Even when you think you have the point of view thing all worked out–it sounds very simple–it, like tense, doesn’t always come out clean with the rules. Carson McCullers uses omniscient third person narrator in The Heart is a Lonely Hunter and switches often between all characters to allow their thoughts to progress the story and show a more in-depth side of the characters with whom they interact. For the main part, at least so far, it appears that the chapters are controlled by different characters and remain fairly in sync without switching within.
However, some points may be taken even with the omniscient pov:
Many memories were confused in Jake’s brain. He lay motionless with his eyes open and his hands turned palm upward. His hands were huge and very brown against the white sheet. When he held them up to his face he saw that they were scratched and bruised–and the veins were swollen as though he had been grasping at something for a long time. His face looked tired and unkempt. His brown hair fell down over his forehead and his moustache was awry. (p. 45)
Here we have the narrator allowed into the head of one of the characters, and yet we also see what Jake cannot see–how he looked. He can see his hand, but certainly not his face. But the omniscient narrator can. It is an all-powerful tool. We can both see the character from the third person narrator pov, as well as know what he is thinking and feeling.
The danger in this, especially as in this novel where all characters are opened up so to speak, is that we as readers cannot be fooled; nothing should be held back if such information is known to be readily available, i.e., what a character knows to be true. The skill therefore is to pace the story so that we know just when the character does what is going on.
I have noticed some questionable areas in McCullers’ writing as far as grammatical adherence is concerned, and will remember to excerpt them here as otherwise I forget. The story is good, the writing is good, and I just hate to stop reading to write about it.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology
You don’t see omniscient viewpoint used much today, but I do like how it can go anywhere and do anything. It gets the job done, so I wonder why it seems to have lost favor.
My least favorite POV to write in is first, because it feels so much like tunnel vision.
Yes, I noticed that everybody seems to advise “stay in pov” and come down hard especially on new writers to venture from this single focus. McCullers handles it beautifully and it does open up the story so much more.