Do you try to cultivate an authorial voice when you write 3rd person narratives?

[AG31]

I'm not sure how one goes about this, but I focused in on this idea when I was reading a novel by Elizabeth George. She's a Californian who writes detective stories set in England. Her stories reminded me a lot of P.D. James and Ruth Rendell and Dorothy Sayers. The setting and genre don't account for this because probably 75% of the mainstream fiction I read are detective stories set in Great Britain.

For myself, I certainly don't try to cultivate an authorial voice. I try to keep myself out of the story as much as possible, going straight to the experiences of the MC. But I do like whatever it is I'm picking up in those authors.

There have been several posts that touch on this idea from different directions somewhere in the thread.

https://forum.literotica.com/threads/first-or-third-person.1616771/ - @madelinemasoch

https://forum.literotica.com/threads/first-person-narration-but-what-about-the-other-person.1615996/ @Electric Blue

https://forum.literotica.com/threads/hard-to-decide-first-or-third-person.1619082/ @Dearelliot

https://forum.literotica.com/threads/third-person-pov.1592439/ - @dasgoodshit

In particular, I tried to get at this via this recent thread, but it turned into something different, totally in keeping with the title. So I've come up with a new title.

https://forum.literotica.com/thread...ds-do-you-like-to-read-unusual-words.1623344/

 

[SimonDoom]

I used to do more of this. My more common m.o. now is to keep the narrative voice close to the voice of whoever the point of view character is. But sometimes I'll maintain a separate narrator voice if for whatever reason it serves the purpose of the story.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I used to do more of this. My more common m.o. now is to keep the narrative voice close to the voice of whoever the point of view character is. But sometimes I'll maintain a separate narrator voice if for whatever reason it serves the purpose of the story.

Me too. Over time, my close third narrators have become much closer to the pov character they're narrating. It's been an organic progression, certainly not conscious nor deliberate. Some stories alternate between the two leads, but I think (without analysis) that these days I tend to stay with only one of the leads. It's been an intuitive thing - someone else might be able to unpick the effect, but I can't.

 

[AG31]

I just thought of another example of a distinct authorial voice, Garrison Keillor, formerly of The Prairie Home Companion on NPR. You could argue that that's because I actually heard his voice, but I'm pretty sure it would come through just as vividly if I were reading a transcript.

 

[MelissaBaby]

I just thought of another example of a distinct authorial voice, Garrison Keillor, formerly of The Prairie Home Companion on NPR. You could argue that that's because I actually heard his voice, but I'm pretty sure it would come through just as vividly if I were reading a transcript.

Kurt Vonnegut. Every book is clearly a story being told by the author in a distinct voice.

 

[SimonDoom]

Kurt Vonnegut. Every book is clearly a story being told by the author in a distinct voice.

It's a good example. In his case he can use that authorial voice as a way of exploring subjects that go beyond the experience and thoughts of the characters in the stories, like Billy Pilgrim or Kilgore Trout. He has a hilarious and bawdy diversion on "beavers." I think that's in Breakfast of Champions.

It's a distancing technique. In dramatic fiction I think it's less common than it was in the 19th century, but it's still very useful in comedic fiction. Another example is Catch-22 by Joseph Heller.

 

[AG31]

I've enjoyed Michael Connelly's stories for many years, especially the Harry Bosch series. I've wondered why I enjoy them so much when the style seems to display some of the qualities of a beginner, specifically declarative sentence upon declarative sentence. Little attempt to vary sentence structure. Little description.

Today it hit me. It's the tone of a police report. The facts, ma'am, just the facts.

I guess it's the intentionality and clarity of it that makes it work.

Are there other authors you can think of that display an authorial voice?

 

[Britva415]

I've enjoyed Michael Connelly's stories for many years, especially the Harry Bosch series

I enjoy these too, but it has baffled me why he goes back and forth between 1p and 3p.

Often, in the same book - which, to me, is unforgivable without a good reason and an even better frame.

 

[Duleigh]

I just thought of another example of a distinct authorial voice, Garrison Keillor, formerly of The Prairie Home Companion on NPR. You could argue that that's because I actually heard his voice, but I'm pretty sure it would come through just as vividly if I were reading a transcript.

I saw Garrison Keillor in concert back in October. I was surprised how close his authorial voice came to mine!

It was a great show, shame they closed the Powder Milk Biscuit factory.

 

[SimonDoom]

I've enjoyed Michael Connelly's stories for many years, especially the Harry Bosch series. I've wondered why I enjoy them so much when the style seems to display some of the qualities of a beginner, specifically declarative sentence upon declarative sentence. Little attempt to vary sentence structure. Little description.

Today it hit me. It's the tone of a police report. The facts, ma'am, just the facts.

I guess it's the intentionality and clarity of it that makes it work.

Are there other authors you can think of that display an authorial voice?

I like the Bosch stories, too, but I have a different take on the voice. I think Connelly's Bosch stories, when written in 3p, are an example not of an authorial voice but a voice kept close to the main character. Bosch is a strict no-bull shitter with a long history as a cop and as a successful, realistic detective. It makes sense that the prose would be cut and dried and fairly simple, unadorned. We see the story unfold through his point of view with very little added from a third person narrator. Based on the several books of his I've read, I can't think of examples of the narrator revealing to us anything that Bosch himself would not have observed.

 

[AG31]

I enjoy these too, but it has baffled me why he goes back and forth between 1p and 3p.

Often, in the same book - which, to me, is unforgivable without a good reason and an even better frame.

I'll keep my eyes open. I just re-read one from 2013 and that didn't happen at all. All 3rd person.

 

[AG31]

I like the Bosch stories, too, but I have a different take on the voice. I think Connelly's Bosch stories, when written in 3p, are an example not of an authorial voice but a voice kept close to the main character. Bosch is a strict no-bull shitter with a long history as a cop and as a successful, realistic detective. It makes sense that the prose would be cut and dried and fairly simple, unadorned. We see the story unfold through his point of view with very little added from a third person narrator. Based on the several books of his I've read, I can't think of examples of the narrator revealing to us anything that Bosch himself would not have observed.

Yeah, I can see the point.

 

[SimonDoom]

I'll give examples from my own stories of varying degrees of authorial voice. An extreme example was my story The Bullfighter And The Woman, which was a deliberate attempt to write a 750 word story in the style of Hemingway. The voice is instrusive because the attempt at a style is so obvious. The language at times is a bit more flowery than I think a real bullfighter (the POV character) would use or think.

At the other end of the spectrum among my stories s Teddy Bear, also told in third person, but in this case I tried to keep the writing style and the narration strictly within the perspective of the main character. The reader doesn't see or experience anything other than what the main character experiences, and I tried to keep the voice more or less in line with what I imagined her own voice to be as she experienced things.

 

[AG31]

I like the Bosch stories, too, but I have a different take on the voice. I think Connelly's Bosch stories, when written in 3p, are an example not of an authorial voice but a voice kept close to the main character. Bosch is a strict no-bull shitter with a long history as a cop and as a successful, realistic detective. It makes sense that the prose would be cut and dried and fairly simple, unadorned. We see the story unfold through his point of view with very little added from a third person narrator. Based on the several books of his I've read, I can't think of examples of the narrator revealing to us anything that Bosch himself would not have observed.

I thought about this some more, and while I do agree that the tone fits the general atmosphere of the story, I can't get it to feel like I'm in Bosch's head, seeing things through his eyes, the way I do in some stories.

 

[SimonDoom]

I thought about this some more, and while I do agree that the tone fits the general atmosphere of the story, I can't get it to feel like I'm in Bosch's head, seeing things through his eyes, the way I do in some stories.

What in your view would be an example of a third person story where you felt the narration matched how you thought the character would think, i.e., where the author succeeded in keeping the author's voice matched to the character's voice?

 

[AG31]

I'll give examples from my own stories of varying degrees of authorial voice. An extreme example was my story The Bullfighter And The Woman, which was a deliberate attempt to write a 750 word story in the style of Hemingway. The voice is instrusive because the attempt at a style is so obvious. The language at times is a bit more flowery than I think a real bullfighter (the POV character) would use or think.

At the other end of the spectrum among my stories s Teddy Bear, also told in third person, but in this case I tried to keep the writing style and the narration strictly within the perspective of the main character. The reader doesn't see or experience anything other than what the main character experiences, and I tried to keep the voice more or less in line with what I imagined her own voice to be as she experienced things.

I read Bullfighter and skimmed Teddy Bear. You could use them in a creative writing class on authorial tone.

 

[Britva415]

I think I lost the thread. Are we equating authorial voice with getting in the protagonist’s head?

I feel like they’re opposite concepts. An omniscient narrator can tell us what’s in a character’s head, but narration needs to be very close, to get us in there. And I feel like “authorial voice” is the opposite of close narration, if not outright omniscient.

 

[Duleigh]

Are we equating authorial voice with getting in the protagonist’s head?

In my case no. The authorial voice may say something like "Dan didn't realize that the cops were after him..." but "I didn't realize the cops were after me..." is all Dan's voice

 

[SimonDoom]

I think I lost the thread. Are we equating authorial voice with getting in the protagonist’s head?

I feel like they’re opposite concepts. An omniscient narrator can tell us what’s in a character’s head, but narration needs to be very close, to get us in there. And I feel like “authorial voice” is the opposite of close narration, if not outright omniscient.

I can't speak for AG31, but I see them as the opposite. An "authorial voice", to me, is one that is distinct from the voice of the main point of view character. The opposite of authorial voice is when the author's "voice" becomes completely submerged in the point of view of the character.

To me, an example of an author who always maintains a distinct "authorial voice" is John Updike. In his Rabbit novels, he tells the story in the third person mainly from Rabbit's point of view, but his vocabulary and style of writing are far beyond the communication skills of Rabbit. As readers we get into Rabbit's head, but we're always aware of Updike as the narrator.

 

[AG31]

I think I lost the thread. Are we equating authorial voice with getting in the protagonist’s head?

I feel like they’re opposite concepts. An omniscient narrator can tell us what’s in a character’s head, but narration needs to be very close, to get us in there. And I feel like “authorial voice” is the opposite of close narration, if not outright omniscient.

They are the opposite concepts.
Relative to Michael Connelly, @SimonDoom observed

I like the Bosch stories, too, but I have a different take on the voice. I think Connelly's Bosch stories, when written in 3p, are an example not of an authorial voice but a voice kept close to the main character.

I think this was in contradiction to my citing him as an author who cultivated an authorial voice.... i.e., not the voice of the MC. Not "close 3rd person."

 

[AG31]

In my case no. The authorial voice may say something like "Dan didn't realize that the cops were after him..." but "I didn't realize the cops were after me..." is all Dan's voice

Yeah, but your example is 1st person. This thread is about 3rd person.
The distinction is between close 3rd person and a distinct authorial (not MC) voice. For instance earlier in the thread @SimonDoom and I were discussing whether Michael Connelly's voice is close to Bosch's or his own.

 

[AG31]

I can't speak for AG31, but I see them as the opposite. An "authorial voice", to me, is one that is distinct from the voice of the main point of view character. The opposite of authorial voice is when the author's "voice" becomes completely submerged in the point of view of the character.

To me, an example of an author who always maintains a distinct "authorial voice" is John Updike. In his Rabbit novels, he tells the story in the third person mainly from Rabbit's point of view, but his vocabulary and style of writing are far beyond the communication skills of Rabbit. As readers we get into Rabbit's head, but we're always aware of Updike as the narrator.

I totally agree. And thanks for the Updike reminder.

 

[Britva415]

but your example is 1st person. This thread is about 3rd person

His example included 3rd person too.

It wasn’t an example of “authorial voice,” though.

 

[AG31]

His example included 3rd person too.

Yes, one 1st person and one 3rd person.

It wasn’t an example of “authorial voice,” though.

It's a little hard to keep track here. I'm not sure what your point is.

"Authorial voice" is, as I understand it, 1) always 3rd person and 2) not "close 3rd"

 

[Britva415]

“Authorial voice" is, as I understand it, 1) always 3rd person and 2) not "close 3rd"

Exactly my point. I was more challenging them on this rather than disagreeing with anything you had written.