A question on narration.

[tolyk]

As for the question, sometimes I write 3rd person as an unknown witness to the happenings, so I only write what I think that person would notice. Other times I write with just the character's thoughts telling the story, as if a group pitched in to write the entire thing after it all happened..

 

[TheeGoatPig]

I write it the way I see it as a movie director. There is a camera over the main protagonist's shoulder whatching what they are doing, and the the view shifts over to their partner's point of view, and then over to another's point of view. The camera has an attched microphone that can pic up what the closest person's thoughts are.

That's the way I tell mst stories.

Although, when I write in first person, it is strictly from a woman's point of view (even though I myself am not a woman). I just find the woman's viewpoint the sexiest with porn stories.

 

[Weird Harold]

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?

That's a tough question because, like so many other writing questions, it depends on the story and how I want to tell it.

Each variation on Third Person sets different limits on what the narrator can know and when he/she/it can know it, so the narrative voice has to be "chosen" to fit an entity that can know -- or have learned later -- all of the aspects of the story being told.

I've used -- or attempted to use -- everything from a "Traveling Storyteller" to a "bland transcription of surveillance tapes" to a "fly on the wall/shoulder" to a "historian" to a "'just the facts, Ma'am' police report" because each sets different levels of knowledge and understanding.

The transparency/existance of the "Third Wall" also varies with the possible narrative voices. The" Traveling StoryTeller" voice interacts with a "live audience" while the "Garralous Drunk" voice interacts with a single "person" and desperately tries to keep him/her from wandering away. The "Historian" and "Surveillance Transcript" voices don't interact with an "audience" per se but The "Historian" offers more explanations and analyses of events.

Ultimately, the Narrative Voice is always the author playing a role. The more roles the author can play, the more choice they have in Narratives Voices.

 

[kendo1]

Early 80's for me, when I was studying computer programming and system analysis.


A new mainframe was installed at the time, brought in through the large windows; they had to remove them to get it in. An IBM 1401 if I remember correctly.


Pick up light.


I prefer third person. It sounds 'right'.

 

[oggbashan]

Early 80's for me, when I was studying computer programming and system analysis.


A new mainframe was installed at the time, brought in through the large windows; they had to remove them to get it in. An IBM 1401 if I remember correctly.

You must have been behind the times. I was programming and managing an IBM 1401 mainframe system in 1964.

Og

 

[kendo1]

Must have been something else.

It was big, it was an IBM and I think it started with 14... ?

State of the art back then.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Pick up dwarf.

You can't pick that up.

Use dwarf.

Dwarf slaps you.

Hand me the pliers!

I write in third or first person, never second.

3113, I love your descriptions of different kinds of third person narratives. I never comment as the narrator in a third person- I don't think. But I like first person for that reason, that my character can insert all sorts of editorial comments if she wants- or he, of course

 

[Seattle Zack]

It seems to me the difference in narrative between third-person omniscient (the hovering invisible narrator) and third-person limited (where the perspective shifts from paragraph to paragraph, chapter to chapter, whatever the device may be) is the voice that the narrator offers to the reader.

The omniscient view takes the reader outside of the action, and the narrator is even free to offer asides to the reader as the story progresses. The limited perspective, on the other hand, is much more immediate, and can be quite effective as it shifts quickly from perception to perception as the story unfolds.

I've read books that try to take a dual approach, where the writer shifts from one viewpoint to another while still trying to maintain a narrative dialogue with the reader, but it's difficult to do without coming across as snarky and a little contrived. I usually find it clumsy.

 

[Weird Harold]

I've read books that try to take a dual approach, where the writer shifts from one viewpoint to another while still trying to maintain a narrative dialogue with the reader, but it's difficult to do without coming across as snarky and a little contrived. I usually find it clumsy.

I think the Proper Terminology is Formal and Informal modes of Narration -- and a sliding "Grey Scale between the two extremes.

I've encountered authors who don't maintain a consistent level of Formality in the narration and it almost always results in that snarky/clumsy impression you describe.

I'm currently reading series by the late Jo Clayton that uses a clever/annoying "narraive device:"

The Title of Chapter One, book Two; Skeen's Return by Jo Clayton, (C) 1987:
Well, Here we are again; You've had yourself a nice break, time to get back to our quest.
Skeen and company have done some reorganizing and she has faced the fct that the return to the stranger's gate is going to be as long and dangerous and tedious as the journey away from it.

or

What I wouldn't give for one of Flitter Hinkey's retreads.

The actual text of the chapters is a fairly conventional Third Person Limited with the primary focus on Skeen but shifting from character to character for events where Skeen isn't present.

There is one chapter that literally uses the "Fly On The Wall" as the "narrative focus" or POV -- a fly that get swatted to close the chapter.

The late Jo Clayton was a wonderfully gifted writer and this is NOT her usual style -- it's very "experimental" -- but the chapter titles give one a glimpse into the real author's thought processes about how to tell a story. It doesn't always work and sometimes is a bit distracting when it does work.

 

[Dr_Strabismus]

The older I get, the more omniscient my stories' narrators become. I guess I'm "pulling back to wide", as they say in cameraman's jargon, as I get older.

 

[gauchecritic]

I was once told that one of my stories (wish I could remember which) had both the narrator and the author as two distinct voices.

So, not much help here.