3rd Person Omniscient

[slrogers]

You know I’m trying to open up a can of worms by contradicting Jim’s word on the subject. I don’t mean to offend anyone, but in September 2004 when he wrote this short statement about the omniscient point of view, I was left confused. He wrote, “Omniscient viewpoint has been out of style for maybe a century.” But of the examples he gave for the different points of view I like his Omniscient best:
First Person--Written from the interior perspective of one character. "I went to the store and bought cookies. I ate them." The Dresden Files are first person POV.
Second Person--Written as if being described to the reader as their own actions. "You went to the store and bought cookies. You ate them."
Third Person--Written from an exterior perspective to one or more characters. "He went to the store and bought cookies. He choked on them and died."
Omniscient Viewpoint--Told from the perspective of an outside, all-knowing observer. "He went to the store, never knowing that the cookies were the instrument of the Grim Reaper. If only he'd purchased milk to go with them, he might have made it. But he didn't, and so sealed his fate with sweet, corrupt chocolaty goodness."

So a warning goes here, American publishers do discourage 3rd person omniscient, especially if it isn’t limited to only being inside only one person’s head per chapter (or book). They might not even read past the first paragraph if they sense you might be writing in this POV. But I’m going to advocate for it.
It looks like their primary concern is that it was too easy for the novice to get lazy and say something impersonal and detached, like "she was angry," instead of something more engaging, like "she stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind her." Writing what your main character sees instead of what the other character’s feel is more exciting.
In addition to that, some readers find it very distracting jumping from one head to another. I think I can liken it to the “shaky cam” of cinematography. While in cinematography the effect is used to feel closer to the action and get more of a first-person perspective, omniscient point of view, I believe, is used to get a broader understanding and convey more of an authoritative perspective.  But since it can jump around a lot and since readers can’t read your thoughts it is harder to see where you might confuse them. So it is highly advisable that the POV shifts are limited as much as possible and used with extreme caution.
But since many of the classics are written using this POV, and it is so powerful, I decided to take the current American sediment of “don’t write in 3rd person omniscient” as a dare. I’m a bit of a rebel that way. I’m still learning, and I don’t know how well I’ve done (I still haven’t sold a million books yet, or even close). But check it out if you’re interested and tell me how I can do better.

https://www.createspace.com/4036130?ref=1147694&utm_id=6026
http://www.amazon.com/S-L-Rogers/e/B00BZSWRMU/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0

[Quantus]

I think in that instance he was more referring to the 3rd-person omniscient in the Universal Omniscient "Little Did he Know" style and/or else the 3rd-Person Objective, at least in terms of the "went out of style" statement.  I mean, LotR was 3rd-omni, and is obviously well-received even today.  In general though, modern audiences tend to prefer narrators with more of a personality and/or distinctive Voice than many of the 3rd-Omni forms allow, which is why getting in the heads of characters existing  in the story is a popular way to accomplish it. 

That being said, Conventions are there to be challenged and broken, so I look forward to what you can do with it

[Snowleopard]

Writing, like fashion, has fads and phases.

[LizW65]

What would one call the type of third-person narration used in, say, The Maltese Falcon, in which we are told what Sam Spade says and does, but never get inside his head at all?

[Quantus]

What would one call the type of third-person narration used in, say, The Maltese Falcon, in which we are told what Sam Spade says and does, but never get inside his head at all?

Never read it, but based on my relatively limited understanding of the subtle distinctions of terms it would be Third Person, Objective

3rd person being the POV, and Objective being the Voice, as opposed to 3rd person Subjective or 3rd person omniscient

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

Never read it, but based on my relatively limited understanding of the subtle distinctions of terms it would be Third Person, Objective

I've usually seen that referred to as camera-eye third; you get description as if you had a camera there in the room but never inside anyone's head.

There is an annoying tendency to blur the distinction between having a clearly defined omniscient narrative voice (if not necessarily a personified omniscient narrator) as in, say, Alexandre Dumas, where pulling back from what is going on at the moment to tell us a bit about the history of France at the time is all in voice, and between the kind of quasi-omni you get in... IME, some kinds of fat thrillery books is where I have seen it most, where the sort of information that an omniscient narrator might give is actually given by constant head-hopping and dozens of POVs at the "two paragraphs from the viewpoint of a passing newspaper vendor" level.  I find the latter very irritating as a style, because it slops about all over the place; the discipline of presenting a complex fictional universe through a limited number of viewpoints is both more impressive and gives you options for doing much more controlled things which each individual character's biases and particular focus and how you can go from that to build a world for the reader that is more complex than any individual viewpoint.

[Wordmaker]

I find 3rd-Person Omniscient very difficult to write. I find I get caught up in description and minor details and lose focus on my characters. So I stick to 3rd-Person Limited. I like being in my characters' heads, but I also enjoy the freedom to have multiple POV characters, which is why I tend to avoid 1st-person.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

I find 3rd-Person Omniscient very difficult to write. I find I get caught up in description and minor details and lose focus on my characters.

Doing omni right is very difficult, but I find it an interesting challenge.  It does inherently come with a differing scale of focus on the characters in the story, but characterisation of the voice telling the story is the compensatory gain.  In that way it's almost closer to first-person than to limited third.