Omniscient Narrator–Have fun with the all-seeing!
I’ve made a short video for a program called 11 Stories that has “aired” for the people in that program. I am sharing it with Writing It Real members this week. In the video, I give a lesson on the third-person omniscient point of view in writing. I think those of you writing flash nonfiction or fiction will enjoy experimenting with this all-seeing point of view. If you are writing memoir or personal essay, I think two of the three sample stories will especially inspire you, Jim Heynen’s “The Ice Story” and Marlene Samuels’ “You Like?”
Marlene is a Writing It Real member who is working on a memoir from which her 101-word story was excerpted and shaped and edited to become a flash story. In addition to writing, Marlene is an independent research sociologist and an instructor who focuses on creative non-fiction, short stories, essays, and sociological articles that deal with emerging problems in contemporary America. You can read more of her writing on her website: www.marlenesamuels.com.
All three of the stories I discuss can be read along with me in the video and downloaded from web pages I show you.
Here’s the link to the video. I hope you enjoy it and are inspired to write stories of your own using this point of view. Please, don’t forget to leave a comment at the article’s end.
