Third person limited vs. omniscient. Which one is the best?

[f0Ri5]

So I have a few stories I've been cooking up and I find that this is something which trips me up every time.

I want to be able to do some good worldbuilding and character-digging, so I end up swapping between a bunch of different viewpoints to show how different people see the world and what they think of their friends etc.

The problem with this is that the story starts to get a little disjointed with the constant jumping between characters and having to juggle who gets their turn in the spotlight and so on

The solution to this seems to be the third person omniscient viewpoint which is basically a 'god's-eye-view' of the story. The thing is, when I use that specific POV, I find myself slipping into characters' heads and telling the story from their point of view, which is... not the correct use of third person omniscient.

I guess I just need to develop a narrator in my head, give them a specific personality, and have them just exclusively tell the story.

I dunno, it's weirdly harder than it sounds.

 

[Sarrior]

I prefer the limited option. I find that following a single person's POV at a time helps with the immersion and fleshing out a character.

Also, having an omniscient narrator implies some level of impartiality and a greater focus on the theme and morality of a story. Considering you're writing Self-Inserts, that focus more in character, I can see why you would find it difficult. (No disrespect there, I love SIs)

 

[f0Ri5]

I prefer the limited option. I find that following a single person's POV at a time helps with the immersion and fleshing out a character.

Also, having an omniscient narrator implies some level of impartiality and a greater focus on the theme and morality of a story. Considering you're writing Self-Inserts, that focus more in character, I can see why you would find it difficult. (No disrespect there, I love SIs)

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Omniscient doesn't have to be impartial but yes that way of story-telling does have its problems. That's the case for all of them, though. I'm going to have to sacrifice something somewhere, regardless of which form I end up choosing.

Although I'm probably going to have to go with omniscient out of sheer necessity. I'm really finding that I have too many characters and the story just progresses too slowly if I have to alternate between POVs every chapter.

Whatever, I'll just do it and hope I get better as I continue writing.

 

[Smurfpapa]

I want to be able to do some good worldbuilding and character-digging, so I end up swapping between a bunch of different viewpoints to show how different people see the world and what they think of their friends etc.

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Read ASOIAF, GRR Martin is great at storytelling through multiple POVs read game of thrones and a feast for crows and perhaps see if you can find any college english lit essays discussing multiple POVs he uses and you will get a clear picture of how to use 3rd person limited for World building.
As far as for omniscient I don't have a clue since I immediately reject anything that uses it like I reject crunchy peanut butter.

 

[f0Ri5]

Read ASOIAF, GRR Martin is great at storytelling through multiple POVs read game of thrones and a feast for crows and perhaps see if you can find any college english lit essays discussing multiple POVs he uses and you will get a clear picture of how to use 3rd person limited for World building.
As far as for omniscient I don't have a clue since I immediately reject anything that uses it like I reject crunchy peanut butter.

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It's interesting that you mention that book... I actually really disliked the 3rd person pov in ASOIAF. Too many characters, too many pov jumps. It took so long to cycle back to the same character that i'd sometimes forgotten what they'd even been doing since last time. I eventually dropped the series due to this reason.

 

[Smurfpapa]

It's interesting that you mention that book... I actually really disliked the 3rd person pov in ASOIAF. Too many characters, too many pov jumps. It took so long to cycle back to the same character that i'd sometimes forgotten what they'd even been doing since last time. I eventually dropped the series due to this reason.

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Exactly why I said to read only the first two, he gets caught up in character bloat as most authors often do. One way to manage bloat is killing them off, sending them to do x (like manage a kingdom, exile, trade mission or what have you or you can have them join up with the MC as his retinue and refer to them with throwaway lines slowly weaning the reader off of them.
Another series that does well with multiple POVs is Savage divinity. Although the author later just starts to strech off his story for the patreon pay rather than bring it to a satisfactory conclusion, which for me to a story that was already having pacing issues, was the nail in the coffin.
Another story 'beware of chicken' went on hiatus because the author felt that bloat was becoming an issue, haven't read it's third arc yet so cannot say if he managed it.