I saw this in an anime called Bleach. Now, please don't judge. I'm not a typical anime fan who lets anime control his abilities to write or tell a story. I'm just wondering something I never quite understood before. In Bleach, the main character Ichigo has suddenly spoken, through thought, to explain part of the plot. One instance, he explained, as if to the audience, what had happened to his mother. Is this something that can be done in actual writing, and what is it called. Is it a form of soliloquy or something? Again, I never really delved into this point of view in narrating. I'm not entirely sure what my options are and am only delving into this now. My question is, can I have character's, through thought (I guess this is really my only option), narrate for several paragraphs? And how would this look?
It would be a first person narration with a self-aware narrator. You can get away with it in comics, but its harder to pull off in prose. If you were going to attempt it, you would need to make the narrative consistently in that form. Its not unimaginable, but certainly uncommon, and very hard to get right.
if he's speaking directly to the reader, that's called 'breaking the fourth wall' and isn't recommended... it's also an info dump, which is a major no-no... i don't agree with arron that once done, you'd have to continue doing it, since some writers like to start out with an aside to the readers, then go to normal first or third person pov for the rest of the work... or just put a bit of it at the beginning of some chapters... but it's not a good idea, since agents and editors generally roll their eyes [or worse] on seeing same, considering it amateurish to the point of pain... i do agree that it's extremely hard to do it successfully... you can do it, of course, but i doubt you could get away with it, unless you're a totally brilliant writer who can make anything work...
