9 Examples and Excerpts of Third Person Omniscient Point of View in Fiction

In this post, I'm going to share a few examples of stories written with a third person omniscient point of view so that should you fancy using this narrative in your own story, you are armed with some examples to help.

Before we get to the examples, however, I will just briefly dive into what third person omniscient point of view means.

What is third person omniscient point of view?

As the name indicates, third person omniscient point of view is written in the third person (he/she/they/it). When choosing this type of narration, you are not limiting the view of the world to the eyes of a select number of characters (like in third person limited POV). Instead, the narrator is all-seeing, all-hearing and all-knowing.

A third person omniscient narrator can opt to delve into certain characters' thoughts at whatever time they choose. At any given moment in a scene, you can divulge what each character is thinking and feeling as you are not confined to the thoughts and perceptions of one character who you are writing from.

The main criticism with this point of view is that it introduces a certain barrier between the reader and the character(s) as they are not seeing and experiencing the world solely through their eyes and they are not gaining full access to their thoughts and feelings. There is a level of detachment as the narrator is an all-seeing entity, and has their own narrative voice which is distinct from that of any character.

Nowadays, it's becoming less common to see fiction with third person omniscient narration published by traditional publishers, but it's not completely out of fashion! For example, a lot of fairy tales are told in this style, including modern retellings.

The advantages of third person omniscient POV:

• You aren't restricted by a certain character's perception and access to information. You can relay any information about the past, the present and maybe even the future without having to make sure that this information would be knowable to a specific character and without having to make sure this information is introduced in a natural way in the character's perspective.

• You can develop your own narrative voice which is separate from that of a character or characters. The narrator becomes a sort of extra character in themselves through their voice. They can have their own personality, and even be unreliable, or they can be a more objective narrator that tells things completely as they are.

• You can move between characters easily and get a glimpse into different characters' thoughts in a scene so the reader is able to see exactly what's going on all around. An example of this would be two characters meeting for the first time. If we were in third person limited, the reader would be limited to the thoughts of one character. They would therefore only get to see what the POV character thought about the new character. In third person omniscient, the narrator can tell the reader about both characters' perceptions of the other and convey what both characters think of each other in their first meeting.

9 examples of third person omniscient point of view in literature

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1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen (1813)

Jane Austen is the queen of the third person omniscient point of view and I believe all of her novels are written in this way (eek, I haven't read them all - yet).

While the book is narrated by a third person omniscient narrator, who allows the reader access into certain events or thoughts that could not be known by our principal character, Elizabeth Bennet, the book does closely follow Elizabeth throughout. 

I genuinely wanted to have the opening sentences of Pride and Prejudice here because they are ICONIC, but I feel like our later introduction to Mr Darcy in chapter 3 is a better example of the use of third person omniscient. 

...Mr. Darcy soon drew the attention of the room by his fine, tall person, handsome features, noble mien, and the report which was in general circulation within five minutes after his entrance, of his having ten thousand a year. The gentlemen pronounced him to be a fine figure of a man, the ladies declared he was much handsomer than Mr. Bingley, and he was looked at with great admiration for about half the evening, till his manners gave a disgust which turned the tide of his popularity; for he was discovered to be proud; to be above his company, and above being pleased; and not all his large estate in Derbyshire could then save him from having a most forbidding, disagreeable countenance, and being unworthy to be compared with his friend.

Mr. Bingley had soon made himself acquainted with all the principal people in the room; he was lively and unreserved, danced every dance, was angry that the ball closed so early, and talked of giving one himself at Netherfield. Such amiable qualities must speak for themselves. What a contrast between him and his friend! Mr. Darcy danced only once with Mrs. Hurst and once with Miss Bingley, declined being introduced to any other lady, and spent the rest of the evening in walking about the room, speaking occasionally to one of his own party. His character was decided. He was the proudest, most disagreeable man in the world, and everybody hoped that he would never come there again. Amongst the most violent against him was Mrs. Bennet, whose dislike of his general behaviour was sharpened into particular resentment by his having slighted one of her daughters.

Our principal character is Elizabeth Bennet, but here we see Mr Darcy and Mr Bingley introduced without it being through her eyes. Instead, we get a more general overview of how everyone perceives the men rather than how Elizabeth perceives them (even if these perceptions are the same).

2. Stardust  - Neil Gaiman (1997)

Stardust is a fairy tale fantasy story published in 1997 that follows the story of Tristran Thorn on his quest to find and capture a fallen star. Fairy tales are often written in third person omniscient point of view.

There was once a young man who wished to gain his Heart's Desire.

And while that is, as beginnings go, not entirely novel (for every tale about every young man there ever was or will be could start in a similar manner) there was much about this young man and what happened to him that was unusual, although even he never knew the whole of it.

The tale started, as many tales have started, in Wall.

I feel like this is fairly self-explanatory, as it is clear that the narrator is separate from the story they are telling through their use of 'there was once a young man'. We're not getting the story from the mouth of the young man himself, but instead from someone watching from above.

3. Beartown - Fredrik Backman (2017)

Beartown tells the story of a small hockey town in Sweden. It follows a wide range of characters in the town and their response to a shocking and divisive event that occurs in the story. 

Backman uses third person omniscient to enable him to switch between characters quickly in scenes and provide more philosophical ideas that wouldn't fit with a third person limited point of view.

Late one evening toward the end of March, a teenager picked up a double-barrelled shotgun, walked into the forest, put the gun to someone else's forehead, and pulled the trigger.

This is the story of how we got there.

4. The Bear and the Nightingale - Katherine Arden (2017)

The Bear and the Nightingale is a historical fairy tale fantasy published in 2017. While the story predominatly follows one character, the story is told from a third person omniscient narrator who frequently flits between other characters and tells the tale in a more detached style.

It was late winter in northern Rus’, the air sullen with wet that was neither rain nor snow. The brilliant February landscape had given way to the dreary grey of March, and the household of the boyar Pyotr Vladimirovich were all sniffling from the damp and thin from six weeks’ fasting on black bread and fermented cabbage. But no one was thinking of chilblains or runny noses, or even, wistfully, of porridge and roast meats, for Dunya was to tell a story. That evening, the old lady sat in the best place for talking: in the kitchen, on the wooden bench beside the oven. This oven was a massive affair built of fired clay, taller than a man and large enough that all four of Pyotr Vladimirovich’s children could have fit easily inside. The flat top served as a sleeping platform; its innards cooked their food, heated their kitchen and made steam-baths for the sick.

5. Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow - Gabrielle Zevin (2022)

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow follows the lives of its two central protagonists closely and might feel at times like it’s written in a third person limited point of view, but there are subtle signs that this is told by an omniscient narrator, as we are sometimes shown, as a reader, information that goes beyond what our main characters would be able to know and perceive.

Before Mazer invented himself as Mazer, he was Samson Mazer, and before he was Samson Mazer, he was Samson Masur—a change of two letters that transformed him from a nice, ostensibly Jewish boy to a Professional Builder of Worlds—and for most of his youth, he was Sam, S.A.M. on the hall of fame of his grandfather’s Donkey Kong machine, but mainly Sam.

On a late December afternoon, in the waning twentieth century, Sam exited a subway car and found the artery to the escalator clogged by an inert mass of people, who were gaping at a station advertisement. Sam was late. He had a meeting with his academic adviser that he had been postponing for over a month, but that everyone agreed absolutely needed to happen before winter break.

The use of such a large narrative (psychic) distance between the narrator and protagonist in these two paragraphs hints at this being told from an omniscient point of view, but it’s the narrator’s use of time in the first paragraph that is most indicative of this being told in the third person omniscient. Here, it is shown immediately that our narrator has access to information about Sam in the future, as well as the past.

Furthermore, as we read on in the story, there are moments when our narrator reveals information about our non-protagonist characters that our protagonists would not feasibly be able to know. This is when it really becomes clear that this is written in third person omniscient, rather than third person limited.

6. Dune - Frank Herbert (1965)

In Frank Herbert's Dune, the point of view is third person omniscient. This becomes clear early on, as we (the reader) are allowed access to the inner thoughts of most characters, thoughts which our main characters are not privy to. Here's an excerpt from the opening chapter of the book:

The Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam sat in a tapestried chair watching mother and son approach. Windows on each side of her overlooked the curving southern bend of the river and the green farmlands of the Atreides family holding, but the Reverend Mother ignored the view. She was feeling her age this morning, more than a little petulant. She blamed it on space travel and association with that abominable Spacing Guild and its secretive ways. But here was a mission that required personal attention from a Bene Gesserit-with-the-Sight. Even the Padishah Emperor's Truthsayer couldn't evade that responsibility when the duty call came.

Damn that Jessica! the Reverend Mother thought. If only she'd borne us a girl as she was ordered to do!

Jessica stopped three paces from the chair, dropped a small curtsy, a gentle flick of left hand along the line of her skirt. Paul gave the short bow his dancing master had taught—the one used "when in doubt of another's station."

The nuances of Paul's greeting were not lost on the Reverend Mother. She said: "He's a cautious one, Jessica."

Jessica's hand went to Paul's shoulder, tightened there. For a heartbeat, fear pulsed through her palm. Then she had herself under control. "Thus he has been taught, Your Reverence."

What does she fear? Paul wondered.

The old woman studied Paul in one gestalten flicker: face oval like Jessica's, but strong bones ... hair: the Duke's black-black but with browline of the maternal grandfather who cannot be named, and that thin, disdainful nose; shape of directly staring green eyes: like the old Duke, the paternal grandfather who is dead.

Here, we are granted access to the Reverend Mother's thoughts and feelings, as well as those of Paul, and of Jessica.

7. Beautiful World, Where Are You? - Sally Rooney (2021)

Beautiful World, Where Are You? by Sally Rooney is written in both third person omniscient and first person email interaction. It's an interesting decision for a contemporary novel, but it's exciting to see authors pushing the boat out again and making bold decisions regarding point of view in newer, more contemporary work.

Here's an excerpt from the opening chapter to showcase this:

A woman sat in a hotel bar, watching the door. Her appearance was neat and tidy: white blouse, fair hair tucked behind her ears. She glanced at the screen of her phone, on which was displayed a messaging interface, and then looked back at the door again. It was late March, the bar was quiet, and outside the window to her right the sun was beginning to set over the Atlantic. It was four minutes past seven, and then five, six minutes past. Briefly and with no perceptible interest she examined her fingernails. At eight minutes past seven, a man entered through the door. He was slight and dark-haired, with a narrow face. He looked around, scanning the faces of the other patrons, and then took his phone out and checked the screen. The woman at the window noticed him but, beyond watching him, made no additional effort to catch his attention. They appeared to be about the same age, in their late twenties or early thirties. She let him stand there until he saw her and came over.

Rooney adopts a more objective omniscient narrator here, whose sole purpose is to relay the events of the story without adding their own opinions or acting as a character in their own right.

8. The Name of the Wind - Patrick Rothfuss (2007)

The Name of the Wind is an epic fantasy narrated with a mix of third person omniscient and first person point of view. The story begins in the present day (written in third person omniscient POV) at the Waystone Inn, in a town called Newarre. We get a bird's eye view of the inn, and there we meet the innkeeper Kote, who goes on to tell the story of his earlier life to a scribe named Chronicler, which is then written in the first person as Kote narrates his own story. 

The novel, and its sequel, The Wise Man's Fear, alternates between these timelines, with present day written in third person omniscient, and the past written in first person.

It was night again. The Waystone Inn lay in silence, and it was a silence of three parts.

The most obvious part was a hollow, echoing quiet, made by things that were lacking. If there had been a wind it would have sighed through the trees, set the inn’s sign creaking on its hooks, and brushed the silence down the road like trailing autumn leaves. If there had been a crowd, even a handful of men inside the inn, they would have filled the silence with conversation and laughter, the clatter and clamor one expects from a drinking house during the dark hours of night. If there had been music...but no, of course there was no music. In fact there were none of these things, and so the silence remained.

Inside the Waystone a pair of men huddled at one corner of the bar. They drank with quiet determination, avoiding serious discussions of troubling news. In doing this they added a small, sullen silence to the larger, hollow one. It made an alloy of sorts, a counterpoint.

The third silence was not an easy thing to notice. If you listened for an hour, you might begin to feel it in the wooden floor underfoot and in the rough, splintering barrels behind the bar. It was in the weight of the black stone hearth that held the heat of a long dead fire. It was in the slow back and forth of a white linen cloth rubbing along the grain of the bar. And it was in the hands of the man who stood there, polishing a stretch of mahogany that already gleamed in the lamplight.

9. A Wizard of Earthsea – Ursula K. Le Guin (1968)

While this middle-grade classic uses shifts in narrative distance to show the reader what the main character, Ged, is thinking and feeling, it also introduces information that cannot be inferred or perceived by Ged himself. This allows for more exposition and worldbuilding, as we are able to discover more about the wider world than Ged could know, and move through time in a less linear way.

The island of Gont, a single mountain that lifts its peak a mile above the storm-racked Northeast Sea, is a land famous for wizards. From the towns in its high valleys and the ports on its dark narrow bays many a Gontishman has gone forth to serve the Lords of the Archipelago in their cities as wizard or mage, or, looking for adventure, to wander working magic from isle to isle of all Earthsea. Of these some say the greatest, and surely the greatest voyager, was the man called Sparrowhawk, who in his day became both dragonlord and Archmage. His life is told of in the Deed of Ged and in many songs, but this is a tale of the time before his fame, before the songs were made.

He was born in a lonely village called Ten Alders, high on the mountain at the head of the Northward Vale. Below the village the pastures and plow lands of the Vale slope downward level below level towards the sea, and other towns lie on the bends of the River Ar; above the village only forest rises ridge behind ridge to the stone and snow of the heights.

Okay, that's it from me for now!

If you're struggling with point of view in your story, I can help.

I offer a manuscript assessment service which focuses on giving you feedback on point of view, as well as the other crucial elements of your (fiction) story (plot, characters, dialogue, pacing, tension). For more info on my editorial services, click here.

Until the next time!

Candida