{"id":35767,"date":"2020-01-16T14:22:32","date_gmt":"2020-01-16T19:22:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/?p=35767"},"modified":"2022-01-08T12:52:13","modified_gmt":"2022-01-08T17:52:13","slug":"harry-connolly-a-narrator-in-every-port","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/2020\/01\/16\/harry-connolly-a-narrator-in-every-port\/","title":{"rendered":"Harry Connolly: A Narrator In Every Port"},"content":{"rendered":"

Not too long ago I realized writing advice has to seek out the writers who need it. Any one piece of advice is useless for most people, but when the right tool, tip, or insight connects with the right person, it feels like a curtain being pulled back.<\/p>\n

One such piece of advice[1] crossed my path a few years before I published my first book, Child of Fire<\/i>, with Del Rey. It was simple:<\/p>\n

1. Find five or six books that<\/p>\n

2. are debut novels, and<\/p>\n

3. are in the same genre as your WIP, and<\/p>\n

4. were published in the last five years. Then<\/p>\n

5. study them to figure out what they have in common, because<\/p>\n

6. that\u2019s what publishers want from debut novels.<\/p>\n

A glance at the subject header above will tell you the lesson I learned (the one I needed to learn?), but someone else might learn a different lesson. As an exercise, it\u2019s worth trying, is all I\u2019m saying.<\/p>\n

Now, if you put \u201cVoice\u201d into the search field in the sidebar of this blog, you\u2019ll find several posts from Chuck and his guest bloggers about developing an authorial voice. That\u2019s the voice that is unique to each author based on their interests and experiences, what\u2019s often called \u201cthe thing a writer can\u2019t help doing.\u201d And that\u2019s important.<\/p>\n

But what I want to talk about here is narrator voice<\/i>, the way that the experiences and worldview of the point of view character is reflected in the text.<\/p>\n

The most obvious place to start the discussion is with first person POV, where the narrator is diegetic<\/a> and the reader expects the text to be colored by the narrator\u2019s idiosyncrasies. An author wouldn\u2019t be doing their job if they weren\u2019t. The point of view character might be honest with the reader or they might not, but it\u2019s clear the story is being filtered through them. They\u2019re the narrator voice.<\/p>\n

But what about third person limited? Or third person cinematographer?[2] Or the so-called \u201cinvisible style,\u201d omniscient, or any other POV you want to mention? Well, what I\u2019m about to say seems to be controversial to some people, but it\u2019s true: Every prose story has a narrator.<\/i><\/p>\n

A narrator doesn\u2019t have to be diegetic, but they can be. A close third person limited story will make the narrative\u2014while still using he\/she\/they pronouns\u2014closely reflect the POV character. For example, a refugee from a war-torn country might walk into a posh hotel lobby and experience it as a glimpse of heaven, while a rich jaded socialite might describe it as the usual marble, chrome, and clouded glass<\/i>. In either case, the POV character\u2019s external world is filtered through their world view and presented to the reader the way they would describe it.<\/p>\n

Non-diegetic narrators might be in the second person[3], or they might be omniscient[4], or they might be the author themself.<\/p>\n

Lots of popular and beloved novelists never seem to give a thought to narrator POV. They happily write all their books in the same voice, and if that voice is appealing enough, they can find tremendous success.<\/p>\n

Still, narrator voice is a tool, and a powerful one. When it reflects the narrator\u2019s inner self, it can bring the reader into the character\u2019s head. It can be used for contrast. A satire might have a narrative voice that\u2019s very different from the POV character being satirized. Additionally, an author trying to create dread in a scene with a character who doesn\u2019t know they\u2019re in danger might contrast the narrator voice with the POV character\u2019s.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a tool with a lot of uses, and I\u2019m still learning how it all works[5], but it\u2019s a tool that I\u2019d like to see used more often.<\/p>\n

[1] Courtesy of the pseudonymous blogger Miss Snark. There\u2019s still a wealth of useful information on her archived blog<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[2] There are two POV choices that could credibly carry this name. The first is one where the text never tells us the interior thoughts of the characters. What they\u2019re thinking and feeling has to be revealed by what they say or do, or how they appear. See Hammett\u2019s The Maltese Falcon<\/i> for the most famous example of this style.<\/p>\n

The other is a sort of prose movie\/tv show, where the POV will be, say, third person limited for most of the story, but with a quick pivot into omniscient whenever the author wants to recreate a story beat from a movie. The general consensus is that this is a somewhat trashy style to use, but I figure every tool has a place where it can be useful.<\/p>\n

[3] I usually experience stories written in the second person as the narrator addressing themself, so your mileage my vary.<\/p>\n

[4] Although off the top of my head, I can name two novels with omniscient narrators who are also characters in the story, one of them written by me.<\/p>\n

[5] My new novel, One Man<\/i> (you knew this was coming) is a fantasy with fourteen different POV characters. I\u2019ve never written more than two before, and I spent a lot of time thinking about how a third limited POV for each character would affect the voice. Not in a big, flashy Sound and the Fury<\/i> sort of way, which wouldn\u2019t suit the fantasy thriller genre, but with enough subtlety that each section would feel different. Did I succeed? God, I hope so.<\/p>\n

One Man<\/h2>\n

One Cursed City. Two Dead Gods. Ten Thousand Murderers and Thieves. One Orphaned Girl.<\/b><\/p>\n

As a child, Kyrioc was groomed to be the head of one of the most powerful noble families in Koh-Salash, a city built inside the skeletons of two murdered gods. Kyrioc himself dreamed of becoming head of the High Watch, the highest political position in the land.<\/p>\n

Those dreams have turned to dust.<\/p>\n

Presumed dead after a disastrous overseas quest, Kyrioc now lives in a downcity slum under a false name, hiding behind the bars of a pawnshop window. Riliska, a nine-year-old pickpocket who sells stolen trinkets to his shop, is the closest thing he has to a friend.<\/p>\n

When a criminal gang kills Riliska\u2019s mother and kidnaps the little girl, Kyrioc goes hunting for her.<\/p>\n

He doesn\u2019t care about the forbidden magic the gangs are fighting over\u2014the severed ear of a glitterkind,<\/i> a creature whose flesh contains astonishing healing powers. He doesn\u2019t care about the bloody, escalating gang violence. He doesn\u2019t care about the schemes of power-hungry nobles.<\/p>\n

In a raging city on the verge of civil war, Kyrioc only wants to save his friend. He will risk anything for her, even awakening the powers that murdered the gods so long ago.<\/p>\n

\u201dOne Man is a superbly realised story set in a rich and fascinating world. The horror grips, the fantasy delights and the characters remain vivid and real to the end.\u201d \u2014 Justina Robson<\/i><\/p>\n

You can read sample chapters from the usual ebook vendors or on my website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I hope you like the book, and if you do, I hope you tell your friends. Thanks for reading.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Not too long ago I realized writing advice has to seek out the writers who need it. Any one piece of advice is useless for most people, but when the right tool, tip, or insight connects with the right person, it feels like a curtain being pulled back. One such piece of advice[1] crossed my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-35767","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-theramble","8":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pv7MR-9iT","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35767"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35767\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35793,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35767\/revisions\/35793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}