Young people can't read third-person omniscient view point novels. Here's why. 🧵
https://twitter.com/cairoasmith/status/1927550682057347171
Young readers struggle with third person omniscient, and publishers see it clearly. A voice that knows too much, moves too freely, and speaks with judgment feels alien. Readers call it confusing or even arrogant. But the root cause is deeper.
They weren’t trained to read that kind of mind. In school, the research paper has vanished. The essay took its place. Not the old essay of Montaigne, but the modern school essay that is personal, expressive, narrow.
The essay says: write what you feel, stay in your lane, don’t presume to speak for others. But omniscient narration does speak for others. It sees broadly. It interprets. It compares. It dares to suggest what people think, even when they don’t say it.
The research paper taught students to gather knowledge outside themselves, weigh perspectives, judge sources, and reach beyond their own head. That form is nearly gone. Teachers don't assign research papers, and they don't teach the research method.
Never having contemplated a world outside themselves, young people can’t follow a narrative voice that thinks more widely than "I feel."
Never having contemplated a world outside themselves, young people can’t follow a narrative voice that thinks more widely than "I feel."
We raised readers who expect a single viewpoint, one consciousness, and no moral authority. So when the voice of a novel dares to sound like a mind greater than the character’s, they flinch. They call it false. They stop reading.
This is not a failure of fiction. It’s a failure of education.
We stopped teaching students to think beyond the self. So now they can’t follow stories that do.
We stopped teaching students to think beyond the self. So now they can’t follow stories that do.
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