Question About First Person Narrative

[WyreBendr0417]

I am working on a new story written in first person narrative. I am at a scene where the narrator observes a conversation from a distance too far to hear, but knows what it is about. Would it be wrong to write dialog from a conversation that does not involve the narrator directly? Would it be better to rewrite, adding another narrator who is actually involved in said conversation? Thanks for any input.

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[Dr_Strabismus]

Yes, it would be wrong.

You could say "I found out later that they were saying..." , or something, but First person Omniscient, which is what you're talking about, is strictly for the Big Guy Upstairs.

 

[Lifestyle66]

I've done that in several story.

My main character is the husband, with the story in his first-person. There were two or three times when he relates "My wife later told me ... " then I mark a scene change with a few asterisks to show the change and relate her third person dialog with someone else, before marking the end of that scene with asterisks and going back to the husband's first person.

 

[NoTalentHack]

Writing dialog would be mistake. But you could write a monologue.

"I could just imagine what they were saying. Tony was gesticulating and being loud; I could almost here the 'Bada bing!' from here. Lisa's manner was withdrawn, her lips barely moving. I knew she was trying to tell him to keep it down."

 

[AlinaX]

I can't hear what they're saying, but I can guess. "It's that damned cat," Mrs Olliker is saying. "He caterwails all the damn night!" And Mrs Cococol, nodding along, says, "He's in love, that one - not that Silky would care. Now, there's a cat with high standards. Impeccable!"

 

[ScrappyPaperDoodler]

You’ve already gotten some great advice. I’d suggest you could use the "issue" you describe to add something to the story. The question of how your POV character manages to know/learn what they say without actually being within earshot is potentially interesting. Perhaps they’re incredibly astute at reading lips and body language, maybe they picked up gossip, maybe they made a mistake and something else was said entirely... That sort of thing.

If your narrator simply has the knowledge for no apparent reason it would be "wrong." Even then, you could probably write it so that most readers won’t take issue with it.

 

[SimonDoom]

The threshold question for me would be why, if you want to tell the story from two different points of view, you want to tell it in first person. That's what third person is for.

It's OK to have a situation where your Narrator A relates a conversation between B and C if you have a plausible means by which that conversation is relayed to A, but it stretches believability if A can narrate that dialogue on a line by line basis. Nobody could really do that. The more believable way to do this is to use third person POV and switch the perspective.

 

[WyreBendr0417]

I am way too far into the story to rewrite in third person, so I think I will relay what the narrator observes from his vantage point (body language, etc.), then have him informed later of what was said by a character involved in the conversation. Great advice everyone. Thank You!

 

[NotWise]

I am way too far into the story to rewrite in third person, so I think I will relay what the narrator observes from his vantage point (body language, etc.), then have him informed later of what was said by a character involved in the conversation. Great advice everyone. Thank You!

If the narrator knows what the conversation is about, then the job is to let the reader know.

Dialog is my Swiss Army knife. If that were my problem, then I'd have my first person narrator talk to someone who explains what the conversation was about. Or, I'd move the narrator to within earshot.

 

[WyreBendr0417]

Just bring the narrator close enough to hear the conversation. Detailed dialogue from an unrealistic distance will seriously damage credibility; same as: "My wife later told me." What ever she told him – it wasn't dialogue.

If most of the story is about the husband's thoughts, feelings, and experiences, keep the 1st person narrative.

Normally I would do that, but the gist of the scene is that the narrator is asked to distract a fourth party, taking them out of earshot of the conversation. Thanks.

 

[ElectricBlue]

That's when you drop the plot surprise that your protagonist is deaf, and a lip reader.

A bit like the end of the first part of 2001: A Space Odyssey, when we discover HAL can read lips.

Of course, the rewrite of the rest of the story will be significant.

 

[AlinaX]

Daisy, Daisy, ...

 

[Bramblethorn]

I am working on a new story written in first person narrative. I am at a scene where the narrator observes a conversation from a distance too far to hear, but knows what it is about. Would it be wrong to write dialog from a conversation that does not involve the narrator directly? Would it be better to rewrite, adding another narrator who is actually involved in said conversation? Thanks for any input.

Simplest solution is the one you've already discussed, to have somebody who did hear it summarise the conversation for the narrator.

If you need to present the discussion verbatim, that approach might not be viable unless you can justify having a witness with perfect memory or a recording. An alternative option there is a POV shift, switching into third person to present the conversation, then back to first, with something in first person to convey how the narrator has come to hear the gist of that conversation.

Usually the simpler option is better. If you want to keep the reader in the protagonist's head, sticking to the protagonist's perception is usually the best option - if the protagonist doesn't experience the conversation verbatim, the reader shouldn't either. But there are exceptions.

For instance, one of my stories has a sequence where the first-person protagonist's lover has a very stressful conversation with other people, which pushes her into making a bad decision which hurts the protag badly. I wanted to bring my audience along first for the protag's hurt and anger, and then for the reconciliation as she comes to understand the situation that led to that bad decision and forgive her lover.

For the first part I gave my readers the bad decision without the conversation that led to it, so they're blindsided by it just as the narrator is. Judging by some of the comments, that was pretty effective at making them feel that betrayal, but then I needed to bring them back to seeing the other side of things. I decided that would be more effective if I could actually present that scene than if I was just having a character summarise it. So I presented that one conversation as a POV-shift cutscene:

She looked at me briefly, then away again, and pulled out a small notebook. "Listen, this might seem odd, but I wrote down notes, what I want to say, so I could get it clear in my head and so I didn't leave out anything important. Let me get through it and then ask whatever you want." And she began her story.

***

It's Sunday morning at RJ's house, four days before the funeral. RJ has gone out to talk with Helen's sisters about the arrangements. Yaya is sitting out in the garden, in a sunny spot near the pool. Her arm's slowly healing from the surgery but it still aches, and the warmth makes her feel better. She hasn't been using the wheelchair this last week. She says she's feeling stronger, and that she doesn't need Hamish fussing over her all the time. But it's RJ who pays him to look after her, so he sits in the lounge room where he can keep a watchful eye on her through the window while he surfs the net.

Phoebe's just brewed a pot of herbal tea, the kind her grandmother likes, and now she's headed out to the garden with a cup in one hand. Only one cup; with what she has in mind, she has enough to worry about without looking after a cup of her own.

[long conversation: Phoebe tries to come out to her grandmother, it goes badly and she is overwhelmed]

She thinks: I can't bring Yvonne on Thursday. Give me time, and I can bring Yaya around, but not yet.

But if I tell Yvonne what just happened, she'll be terribly hurt. She hurts so easily. And I'm not in any shape to comfort her just now. I need time. And then later, I will tell her the truth, and apologise.

She holds her grandmother's hand tight, fingers bony-thin between her own. When at last Yaya is settled again, Phoebe kisses her on the cheek once more before slipping away to make a call in private.

"Hello, Yvonne? About Thursday? I didn't realise, but the chapel is quite small, so they need to restrict it to family and Mum's friends..."

***

"...I just didn't know how to handle it. Too many things in my head. I didn't expect her to take it that way."

POV shifts can be confusing to the reader, especially in a story that's stuck to a single perspective for a long time, so I flagged this one both with the *** and with the shift into present tense.

That's when you drop the plot surprise that your protagonist is deaf, and a lip reader.

Lip-reading is more of an aid to hearing than a replacement for it. Most deaf people are not profoundly deaf, meaning they can hear some sounds, so they'd usually be working off the combination of what they can hear and what they can lip-read, rather than lip-reading alone. Under perfect conditions, lip-reading alone can only pick up about 50% of what's being said.

Distance makes lip-reading harder, and a conversation between two or more people is harder than a single speaker, because a lip-reader can only watch one person at a time.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Lip-reading is more of an aid to hearing than a replacement for it. Most deaf people are not profoundly deaf, meaning they can hear some sounds, so they'd usually be working off the combination of what they can hear and what they can lip-read, rather than lip-reading alone. Under perfect conditions, lip-reading alone can only pick up about 50% of what's being said.

Distance makes lip-reading harder, and a conversation between two or more people is harder than a single speaker, because a lip-reader can only watch one person at a time.

Yes, I know this - my comment was tongue in cheek. It's become a bit of a lazy convention in several movies (and intelligently handled in several others). Covid and masking gave it a voice more recently (which might be an appalling turn of phrase but not meant as such). At least HAL scanned left and right, to read the alternate speakers.

 

[XerXesXu]

I am working on a new story written in first person narrative. I am at a scene where the narrator observes a conversation from a distance too far to hear, but knows what it is about. Would it be wrong to write dialog from a conversation that does not involve the narrator directly? Would it be better to rewrite, adding another narrator who is actually involved in said conversation? Thanks for any input.

My Stories https://www.literotica.com/stories/memberpage.php?uid=5796107&page=submissions

Present or past tense? If it's past, you can relate anything 'I' could know at the time of narration. You may or may not say how you subsequently came to know.

 

[thomas1965]

As a simple rule, you can only mention what the POV character sees, smells, hears...

Otherwise, it is called head-hopping, which can be very confusing to the reader.

Also, you should change the POV character only when a new scene starts.

 

[Dr_Strabismus]

My take? Do what you want with POV, style, but take your ego out of the story completely, unless you are genuinely writing about yourself. And if you have a first person narrative, that person has to be identifiable by the reader, and importantly, have a VOICE. You should be able to HEAR the narrator when s/he's telling their tale.

By "take your ego out" I mostly mean don't be self-conscious of your writing when you write: It pops the suspension of disbelief in the reader. All the good writers here (there are lots of them, including a majority of the people who post in this forum), avoid jarring language and style and try to let the story flow frictionlessly through the words.

There is one case where that rule doesn't apply: In humorous writing (or any comedy), it's common to play with the medium.