Hello My story was originally told through the eyes of a young boy who is now grown up. This gave me the advantage of narration, his opinion of certain events and more descriptive when it comes to emotions. However, it leaves me unable to mention things that the boy couldn't have known about, such as things other characters were going through that was unknown to the other characters. I guess making the narrator a character takes away his god like knowledge? Also the narrator isn't the main character. Does this seem messed up? or is there any advice someone could give me? Any help would be fantastic Thanks
So basically your doing writing in the third person (Bob did, he lied) or the first person (I said, I felt). If I can recall to my old English class there is something call first person omnipotent (sp?) and that means that it's basically the narrator. You can be the narrator, and you don't have to give them a name. This is how I would do it: ie: He(I) felt really bad about the way he(I) treated his(my) mother yesterday, he(I) just blew up in her face. She told him(me) he(I) was wrong and it just wasn't right for her to judge. Becky, his mother, sat alone in her house, wondering if what she said to her son would make him grow apart from her. The house often got so empty that she felt alone and meaningless most of the days. He would never really know how much she loved him, and that's why she didn't want him joining the army. He(I) walked up the stairs to the Recruitment Offices, and signed my life away. That was a bad example but it was just random jibberish. Space out the narrative paragraphs from your character's thought paragraphs and I think the readers should get it. just use an omnipotent view and you'll be good.
thank you very much for the reply yea i think thats what i'll do, as the other methods seem to limit things, and this way works well with a twist at end. While doing this narrator, can i still do things through the person? like tell parts of the story from characters the sides? Thanks again
If you're using third person omniscient, you can pretty much tell anything that anyone knows, does, says, etc. However, you should know that third person omniscient is seen as somewhat old-fashioned and is, as I understand it, out of fashion at the moment. That doesn't mean that it's bad or that you shouldn't use it, just that you should know the possible down side of the choice. Another alternative is to use first person narration or third person limited (third person but you can only use what a single viewpoint character knows), but change narrator/viewpoint characters from section to section or chapter to chapter. ChickenFreak
thanks for the reply mate Yea that seems like a good idea, i think I'm going to have an omniscient narrator and some third person limited mixed in to a few of the chapters. Thanks again Kind regards
Read Perfume by Patrick Suskind - the whole thing is done through an all-knowing narrator and it follows the main character who happens to be a murderer. It's superb. Or perhaps Sorrows of Young Werther by Goethe - somehow even though it was in 1st person, the author managed to convey the flaws in the narrator's own perspective. This might teach you how you could express things in such a way that allows the reader to make a DIFFERENT conclusion than the one the narrator himself reached. I think this device is called the "flawed narrator" or the "unreliable narrator"? It'd take one heck of a talented writer to pull that off but if you manage, it's pretty amazing! Or the film Interview with a Vampire? Louis narrates, with hindsight over all events but Lestat is obviously a co-lead - and he manages to narrate without giving things away etc.
