I love her writing

Food for Thought

Omniscient perspective may be out of style these days, but reading through the Lymond Chronicles, I keep being struck by how useful it is, especially to the would-be writer of an epic.

If I may butt in here - and I may - it is my blog! I've always admired the way Dorothy Dunnett uses viewpoint without ever confusing me as she darts from one person's VP to another.

I don’t mean the type of omniscience you may remember from children’s books, ... I mean the sort that has full range of movement, sometimes drawing in close to give you a certain character’s thoughts for an extended period of time, other times shifting to give you several perspectives on the scene, and occasionally pulling all the way back to give you a god’s eye view of events.

Yep, that's exactly it.

The benefit this offers to an epic fantasy writer can be demonstrated any time Dunnett has to discuss the larger board on which her pieces are moving. She can, with a few elegantly-written paragraphs, remind the reader of the political and military forces moving in France, Spain, England and Scotland—and she can do it actively, with lines like this one:


“Charles of Spain, Holy Roman Emperor, fending off Islam at Prague and Lutherism in Germany and forcing recoil from the long, sticky fingers at the Vatican, cast a considering glance at heretic England.”

One of the reasons I love her writing - so much information (in a short sentence) and characterised too.

The plain expository version of that would be a good deal more dull, robbed of personality and movement, because it could not show you what the Holy Roman Emperor was doing: it could only tell you. To liven it up, the writer of third limited would need to make her characters have a conversation about Spanish politics, or else jump to a character who’s in a position to see such things on the ground.

Yes, tried both those routes.

And that latter choice offers two pitfalls of its own: either the character in question is a nonentity, transparently employed only to get this information across, or he gets built up into a character worth following… which rapidly leads you down the primrose path of plot sprawl. (I was a longtime fan of the Wheel of Time; I know whereof I speak.)

But the omniscient approach lets you control the flow of information as needed, whether that’s the minutiae of a character’s emotional reaction or the strategic layout of an entire region as armies move into position. In fact, it permeates everything about the story, including many of my following points—which is why I put it first.

The entire piece, written by Marie Brennan, is to be viewed on this link. below It is well worth reading.

Writing Epic Fantasy the Historical Fiction Way: Lessons from Dorothy Dunnett’s The Game of Kings | Tor.com