Voice and Narration, Part 1: First-Person Omniscient

Ranger peeking over a kitchen cupboard, rather like an omniscient narrator perhaps?

Voice is that almost mystical quality that agents and editors say they’re looking for.

How do writers infuse their work with voice?

One way is through the voice of your narrator.

For novels in first person, that’s pretty straightforward. The writer fully inhabits their narrator. And in middle grade and young adult novels, the narrator is usually the protagonist.

What’s tricky about first person is sounding like a kid character (or a dog or an 8-legged alien or a unicorn or whoever your protagonist is). And that first-person voice comes much easier to some writers.

If you’re not one of them, you have other options.

In this post, I want to talk about one of the fancier options—omniscient narration.

Kelly Barnhill’s middle grade novel, The Ogress and the Orphans (Algonquin Young Readers, 2022), is like a class in both voice and omniscient narration. Here’s how the novel begins:

Listen.

This is a story about an ogress.

She is not who you might think she is.

(But really, is anyone?)

Within the first four lines, Barnhill establishes the omniscient narration by using direct address—Listen. And then with the parenthetical comment. It’s an aside, a tangent, a way for the narrator to share their thoughts with just a hint of attitude.

Chapter 2 provides an even stronger sense of the narrator’s views. She has thoughts and wants the reader to know them:

This is also a story about a dragon. I do not like to talk about him much. I don’t even like to think about him.

I should clarify: It is not my intention to speak ill of dragons generally. It is a terrible practice to prejudge anyone, be they ogres or orphans or dragons or nosy neighbors or assistant principals or people with unusual manners. It is important, always, to treat everyone with compassion and respect. This is well known.

Note the use of first person. Omniscient is usually paired with third-person narration. So I was curious to see if this first-person narrator would be revealed as a character in the story. That was the case. An unusual and compelling choice.

Although the narrator is telling this story in first person, she is not a main character. She’s more like the Greek chorus. She’s outside of the story, not an active participant.

What firmly establishes the omniscient narration is the narrator’s god-like knowledge of the characters. She knows all of the characters in the town and there are many. She also knows the history of characters from decades or even centuries before they came to the town, specifically the ogress and the dragon.

The narrator’s knowledge combines handily with her friendly, confiding, and gently humorous tone to create a master storyteller kind of voice. Like a kindly elder guiding us through the messy thicket of a complex story.

The narrator’s voice may well be close to Barnhill’s own natural, adult voice.

Does that sound like a voice that would come more easily to you in your story? If so, maybe an omniscient narrator is one to try.

Please keep in mind that this type of narrator can be challenging to write well, for reasons that are unrelated to voice. Hopping from one head to another is the main way this kind of narration can go spectacularly awry.

However, if you can figure out which character you must follow for each part of your story, then you’re off to a good start.

Next time I’ll continue my exploration of omniscient narrators and look at other examples.

Have you read any MG or YA novels with omniscient narrators that you’d recommend? Tell me about them: bookcoach@micheleregenold.com.