, meaning ‘to know. With these fancy-sounding words, we find the roots of omniscient in two Latin words. Still, to understand this POV technique, you need to know what the word omniscient means. We will discuss what a third-person omniscient point of view is in practice. What is third-person omniscient point of view?
