A question on narration.

[Liar]

Hey, how bout that, a thread on writing. Let's see how long it lasts.

We all know about the narrative perspectives, right?

We have the 1st person perspective: "I woke up in a bathtub full of empty beer cans, confetti and at least three other naked bodies of yet-to-be-determined gender. What time was it? Where was I? Why did I smell of peanut butter?"

We have the alltogether weird 2nd perspective: "You are standing in the hallway with a pickaxe in your hand and murder on your mind. The vaseline voice of Barry Manilow echoes from downstairs. 'Perfect soundtrack for a night of mayhem', you think and walk slowly towards the closed door."

And then there's the 3rd: "On the corner of St Bastien and Main, Bob finally caught up with the surfer guy in the rent-a-wreck. This could have been a magnificent achievent, since Bob didn't have a car of his own. But in this case, that was to his advantage, since the veichle itself had lost the gearbox two corners ago, and was now pushed along the road by the surfer and some dude with an afro the size of Ohio."

Now, my question to you authors is this: When you write in 3rd person POV, (or, I guess, also when you write in 2nd), who is the narrator? In 1st person, it's always the character in the story. When you visualize the 3rd person story being told, or however you go about it in your creative process, whose lips are doing the talking?

Is it you? Is it some separate storytelling character? Is it God? Is it just a piece of text on a paper or screen?

 

[TheEarl]

There is a style of 3rd person writing which has the narrator as God, but generally speaking, my third person stories tend to focus on one character at a time and we see the world through their eyes for a moment. The character in charge may change from scene to scene, but overall, I've never developed the knack of having a completely omniscient narrator.

Does anyone pull it off successfully? Can they share how they do it?

The Earl

 

[Liar]

That's pretty much what I do too. Focus on one character at the time, often one through a whole story.


But...whose voice is the narrator speaking with? Is it you, TheEarl, or is is the unnames storyteller that TheEarl wrote as Narrator, that is talking to the reader?


It might not make a difference for some, but for me it does. My narrator, even in 3rd person, is a character of it's own. With a specific olanguage and possibly thoughts and values that color how it describes things.

 

[TheeGoatPig]

That's pretty much what I do too. Focus on one character at the time, often one through a whole story.


But...whose voice is the narrator speaking with? Is it you, TheEarl, or is is the unnames storyteller that TheEarl wrote as Narrator, that is talking to the reader?


It might not make a difference for some, but for me it does. My narrator, even in 3rd person, is a character of it's own. With a specific olanguage and possibly thoughts and values that color how it describes things.

It's the voices in my head. The ones that tell me to do things. Naughty things...

 

[Recidiva]

I can't usually write this way mostly because I've played too many games in text.

I just start hearing "You are in a maze of twisty little passages" and I get kicked out of my suspension of disbelief and back in an Adventure game.

 

[TheEarl]

That's pretty much what I do too. Focus on one character at the time, often one through a whole story.


But...whose voice is the narrator speaking with? Is it you, TheEarl, or is is the unnames storyteller that TheEarl wrote as Narrator, that is talking to the reader?


It might not make a difference for some, but for me it does. My narrator, even in 3rd person, is a character of it's own. With a specific olanguage and possibly thoughts and values that color how it describes things.

I'm not sure off-hand, so I've just checked out one of my stories.

Still pouting, Elsie walked into the living room and nearly walked into Connor’s punching bag that was sitting, detached from its ceiling hook, in the doorway. “Bloody thing,” she muttered as she edged around it to get to the settee. Connor had bought it on a whim without a thought of whether it’d fit in his flat, just like the table-football, the pinball machine and the miniature fridge-freezer that filled his place. Whenever anything wasn’t in use, it got shuffled around to wherever was least in the way. Elsie smiled. She liked the punching bag; she could remember a couple of good times that had happened after watching him box topless. For moments like that, she could forgive Connor anything.

She glanced around the living room. Aside from the punching bag, the room was relatively free of clutter; something of a novelty for Connor’s living room. It was furnished only with two settees and a small coffee table, on which was an open bottle of red wine and two glasses. The walls were a uniform white, but were punctuated by several paintings, some by Connor himself. The ceiling hook and chain that the punching bag hung from were still attached and Elsie guessed that he’d probably been working out earlier that day.

She seems to be talking to the reader, doesn't she?

The Earl

 

[Liar]

I can't usually write this way mostly because I've played too many games in text.

I just start hearing "You are in a maze of twisty little passages" and I get kicked out of my suspension of disbelief and back in an Adventure game.

You are standing in a clearing.

There are exits to the north and east.

You see: A dwarf.

 

[rgraham666]

When I write third person I concentrate on one character. I look at them as if I was a camera observing them. The camera sees what's happening and I relay it to the reader.

There will be flashes of internal thought, kind of a voice over to let the reader know what is going through the character's mind, to communicate emotions and revelations.

 

[Recidiva]

You are standing in a clearing.

There are exits to the north and east.

You see: A dwarf.

Yes, oddly enough third person makes me want to pick up a sword and unscramble it's name. "It's Excalibur!"

 

[Liar]

She seems to be talking to the reader, doesn't she?

The Earl

So, she's talking to readers about herself in third person. Isn't that pretty close to delusion of grandeur?

...Liar says.

 

[TheeGoatPig]

So, she's talking to readers about herself in third person. Isn't that pretty close to delusion of grandeur?

...Liar says.

Wait, that's not normal? (maybe they've got something with this notion of insanity)

 

[Guest]

I just start hearing "You are in a maze of twisty little passages" and I get kicked out of my suspension of disbelief and back in an Adventure game.

Like wow, early 80's flashback.

 

[3113]

I've tried to write 3rd person omniscient (as it's called) as it's traditionally done with a jump from one character's perspective to another's whenever desired--and with only a new paragraph to signal the change. I've done it, but transitioning from one person's point of view to anothers' in the middle of the action, smoothly, without confusing the reader, is hard. I think Tolstoy is the one who mastered it, but reading him really is like reading from the God perspective. You do feel a little distant from the characters.

I almost always write in either 3rd person selective (one character's pov) or 1st person. If I go omniscient (more than one character's pov), I always switch with "breaks"--that is, a section is all from one character's pov. I put a space/breakmark (#) between sections, and then the new section is from another character's pov.

We have the 1st person perspective: "I woke up in a bathtub full of empty beer cans, confetti and at least three other naked bodies of yet-to-be-determined gender. What time was it? Where was I? Why did I smell of peanut butter?"

I expect you to finish this story, Liar

 

[TheEarl]

So, she's talking to readers about herself in third person. Isn't that pretty close to delusion of grandeur?

...Liar says.

Most of my characters talk to 'themselves', I guess. You know, it's the first time I've ever really analysed it.

The Earl

 

[Liar]

I've tried to write 3rd person omniscient (as it's called) as it's traditionally done with a jump from one character's perspective to another's whenever desired--and with only a new paragraph to signal the change. I've done it, but transitioning from one person's point of view to anothers' in the middle of the action, smoothly, without confusing the reader, is hard. I think Tolstoy is the one who mastered it, but reading him really is like reading from the God perspective. You do feel a little distant from the characters.

I almost always write in either 3rd person selective (one character's pov) or 1st person. If I go omniscient (more than one character's pov), I always switch with "breaks"--that is, a section is all from one character's pov. I put a space/breakmark (#) between sections, and then the new section is from another character's pov.

Ah yes. But regardless of if it's omniscient or selective; Who is the narrator? Who is telling the story?

I expect you to finish this story, Liar

Beware, I just might.

 

[Dr_Strabismus]

There is a style of 3rd person writing which has the narrator as God, but generally speaking, my third person stories tend to focus on one character at a time and we see the world through their eyes for a moment. The character in charge may change from scene to scene, but overall, I've never developed the knack of having a completely omniscient narrator.

Does anyone pull it off successfully? Can they share how they do it?

The Earl

I do it all the time, not sure how successfully. The overall effect is one of dramatic irony. The narrator shares with the reader a perspective where not only all the characters, their thoughts and actions, but their past and future are known.

Check out Kurt Vonnegut's writing to see it done by a master storyteller.

 

[Remec]

Now, my question to you authors is this: When you write in 3rd person POV, (or, I guess, also when you write in 2nd), who is the narrator? In 1st person, it's always the character in the story. When you visualize the 3rd person story being told, or however you go about it in your creative process, whose lips are doing the talking?

Is it you? Is it some separate storytelling character? Is it God? Is it just a piece of text on a paper or screen?

That sort of depends. Usually, I'd say it was some aspect of myself, but the degree varies as to how much I'm presenting the narrative as opposed to Storytelling it.

If I'm feeling sort of noirish, the narration is given by an actual character who may or not be involved in what they are telling us.

 

[rgraham666]

Like wow, early 80's flashback.

Mid-'70s for me.

 

[Dr_Strabismus]

Mid-'70s for me.

It must have been freezing in the mainframe room all night

 

[3113]

Ah yes. But regardless of if it's omniscient or selective; Who is the narrator? Who is telling the story?

Tricky question. The narrator can be more or less visible. To give you a nice, seasonal example of a visible narrator:

"Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for."

Now this narrator vanishes as the story goes on, but he makes his presence known here, at the beginning. SOMEONE is telling the story and he's not hiding from us. He even offers an opinion. Who's the Narrator? Charles Dickens, we assume, or whoever Dickens is pretending to be as he plays Narrator.

Then there's the less visible:

"In the centre of the room, clamped to an upright easel, stood the full-length portrait of a young man of extraordinary personal beauty, and in front of it, some little distance away, was sitting the artist himself, Basil Hallward, whose sudden disappearance some years ago caused, at the time, such public excitement and gave rise to so many strange conjectures."

The narrator here pokes his head in to comment about the disappearance of this artist (later in the book, we find out exactly what happened). He's barely there, but he's not yet invisible. So, the story is being told by, again, Oscar Wilde or whoever he's pretending to be.

Then we've got "invisible" narrators:

"It was in July, 1805, and the speaker was the well-known Anna Pavlovna Scherer, maid of honor and favorite of the Empress Marya Fedorovna. With these words she greeted Prince Vasili Kuragin, a man of high rank and importance, who was the first to arrive at her reception. Anna Pavlovna had had a cough for some days. She was, as she said, suffering from la grippe; grippe being then a new word in St. Petersburg, used only by the elite."

Tolstoy presents his story as if presenting historical fact. Footnotes are included (she had a cough, la grippe was a new word). This is very godlike. But at no point in the story will Tolstoy make a personal observation (like Dickens), or take us out of the timeline (like Wilde). He remains detatched and invisible, reporting the action, events, feelings and thoughts as historical facts.

I think the more the invisible the narrator, the more we are suppose to feel that the narrator is "god" rather than the artist--who, not being god, might have opinions, biases, etc. Obviously, the narrator is ALWAYS the author (unless we want to go into authorless stories, sic), but the question you're asking, I think, is who is the *evident* narrator. And that depends on the way the story is told.

Dr. S' mention of Vonnegut reminds me of Breakfast of Champions where the narrator--though we never see him/her--is evidently an alien because the way the story is told seems to be through the eyes not of an all-knowing god, but of an alien trying to report what he's seen to other aliens.

 

[tolyk]

You are standing in a clearing.

There are exits to the north and east.

You see: A dwarf.

Nooooooooo.. not Muds!!!

 

[rgraham666]

It must have been freezing in the mainframe room all night

I was the only person I knew at the time in my circle of friends who kept a heavy sweater, long jeans and thick socks for use in the summer.

 

[Liar]

Nooooooooo.. not Muds!!!

Pick up dwarf.

You can't pick that up.

Use dwarf.

Dwarf slaps you.

 

[rgraham666]

Pick up dwarf.

You can't pick that up.

Use dwarf.

Dwarf slaps you.

Ahhhh! I'll talk! I'll talk!

No more!

 

[tolyk]

Pick up dwarf.

You can't pick that up.

Use dwarf.

Dwarf slaps you.

I was designing a mud, a few years back.. I had some pretty silly things in it, but no using of dwarves.. I bow to your mastery