WRITING TIPS: Choosing a narrative voice for your story
Okay, so you have an idea for a Lancer story. Great! You even know how it will start and how it will end. Even better!
SECOND PERSON:
Second person uses the pronoun you - and because it's rarely used for fiction, I'm not going to go into that one in any detail.
THIRD PERSON:
Third person is the most commonly used - and you'll use the pronouns he, she, and they.
Within Third Person, we can choose to be omniscient, distant or deep.
Omniscient was popular in classic literature. As you probably know, omniscient means all knowing. Thus, the narrator can pop into the heads of as many characters as he/she chooses, within a scene, and knows each character's thoughts, feelings and motivations.
Johnny looked at the rain outside the window and he wasn't happy. "We're going to get soaked."
"I don't think it will keep up all day," said Scott. He thought it would be much better to get out of the house when Teresa wanted to clean.
"Boys, I've got plenty of jobs for you to do if it's too wet out there." Teresa smiled at them brightly.
Neither Scott nor Johnny was looking forward to being drenched, but the other option of using one of her dusters was even worse.
Can you see how the above scene isn't told from the point of view of a single character? Instead, we have a narrator who exists outside the story. This narrator tells us who says what and can tell us what the character is thinking, if the narrator chooses to. For the reader, it's not as intimate as first person, and there's likely to be more 'telling' by the narrator as scenes and events are described. You're also more likely to have a commentary by the narrator regarding the behaviour of the characters.
THIRD PERSON DISTANT OR LIMITED
Third person distant is similar to omniscient, but the narrator doesn't pop into several characters heads in a given scene. We still have an exterior narrator, but the writer chooses one character per scene for us to see the story through and we don't know what other characters are thinking, unless the main character asks them or guesses as to their motivations.
Johnny wasn't happy when he saw a wall of rain outside. "We're going to get soaked," he complained.
"I don't think it will keep up all day," said Scott.
Johnny stared at Scott. He couldn't understand why he'd be looking so hopeful when any person could see the rain was going to last until the evening.
"Boys," Teresa said, "I've got plenty of jobs for you to do if it's too wet out there." She smiled at them brightly.
Johnny could see Scott had a point, now. He thought facing the rain was a lot better than facing a duster, too.
THIRD PERSON CLOSE OR DEEP POV
This POV has become increasingly popular within the last forty years or so. The use of third person pronouns is still used, he, she, they, and the character's name but the external narrative voice is removed and it's as though we're in the first person, seeing and hearing everything through a single character in each scene.
We're pulling the reader into the character, as closely as we can, thus eliminating any sense of a narrator.
Here is one definition I found: Deep POV – The character lives out the story in real time, immersing the reader in their emotional journey. There is NO author/narrator voice. Every word on the page comes from within the POV character. Every. Word.
Okay, let's go back to our scene and see it in Deep POV.
Why the hell would it be raining, today of all days? Johnny slapped his thigh. The rain was so thick out there he couldn't see the corral fence, let alone the barn. "We're gonna get soaked, brother."
Scott was already shrugging on his jacket. "I don't think it will keep up all day."
Johnny stared at him. What the hell? Any fool could see the rain was gonna last all day.
"Boys, I've got plenty of jobs for you to do if it's too wet out there." Teresa walked in with a smile was way too bright for this time of morning.
Yep, Scott had a point. Facing the rain was a whole lot better than facing a duster.
Note in Deep POV, dialogue tags (he said/she said) are omitted as much as possible, but in Limited Third Person, they're used more often. Also, everything the character thinks and says is written in that character's voice.
I hope this all makes sense! I've tried to use a lay person's words, rather than some of the literary explanations I found in many articles.
Some of you will be very familiar with the various POVs, but I know when I started writing, I had no idea. I hadn't written a story since high school and no-one had explained POV to me back then, either. And because I mostly read the classics, or mystery novels, I probably thought everyone either wrote in the first person, or third person omniscient, if I thought about it at all - which, in fact, I probably didn't!
I distinctly remember KC commenting on the 'clever way I'd changed POV mid-way through a scene' in one of her reviews - and I had no idea I'd even done that, lol. Thanks to that one comment, I started googling POV and had the good sense to ask KC for more advice on using it. The lesson learned was thus: 'never be afraid to ask.'
Any comments ladies? Which POV do you prefer to use and why? Which ones have you tried? Are there any you particularly don't like? Is all this new to you as it was to me?
Perhaps you have a favourite book that was written in a POV you've come to love?
All comments welcome! Let's hear what you think. :)
Suzanne
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