Omniscient POV vs deep 3rd person POV

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After submitting my manuscript the publisher responded with this:

"Thank you so much for your interest in publishing with XXXXXXXXXXXX. The publishing industry, however, is very competitive and a novel must be head-and-shoulders above other manuscripts to stand out. To accomplish this, a story needs to hook the readers with showing that draws the reader into the action, and this is extremely difficult to do with an omniscient POV, which leans heavily on a telling style. Deep third person POV (or first person) that lets the readers feel as if they are right there with the POV character, is generally the best way to hook the reader into the story and keep them flipping the pages."

What is Omniscient POV? What is Deep third person POV?

How might I change an omniscient POV to a third person POV?

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posted over 9 years ago

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Third-person (he/she, rather than first-person, which is I) omniscient (all-knowing) means that the narration has access to everyone's thoughts.

Whatever character is the focus of the scene is the person whose POV is presented to the reader. So if you start your book with Detective O'Malley and then in the next scene focus on Doctor Freeman, we get the thoughts and perspective of both those people.

Deep third-person means that while it's not an I narrative, the reader gets only the thoughts and perspective of one character. The Harry Potter books are examples of deep third-person. Other than maybe two or three scenes in the entire series, everything is from Harry's POV.

To change from omniscient to deep, you'd have to pick your single main character and jettison any scene which doesn't involve him/her in some way. Any information the reader needs must be provided to the main character in some fashion; the reader never gets to see something which the main character doesn't.

(For the record, the Song of Ice and Fire series, aka Game of Thrones, is third-person omniscient, and is selling just damn fine, thanks.)

posted over 9 years ago

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