nancylebov: blue moon (Default)
nancylebov ([personal profile] nancylebov) wrote2010-03-09 08:55 am

How common is the omniscient narrator these days?

From an essay about post-modernism:
One rarely sees the universal, omniscient narrator any more; one expects to ride the "novel" inside one of the character's heads.

I've noticed that getting inside the character's heads is more common-- first person is typical for urban fantasy-- but has third person omniscient actually become rare?

I don't know if there's an important difference between being inside one character's head, or in many characters' heads, as in Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire.

Link from [livejournal.com profile] haikujaguar.

[identity profile] malkingrey.livejournal.com 2010-03-09 02:42 pm (UTC)(link)
I know that Sherwood Smith, in her Inda series, has been working with true omniscient POV (as opposed to multiple-third, which is relatively common in sweeping epic stories.)

[identity profile] ritaxis.livejournal.com 2010-03-09 02:44 pm (UTC)(link)
Rushdie.