Third Person Omniscient: The Dead Narrative Voice That Still Outsells You

Tell me if you’ve seen this zombie meme making the rounds in writer forums, oldpub workshops, and literary agent panels …

“Don’t write in third person omniscient. Today’s readers can’t handle it!”

Maybe you’ve heard the deadpub smears againt omniscient narration:

“It’s confusing.”

“It feels old-fashioned.”

“You’ll never sell it.”

Supposedly, the narrative voice that carried The Lord of the Rings, Dune, and Watership Down is now a liability. Because—so oldpub would have us believe—modern readers, particularly younger ones, can’t fathom it.

But the idea that readers can’t comprehend omniscient narration isn’t just false, it’s insultingly false. In fact, you could be forgiven for calling it an instance of industry gaslighting: “Third person omniscient is dead! So lower your standards, water down your prose, do what the market says, and maybe you’ll get scraps from the Big Five’s table.”

But here’s what everybody’s missing: Omniscient narrative voice didn’t die.

Read the full post on Substack.