Photo © 2007 Gisela Giardino CC 2.0 BY SA

Here’s a twist on narrative point-of-view that most authors seem to let slip through the cracks. We all talk about who the narrator is. But who is she talking to? Who is that narrator’s audience?

I’m not asking about the writer’s audience, which might be different than the narrator’s audience. The writer is obviously writing to the reader, and we do often talk about who the intended reader is. We also often assume that the writer’s audience and the narrator’s are one in the same, but they may be different. The narrator may be writing to someone else entirely.

Let’s take the case of a first-person narrator, because it’s easier to see the difference there. If the book is a memoir, then we assume that the writer and narrator are one in the same and that the reader is her intended audience. We also assume that the author is writing in order to lay down some part of her history, for posterity or even to relate a lesson from her experiences. And these are all reasonable assumptions, for a memoir.

But what if the book is a diary? Then the narrator, when she originally wrote it, intended it only to be read by her cat. By sneaking a peek at this book, we nose in on the privileged and private thoughts of the author. The reader is a completely different audience than the narrator intended. So a novel written as a diary, reflects the same privacy, even though the narrator is a fictional character. What she says in her private diary is different than what she might say directly to us as readers. What she reveals about her thoughts and motivations (and what she conceals) is also sure to differ. And her purpose in writing is sure to be different than if she were narrating, first-person, to us directly (as in a memoir).

Another example: EyeLeash: A Blog Novel, which I reviewed favorably. Author Jess C. Scott set it in the form of a private journal, which her fictional character Jade had written. Actually, it’s in the form of an email Jade had sent to her crush Novan (another fictional character), an email that contained the journal as an attachment. So the bulk of the novel consists of Jade’s private conversation with herself, wrapped in comments she wrote to Novan, published as a novel that author Jess intended for you. Jade’s diary contains much that she originally did not tell Novan, and that she later did let him read it says something about what happened to her afterward.

It’s easy to see that a first-person narrator might have written to a different audience than the reader. But even a third-person narrator could have. For example, when we analyze Biblical historical literature (such as the gospels of the New Testament), we consider who wrote them (the narrators) and who their intended audience was (which is a different audience than us). We do this even though the stories are told in third-person narration, because we know that the narrator (who is the author himself in this case) potentially has his own worldview and agenda.

Sometimes literary analysts make these distinctions, when they stick out. But usually authors don’t seem to have given much thought to who the narrator is writing to and what he hopes to accomplish by his writing. Even first-person fictional narrators seem to just rattle off thoughts onto the page, as if they’re chatting with us about what’s on their mind… but we have no idea what our relationship is with the character or what level of openness and honesty, or what kind of slant, we can expect from them.

-TimK

Photo © 2006 Demetri Mouratis CC BY-NC 2.0

There’s one more post I wanted to do in this series on narrative mode, to write and rewrite a short snippet in a number of different narrative modes, just to show how each would turn out.

This is not an exhaustive list, because when you combine all the different possible narrative persons with all the possible narrative tenses with all the possible narrative voices, you can easily end up with dozens (if not hundreds) of possibilities. Even just this short list of samples gets pretty long, so feel free just to skim it.

Here’s the scene: Rosie (played by Jen in the photo), after drinking a little, makes a derogatory comment to Tom (played by Alex, on the left) about short, stocky guys asking her out, not knowing that Tom has always had a huge crush on her. Meanwhile, her brother Nat (played by John, in the background) is preparing a salad nearby and overhears the conversation, eventually intervening and trying to convince Tom to find someone else.

Third-person Omniscient, Past Tense

“Way too Danny DeVito. I don’t believe he asked me out!” Rosie was running on a fine buzz. She took another swig of her drink.

Tom stood quietly by, saying nothing, trying not to think of how deeply Rosie’s words affected him. He glanced at Nat’s back, listened to the regular slice-chop, slice-chop of Nat’s knife as it passed through a lettuce bunch and hit the cutting board.

“I guess there’s something about me that draws guys like that,” Rosie continued. “What I wouldn’t do for an old-fashioned tall, dark, and handsome.” She chuckled just as Tom gazed directly across to her eyes, his face blank, and a sudden self-consciousness gripped her. She drank again, avoiding Tom’s probing stare. “A lot of girls like those big and strong types, I guess,” she said, backpedaling, “but my tastes always ran elsewhere. There’s nothing wrong with that, you know.”

Nat had been listening to the entire conversation, and he knew what must have been going through Tom’s mind. How he had gotten in the middle of this, he didn’t know. All he knew is that his best friend had a thing for his sister, and it wasn’t going to go anywhere but down. He dumped a handful of chopped lettuce into the salad bowl, knowing he needed some excuse that would get Rosie out of the kitchen and end this tragic scene. He turned to his sister. “Rosie, did you see Amy? I think she wanted to talk to you.”

“Amy’s here?!” She had been waiting for her cousin to arrive from Bakersfield, and she could hardly believe that she missed the grand entrance.

“Just a few minutes ago. She might be upstairs.”

“I’ll go find her,” Rosie said, as she excused herself.

“Look,” Nat said to his friend, “I get it. I’ve been there, too. It takes over your mind, and you can’t help it. But all she does is make you feel like shit, and I wouldn’t be much of a friend if I didn’t tell you the truth.”

Tom nodded, knowing what Nat was going to say.

“You have to drop it and just find someone else. She’s just— Well, she’s always been opinionated and flighty. You’re a good-looking guy, and I know loads of girls who would love to, get to know you better, if you know what I mean.”

This is just a quick-and-dirty snippet of a scene. Before it would be a short connection to the previous scene in the timeline. After might follow Tom’s reaction to Nat’s advice and its implications. I’m also sure I could make it better, especially if I fleshed out its setting and its context in the broader storyline, but it will serve our purposes here as-is.

Third-person Objective, Present Tense

“Way too Danny DeVito. I don’t believe he asked me out!” Rosie says a little too loosely. She takes another swig of her drink.

Tom is standing quietly by. His eyes wonder to Nat’s back, as Nat’s knife passes through a lettuce bunch and hits the cutting board, sounding out a regular slice-chop, slice-chop.

“I guess there’s something about me that draws guys like that,” Rosie continues. “What I wouldn’t do for an old-fashioned tall, dark, and handsome.” She chuckles just as Tom gazes directly across to her eyes, his face blank. Rosie’s expression turns suddenly sober. She drinks again, diverting her eyes from Tom’s probing stare. “A lot of girls like those big and strong types, I guess,” she says, “but my tastes always ran elsewhere. There’s nothing wrong with that, you know.”

Dumping a handful of chopped lettuce into a salad bowl, Nat turns to his sister. “Rosie, did you see Amy? I think she wanted to talk to you.”

“Amy’s here?!” Her eyes widen.

“Just a few minutes ago. She might be upstairs.”

“I’ll go find her,” Rosie says, and exits the kitchen.

“Look,” Nat says to his friend, “I get it. I’ve been there, too. It takes over your mind, and you can’t help it. But all she does is make you feel like shit, and I wouldn’t be much of a friend if I didn’t tell you the truth.”

Tom is nodding silently.

“You have to drop it and just find someone else. She’s just— Well, she’s always been opinionated and flighty. You’re a good-looking guy, and I know loads of girls who would love to, get to know you better, if you know what I mean.”

As you can see, big pieces of internal context are missing from this rendition of the scene, because the narrator cannot see into the minds of the characters. We don’t know how Tom feels about Rosie, although we get an inkling of it from his actions. We also don’t really see that Nat is caught in the middle. These points (if they are important to the story) would need to be established elsewhere in the story.

You can also see the difference between past tense and present tense. Present tense feels closer to the action, because the scene is being described as it happened.

First-person, Past Tense, Rosie’s POV

“Way too Danny DeVito. I don’t believe he asked me out!” I was feeling fine, reeling from a fine buzz, and I took another swig. What had he called this drink? Something red and fruity, but boy did it pack a wallop.

I hardly heard Nat slicing lettuce just a few feet from me. Nor did I pay any attention to Tom’s reaction. He was my brother’s best friend. We were all friends. We always had conversations like this. What did I know?

“I guess there’s something about me that draws guys like that,” I went on. “What I wouldn’t do for an old-fashioned tall, dark, and handsome.” I chuckled.

Without a word, Tom stared directly at me, his face blank. I suddenly realized that I was describing him, short and stocky—at least shorter than me, as if that meant anything, like shorter than Godzilla. And he wasn’t really big, more like athletic. Why didn’t I think of that word. Athletic, sounds so much better than “fat.”

I put my glass to my lips, looked somewhere else where Tom couldn’t see what I was thinking. I had to recover the situation, let him know that I wasn’t talking about him.

“A lot of girls like those big and strong types, I guess,” I said, “but my tastes always ran elsewhere. There’s nothing wrong with that, you know.”

Nat turned from the counter. “Rosie, did you see Amy? I think she wanted to talk to you.”

“Amy’s here?!” This was news to me! I had been psyched for her arrival, and where exactly was I when I missed her grand entrance? Huh, Johnny? Tell me that.

“Just a few minutes ago,” Nat said. “She might be upstairs.”

“I’ll go find her,” I said, and I almost ran from the room. But not so fast that I couldn’t overhear Nat.

“I get it. I’ve been there, too,” he said. What was going on?

First-person gives more of an opportunity to inject the personality of the narrator character into the narrative, especially if it is written in a conversational style (rather than in the more formal style of a memoir or autobiography). I don’t know that I did so very well here, because Rosie is not a fully-formed character in my mind; I just improvised her. But I tried to give an idea of how it might work. (If you want a better example, check out the first chapter of Twenties Girl, by Sophie Kinsella, which you can preview on Amazon.)

At the same time, first-person means that the narrator only knows what Rosie knows. She can’t see into Tom’s thoughts, or into Nat’s. But I can write the story to hint at the things that Rosie denies noticing, while making it clear to the reader that she is fooling herself. (Again, see Twenties Girl for a good example.)

I also wrote this example in past tense, and that gave Rosie opportunity to allude to things that she would find out in the future, that is, after the events of the scene. “What did I know?” That implies that she was missing something important to the story, which she later understood.

First-person, Present Tense, Nat’s POV

“Way too Danny DeVito. I don’t believe he asked me out!” Rosie is running on a fine buzz. Even though I cannot see her, I can tell by the cadence of her voice. She’s speaking too… loose.

Tom stands quietly behind me, but I know Rosie’s words are affecting him. How I got in the middle of this, I don’t know. But I do know my best friend has a thing for my sister, and it isn’t going to end up anywhere but in hell. I take another slice at the lettuce, holding the knife firmly, like an extension of my right hand. Slice-chop, slice-chop, smoothly and regularly, as it passes through the green leaves and hits the cutting board.

“I guess there’s something about me that draws guys like that,” Rosie says. “What I wouldn’t do for an old-fashioned tall, dark, and handsome.” She chuckles.

Slice-chop, slice-chop.

“A lot of girls like those big and strong types, I guess.” Something is different about her voice. I feel uneasy. “But my tastes always ran elsewhere. There’s nothing wrong with that, you know.”

I don’t know if there’s any way to keep this situation from eventually blowing up in my face, but for now, if I can just put it off for a little while, it’ll make my life a little easier. I think of our cousin Amy, who I know Rosie has been anxious to see. Dumping a handful of chopped lettuce into the salad bowl, I turn to my sister. “Rosie, did you see Amy? I think she wanted to talk to you.”

“Amy’s here?!” Rosie’s eyes widen.

“Just a few minutes ago,” I say. “She might be upstairs.”

“I’ll go find her.” Rosie leaves, and I breathe a little easier.

“Look,” I say to Tom, “I get it. I’ve been there, too. It takes over your mind, and you can’t help it. But all she does is make you feel like shit, and I wouldn’t be much of a friend if I didn’t tell you the truth.”

Tom nods, but I don’t know whether he’s really listening.

Still, I continue. “You have to drop it and just find someone else. She’s just— Well, she’s always been opinionated and flighty. You’re a good-looking guy, and I know loads of girls who would love to, get to know you better, if you know what I mean.”

This is similar to third-person objective, but we know everything Nat knows, as he chooses to reveal it to us, and perhaps feel closer to him as a result. It’s a Holmes-Watson style of narration, where the narrator is a story character, but not the main character.

We also know nothing that Nat doesn’t know, especially the visible interaction between Rosie and Tom, which the third-person narrator would see, but which Nat cannot see, because he’s occupied elsewhere.

Second-person, Present Tense, MC Rosie

“Way too Danny DeVito,” you remark with a dismissive inflection in your voice. “I don’t believe he asked me out!”

You are running on a fine buzz. You take another swig of your drink, something red and fruity that you don’t remember the name of, but it packs a wallop.

You hardly hear Nat slicing lettuce just a few feet away. Nor do you pay any attention to Tom’s reaction.

“I guess there’s something about me that draws guys like that,” you continue. “What I wouldn’t do for an old-fashioned tall, dark, and handsome.” You chuckle.

Without a word, Tom stares directly at you, his face blank. You suddenly realize that you are describing him, short and stocky, at least no match for your own prodigious height. He’s athletic, like a tiny wrestler who could take out anyone who dares threaten him. And here you’ve just compared him to a diminutive, bald-and-overweight actor.

You put your glass to your lips, looking away from Tom’s penetrating gaze.

“A lot of girls like those big and strong types, I guess,” you say, backpedaling, “but my tastes always ran elsewhere. There’s nothing wrong with that, you know.” Matter-of-factly.

Nat turns from the counter. “Rosie, did you see Amy? I think she wanted to talk to you.”

“Amy’s here?!” you ejaculate. You have been looking forward to her arrival, and you wonder how you could have missed her grand entrance.

“Just a few minutes ago,” Nat says. “She might be upstairs.”

“I’ll go find her.” And you hurriedly excuse yourself.

But as you leave, you overhear Nat talking to Tom. “I get it,” he says. “I’ve been there, too…” And you wonder what he means.

As you can see, second-person allows you to step into Rosie’s shoes, but much of Rosie’s distinct personality can get lost in the process, because it is subsumed by how you the reader perceive yourself. I have to give you a compelling reason to step into the crap pile you find yourself in. It not only has to be something that Rosie might have done; it also has to be something you could see yourself doing in the same situation. This can increase sympathy between the character and reader, but it also limits how the writer can express the main character. The reader not only knows how the character perceives the world; the read also sees the world in the same way.

First-second-person, Past Tense, Nat’s POV, MC Rosie

One more example, an alternative narrative mode that I’ve never actually seen used, but I’ve always wanted to try, just for kicks.

“Way too Danny DeVito. I don’t believe he asked me out!” You were running on a fine buzz. Even though I could not see you, I could tell by the cadence of your voice. You were speaking too… loose.

Tom stood quietly behind me, but I knew your words were affecting him. How I got in the middle of this, I didn’t know. But I did know my best friend had a thing for my sister, and it wasn’t going to end up anywhere but in hell. I took another slice at the lettuce, holding the knife firmly, like an extension of my right hand. Slice-chop, slice-chop, smoothly and regularly, as it passed through the green leaves and hit the cutting board.

“I guess there’s something about me that draws guys like that,” you said. “What I wouldn’t do for an old-fashioned tall, dark, and handsome.” You chuckled.

Slice-chop, slice-chop.

Then something changed in your voice.

“A lot of girls like those big and strong types, I guess. But my tastes always ran elsewhere. There’s nothing wrong with that, you know.”

I didn’t know if there was any way to keep the situation from eventually blowing up in my face, but for now, if I could just put it off for a little while, that would make my life a little easier. I remembered our cousin Amy, who I knew you had been anxious to see. Dumping a handful of chopped lettuce into the salad bowl, I turned to you. “Rosie, did you see Amy? I think she wanted to talk to you.”

“Amy’s here?!” Your eyes widened.

“Just a few minutes ago,” I said. “She might be upstairs.”

“I’ll go find her.” You left, and I breathed a little easier.

“Look,” I said to Tom, “I get it. I’ve been there, too. It takes over your mind, and you can’t help it. But all she does is make you feel like shit, and I wouldn’t be much of a friend if I didn’t tell you the truth.”

Tom nodded, but I didn’t know whether he was really listening.

Still, I continued. “You have to drop it and just find someone else. She’s just— Well, she’s always been opinionated and flighty. You’re a good-looking guy, and I know loads of girls who would love to, get to know you better, if you know what I mean.”

This is most similar to First-person, Nat’s POV, but it’s written as a letter to Rosie, putting the reader in her place. The reader knows everything Nat knows, as he chooses to reveal it to Rosie, but the reader doesn’t necessarily know everything Rosie knows. In this scene, the narrator cannot reveal the silent interaction between Tom and Rosie that Nat didn’t see. So this extra knowledge (whatever Rosie knows that Nat doesn’t know or chooses not to reveal), if it’s important to the story, you have to let the reader in on it some other way.

One way to accomplish this, in this story, might be to write it as a series of letters between Nat and his sister Rosie. Of course, it would probably then be written in a different style, one that feels more like personal correspondence. I don’t know whether any novel has been written in this form before—probably yes, and probably a famous novel that I just am not remembering right now. Even if not, it might be fun to try, at least as an indie novel.

Keep writing!
-TimK

Photo © 2007 Annemiek van der Kuil CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

This is the third part in my series on narrative mode. I wrote about narrative voice briefly some months ago, in the context of narrative mode.

To review, narrative mode has three components:

1. Person – First (“I”), second (“you”), or third (“he”).
2. Tense – Past, present, or future.
3. Voice – Objective, Limited, or Omniscient

(I’ll cite some examples of narrative mode in a later post.)

Narrative voice is not grammatical voice (i.e., active voice or passive voice), but a completely different animal. Narrative “voice” indicates what the narrator knows about the action in the story. Does the the narrator know only what he can observe (“objective voice”)? Or can he see into the thoughts of one (“limited voice”) or all (“omniscient voice”) of the characters?

Authors and literary analysts typically link narrative voice with narrative person. (See my previous post on person in narrative mode for more on first-person, third-person, and so forth.) But conceptually, at least from a writer’s perspective, voice is an independent concept, not really linked to person at all.

Limited to What?

Most modern novels are written in what I call “limited voice.” They’re either written in “first-person,” in a stream-of-consciousness style with personal thoughts thrown in. Or in “third-person limited,” where a disembodied, third-person narrator can see into the thoughts of one or more people. Some call this “third-person subjective,” and that’s okay, too. Then when the third-person narrator can see into only one of the characters thoughts, they call it “third-person limited” or “third-person intimate.”

All of the nomenclature aside, what it really boils down to, from a writer’s perspective, is one question: How much does the narrator know?

At the one extreme, we have the “objective” viewpoint, where the narrator only describes what he can see and sense, like the lens of a camera. In particular, he does not know what’s going on inside any of the characters minds, unless they make their thoughts and feelings known to him. Of course, the term objective is a bit of a misnomer. The narrator is not objective at all, because his narrative is filtered through his agenda. Yes, the narrator only describes what he actually witnesses, refusing to interject his own thoughts or interpretations, but he still filters the facts through the lens of his own perceptions, as we all do. This is something to keep in mind when you’re writing in objective voice, that your job as an author is not simply to relay the facts, as though you were filling out a report. Rather, your job is to relate the facts as they apply to the story you want to tell.

At the other extreme, we have the “omniscient” viewpoint, in which the narrator knows all. Third-person omniscient was very popular up until the 20′th century. Some analysts distinguish between “third-person omniscient,” where the narrator knows the thoughts of all the characters, and “universal omniscient,” where the narrator knows even things that the characters don’t know.

In between, many modern novels are written from a first-person or third-person narrator’s view, with the thoughts and feelings of one or two main characters revealed in the narration. Chick-lit, for example, is sometimes written in a conversational, first-person style, where the narrator puts her own spin on the story as she relates it to the reader. Similarly, romance is often written in third-person limited, where the narrator sees into the heroine’s or the hero’s mind, or both. In some of these novels, only one character is the center of each scene, and only her thoughts are included in the narrative, with some scenes centering around the heroine and others around the hero. In other romances, the narrator switches back and forth between seeing into the hero’s and heroine’s mind, as the conversation pingpongs back and forth between the two during a scene.

(I’m convinced that a great number of these novels are written in third-person limited so that the reader can feel a greater sympathy with the character, as with first-person narration, while still allowing the author to switch between the characters without changing narrators.)

Holly Lisle’s I See You, for example, which I recently read, focuses on either Dia or Brig in most scenes, relating the story third-person limited from her perspective. But certain key scenes Holly tells from the perspective of the villain, who is after Dia— one sick and scary dude. That’s part of the “suspense” in this paranormal romantic suspense novel.

Shedding the Labels

From my writer’s perspective, I find it much simpler if I shed the labels, all the distinctives literary analysts attach to various flavors of “third-person” point of view.

I simply ask the one overriding question: what does the narrator know? And then I stick with it. And as long as the story works, we can figure out later what to call it. (Consistency trumps convention.)

Does the narrator know the thoughts of any of the characters? If so, which characters? Does he know things that none of the characters know? Can he tell the future? If so, in what circumstances and manners will he divulge his knowledge?

Note that none of these questions necessarily are linked to third-person narration. In a paranormal story, theoretically, you could have a first-person narrator who is psychic, who writes about the thoughts and feelings of the other characters. I don’t know how well that would actually work, and I don’t have a specific story in mind, but there’s no fundamental reason to rule it out. After all, it’s your story; you should tell it as you think best.

One of the story ideas in my idea journal is a science-fiction tale involving a God-like character— literally, a character who created and manages the universe in which the other characters live. If I ever write this story, I’m sure his scenes will be written in first-person omniscient.

First-person objective could potentially be useful to tell a story from the perspective of a person with certain psychological or neurological disorders. Again, I don’t have a particular story in mind.

My point, as always, is that choosing a narrative mode is a creative choice. Any story you can tell in one narrative mode you can probably also tell in another. But one or the other might feel more awkward to you, depending on the requirements of your story. Don’t be afraid to break the mold if you think your story demands it.

Keep writing!
-TimK

Photo © 2007 Frederik Hilmer CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Picking the right person… No, this is not about dating. This is about narrative person, which I wrote about briefly in the context of narrative mode. I mentioned a few narrative modes and how they were used by their authors.

To review, narrative mode has three components:

1. Person – First (“I”), second (“you”), or third (“he”).
2. Tense – Past, present, or future.
3. Voice – Objective, Limited, or Omniscient

(I’ll cite some examples of narrative mode in a later post.)

In an earlier post, I talked about narrative tense, #2 on the above list. As a writer, you can use any person with any tense. But as with tense, person is always set relative to the narrator’s frame of reference.

First Person, Second Person, Third Person

Take a memoir, for example. A memoir is always written in first-person, because the narrator is herself a character in the story. She looks back at the action, as it happened to her, and describes it. She can tell you what she experienced, what she saw, what she heard, what she thought, inasmuch as she can remember it. And she can hide information from you, things that embarrass her, or she can put a different spin or interpretation on the events she describes.

All of these things are true of first-person fiction as well. A first-person narrator, speaking directly to the reader, can also use colloquialisms that would feel awkward in second- or third-person. And what a first-person narrator reveals and conceals, or the spin she puts on things, they can help the reader get to know her better— Or she can confuse the reader, if she tries to deceive the reader.

Some authors have used an unreliable narrator to write a story that’s open to multiple interpretations, because the reader doesn’t know whether she’s telling the truth. But more often, the reader is supposed to know what’s true or not, because it’s obvious, and is supposed to see through the narrator’s spin, and thereby see something about the narrator’s personality that maybe the narrator herself doesn’t even see. This personal closeness is probably one of the reasons the first-person narrator is so popular in chick-lit.

The first-person narrator is a character in the story, usually the main character.

Similarly, in second-person, the reader herself is a character in the story, usually the main character.

You eye the fast-talking stranger suspiciously, wondering whether there’s some catch, something you’re not getting about the situation. You glance again at the envelope in his hand, the envelope full of bills. Hesitantly, you reach into your wallet for a crisp, new twenty.

And meanwhile, the sharp reader will be screaming, “No! How could I be such an idiot!?”

In this snippet, the narrator himself is not a character in the story. He’s a disembodied voice, describing the action of the story from the reader’s perspective. He sees what the reader sees, and even controls the reader’s thoughts and feelings. This can help the reader identify more fully with with the story character (because she is the story character).

The third-person narrator is also a disembodied voice, who also has no role in the story. This is the most common form of narrator. Sometimes, he can see into the thoughts of one or more of the characters, and sometimes, he only reports what he sees, as an objective observer. (I’ll get into that in more detail, in another post, when I talk about narrative voice.)

It’s All about Point of View

Like narrative tense, writing in a given narrative person is about picking a narrator and sticking with it.

So when Dr. Watson describes Sherlock Holmes’s exploits…

I was returning from a journey to a patient (for I had now returned to civil practice), when my way led me through Baker Street. As I passed the well-remembered door, which must always be associated in my mind with my wooing, and with the dark incidents of the Study in Scarlet, I was seized with a keen desire to see Holmes again, and to know how he was employing his extraordinary powers…

A slow and heavy step, which had been heard upon the stairs and in the passage, paused immediately outside the door. Then there was a loud and authoritative tap.

“Come in!” said Holmes.

A man entered who could hardly have been less than six feet six inches in height, with the chest and limbs of a Hercules…

Is he writing as a first-person narrator or a third-person narrator? In some sense, both.. And neither. Because Watson is involved in the story as Holmes’s friend, but Holmes is the hero of the story. When Watson talks about his relationship with Holmes, he uses the pronoun I. When he talks about Holmes’s crime-solving, he uses the pronoun he. And that’s what you would expect, so as a reader, it doesn’t confuse you at all.

So as a writer, you’re not actually choosing between “I” or “you” or “he.” To choose a narrative person, you must answer two questions:

1. Is the narrator a story character or an impersonal fly on the wall?
2. Who is the main character of the story? (The narrator? The reader? Or some other story character?)

Whatever choices you make, the reader will intuitively grasp these facts and follow the story from that perspective.

If the narrator is a story character, the reader can sympathize with him. Otherwise, the reader can’t. Also, a narrator who is a story character has his own interests, his own agenda, his own perspective, which can interfere with or support his telling of the story.

A main character who is the narrator can obviously give a unique view on the action of the story, because he becomes a first-person narrator. On the other hand, if you make the reader the main character, you’ll end up writing in second-person, which presents you with a different set of tradeoffs.

All told, you actually have 5 options:

1. First person: the main character narrates the story. “I was hungry, so I cooked myself dinner.”
2. Second person: a fly on the wall narrates a story in which the reader is the main character. “You were hungry, so you cooked yourself dinner.”
3. Third person: a fly on the wall narrates a story in which a story character is the main character. “He was hungry, so he cooked himself dinner.”
4. First-second person: a story character narrates a story in which the reader is the main character. “We were hungry, so you cooked us dinner.”
5. First-third person: a story character narrates a story in which another story character is the main character. “We were hungry, so he cooked us dinner.”

(If you’re a mathematician, you’ll see that there is a sixth theoretical option: that the narrator is a fly on the wall and that the narrator is the main character. But this option doesn’t make any sense, because the fly on the wall cannot, by definition, be a story character; therefore, he cannot be the main character. And if that last sentence confused you, don’t worry: it confused me, too, but I’m pretty sure it’s correct.)

And as with narrative tense, choosing one of the available options really depends on what you’re comfortable with. Like any writing decision, it’s a creative choice. Any story you can tell in first-person narrative you can also tell in third-person. But one or the other might feel more awkward to you, depending on the requirements of your story. At least now you can hopefully qualify those requirements a little more easily.

Keep writing!
-TimK

“Past, Present, and Future”; photo © 2009 MissLeslie17 CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

What to do with tense? I wrote about this briefly a few months ago, in the context of narrative mode, and I mentioned a few narrative modes and how they were used by their authors. But how do you pick a tense to use?

To review, narrative mode has three components:

1. Person – First (“I”), second (“you”), or third (“he”).
2. Tense – Past, present, or future.
3. Voice – Objective, Limited, or Omniscient

(I’ll cite some examples of narrative mode in a later post.)

For now, I’m going to look in more detail at the second one, Tense, because of a question Paula B (of The Writing Show) recently asked on FaceBook. (I’ll look in more detail at Person and Voice in future posts.) She asked, “What do you think are the advantages and disadvantages of present and past tense for novels and memoirs?”

Before we answer that question, let’s look at what we mean by “tense.”

Our word tense comes to us through Old French from the Latin tempus, which means “time.” And indeed tense tells us in what time the action is happening: past, present, or future. But what does it mean to write a story in “past tense”? It means that the action is being described as having happened in the past. But even in a past-tense narrative mode, individual sentences may occur in present tense, past-perfect tense, or even in future tense. How can that be?

The answer is that tense indicates what time the action occurred relative to the time the words were spoken. So for narrative tense to have any meaning, you must know who is doing the narrating. Or more precisely, when he is narrating it. And your mind—I’m convinced—subconsciously intuits the frame of reference of the narrator and adjusts its understanding appropriately.

Past Tense, Present Tense, Future Tense

Take a memoir for instance, usually written in past tense (first person). So the narrator is the memoir author himself, the person who had the experiences, and he’s describing them as though sitting in the same room as you, looking back at them. Consider this snippet from my own romantic memoir, Love through the Eyes of an Idiot:

We made tentative plans for Wednesday night, but she refused to commit. I understood that she was hurting from past relationships, and that she had other friends, but I also felt like an outsider to her, because she seemed to have less and less time for me.

Past tense, plain and simple, because I’m describing an experience that happened to me years ago. But then how do you account for the following bits, from the same chapter?

She explained that after classes that day, her friend had asked her over, and she needed to study for an important exam the following day…

She told me that she didn’t mean to be unavailable, but that she had lost track of the time.

Looking back, I understand how she felt, and I understand what she did, and I agree with her priorities. But at the time, I felt like I was at the bottom of her list, and that sucked.

How can I use past-perfect-tense verbs like “had asked” and “had lost,” or present-tense verbs like “understand” and “agree”?

See, you read the book as though I were there with you, in the same room as you, reflecting back on these experiences as I describe them. But while I tell you the story, I can still refer to things happening in the present time, as well as explain things that had led up to the events of the story (using the past perfect).

Take another example, a story written in present tense: “Harry drags himself out of the house, down to the grocery store. He shells out his $2.59 for a lousy loaf of bread.” And so forth. Here, we understand—without anybody telling us—that the narrator is a fly on the wall who’s recording these events as though he were right there watching the action. He’s not reflecting back on the events, because then he would be using past tense. Rather, he’s describing the action as he observes it. But this narrator could also explain, in the middle of this story, “Harry just got paid yesterday, and now he wonders where the money all went.” And we naturally understand how that fits in with the story, even though it includes a verb in the past tense. Because it’s past tense relative to the narrator’s frame of reference.

We could even use future tense. “Harry doesn’t know it yet, but his luck is going to turn any minute now.” (Maybe that’s a poor sentence to put into the story, because it tells rather than shows, but my point here is that it makes sense grammatically within the context of the story.)

So…

• past tense (“He went”) = past time relative to the narrator
• present tense (“He goes”) = present time relative to the narrator
• future tense (“He will go”) = future time relative to the narrator

We also have the perfect tenses:

• past-perfect tense (“He had gone”) = past time relative to some point from the narrator’s past
• present-perfect tense (“He has gone”) = past time relative to some point in the narrator’s present (or also can serve as a replacement for the past tense)
• future-perfect tense (“He will have gone”) = past time relative to some point in the narrator’s future

Choosing Your Tense: When’s the Narrator?

There are two places from which the narrator can describe the action, which place his frame of reference.

1. in the same place as us (past-tense narrative mode)
2. in the same place as the action (present-tense narrative mode)

There are also more unusual narrative modes. For example, prophetic literature may be written in future tense, because it describes events that haven’t yet occurred. But this also sits the narrator next to us (case #1 above), and he uses future tense simply because the story he’s telling happens in the future.

Really, as an author, you’re not choosing the tense of the narrative, even though that’s how we usually think of it. Rather, even if you don’t realize it, you’re actually choosing the frame of reference of the narrator. You do this in order to optimize how the narrator tells the story. Once you know where and when the narrator resides, then the tense in which he speaks automatically comes together, depending on what he’s talking about at any given moment.

So the trick in choosing a tense is really just the trick in choosing where you want your narrator to be. Do you want him to sit in the room with the reader and tell his story as he reflects on it (past tense)? Or do you want him to dictate it into a tape recorder as the action is happening (present tense)?

Past tense (option #1) often feels more natural, because in conversation we typically tell stories that happened in the past using past tense. In past tense, you can also more naturally include anachronistic details that fit in logically with the narrative. For example, you could stop and explain “future” implications of the story without interrupting the narrative, as I did in my memoir example above, when I used the present tense in my past-tense narrative. This works, because we intuitively understand that “I agree” places my agreement now, in this modern time, and we make that connection without any further explanation.

With present tense (option #2), the reader can feel much closer to the action, because it feels like it’s happening all around him, because the narrator is describing the story into a tape recorder in real time, as the action is occurring, rather than reflecting back on the story after years of distance. With this option, you can more easily distinguish between present time (i.e., the current action), past time (i.e., what happened before), and past-relative-to-past time (i.e., what preceded what happened before, using the past-perfect). This could be especially useful, for example, if you have a first-person narrator telling his story (in present tense), and then flashing back on events that happened before (in past tense), including other events that preceded those events (in past-perfect tense). To sort out all those timeframes using option #1, you’d have to use a lot of context in order to keep the reader from getting confused. (In fact, I’m not sure I haven’t made the situation more confusing, myself. How’s that for befuddlement?)

In the final analysis, it really depends on what you’re more comfortable with. Choosing a tense, like any writing decision, is a creative choice. Any story you can tell in past-tense narrative you can also tell in present-tense. But one or the other might feel more awkward to you, depending on the requirements of your story. At least now you can hopefully qualify those requirements a little more easily.

Keep writing!
-TimK

Firstly, if you want to get words out as fast as possible, and if you don’t know which narrative mode you want to use, don’t worry about it. You can always fix it later.

But when you do fix it, think about the strengths of each narrative mode and how they would affect the telling of your story. Then (as with any other creative decision) pick the one that you like the best.

Briefly, to construct a narrative mode, you’ll need to choose one from each of the following three:

1. Person – First (“I”), second (“you”), or third (“he”).
2. Tense – Past, present, or future.
3. Voice – Who is telling the story, and what does he know? Is it a body-less third-person narrator? Does the third-person narrator know only what he can observe (“objective voice”)? Or can he see into the thoughts of one (“limited voice”) or all (“omniscient voice”) of the characters. Or is the narrator one of the characters? Can you trust what the narrator says, or might he lie to you? And in what form does he tell the story?

Most novels are written in third-person past, and frequently in the omniscient voice.

Julie Carobini writes in first-person present for the main storyline, and in past tense for flashback scenes. I mention her, because she’s shown that using present tense can work. Here, the present tense places the ongoing action in the forefront, and the past tense puts flashbacks where they belong.

I’m doing something similar in my current novel: Third-person omniscient (past tense) for the main storyline, switching back and forth between my viewpoint characters (as Nora Roberts and Danielle Steel do). But this storyline is interspersed with memoir scenes, as it were, where one of my viewpoint characters writes about his own past, in the first person.

EDIT (May 10, 2010): I’ve expanded this article into a series with 4 more parts:

• Choosing a Narrative Tense
• Choosing a Narrative Person
• Choosing a Narrative Voice
• Examples of Narrative Mode

Bottom line: Narrative mode is simply another creative choice you make, which affects how you tell your story. So it doesn’t matter so much which narrative mode you use, only whether it does for your story what you want it to.

Keep writing!
-TimK

Here’s a snippet from the example Orson Scott Card gives:

Taking her out was like taking a final exam. Pete knew he was failing, but he couldn’t figure out why. He kept bumbling along, trying to impress Nora with his sensitivity, never guessing that Nora was much more comfortable with beer-and-football types. She had grown up with brothers who thought that “fun” was any outdoor game that left scabs. She had often told her friends that all but six of her delicate, fragile bones had been broken during childhood—at least she could hardly remember a time when she didn’t have a cast on some part of her body.

He starts in his head, transitions to hers. But it’s not confusing. Let’s look at the transition: “He kept… trying to impress Nora with his sensitivity, never guessing that Nora was much more comfortable with beer-and-football types.” The last part of this sentence happens in his mind. But it implies that the narrator knows something about Nora that’s relevant to Pete’s attempts to woo her. We immediately ask, “Why is she more comfortable with beer-and-football types?” We’re asking something about Nora’s feelings, what’s happening inside her head.

This is anticipation. It’s what happens on-screen when the character at center frame suddenly looks to the side. We immediately ask, “What’s he looking at?” So the camera cuts to his view, looking at what he’s looking at. We were looking at him; now we’re looking from his point of view.

Orson Scott Card does the same thing here, whether he realizes it or not. He causes us to wonder about Nora’s comfort zone with guys. So switching to her point of view to find out is as natural as apple pie a la mode.

This is what Nora Roberts tried to do, anticipate, but not quite.

He saw the flicker in her eyes, the dimming of disappointment, a flash of frustration. But he couldn’t know just how deeply that disappointment, that frustration cut into her heart.

He’s here, she told herself. He’s come. That’s what matters most now. “It is, yes.”

Even if we take the first paragraph as his thoughts, the last sentence makes us wonder just how deeply did it cut into her heart? If the narrator had answered that question, the cut would have been seamless. But as it is, there’s a confusing gap. It’s as if our on-screen character suddenly looked to the left. But instead of following his gaze, the camera turns around and looks to the right.

Therefore, the passage disoriented me. I went back and reread the paragraphs, now doubting my own ability to comprehend simple English, becoming even more confused, wondering even more whose point of view is whose. I’m still not convinced, from the quote above— I’m still not convinced those first sentences are in his mind. They seem to be in both minds at once. Because I was looking for a clear indicator of a transition.

In limited-omniscient point of view, the narrator switches point of view only at a section break. But it becomes clear that the difference between omniscient and limited-omniscient is a difference of degree, not of kind. By convention, in limited-omniscient, section breaks signal possible changes in point of view. In omniscient, these changes can occur more frequently, and we may spend less time in each character’s mind. But there still has to be some indication that a change is imminent. It may not be as blatant as a section divider, but the anticipation still has to be there, the question and the payoff, knitting the two sides of the transition together into a single stream of consciousness.

-TimK