Do You Know Who Your Narrator Is?

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

If you don't know who's telling your story, how do you know whose story you're trying to tell?

Before I dive in today...

A quick reminder that today is the last day to register for my online workshop, "How to Write Characters with Agency" on May 9. 

As for the SFF writers out there, the Fantasy & Sci-Fi Authors Summit runs May 13-17, with my session on The Power of POV in Shaping Narrative on May 13. 

Identifying your narrator seems like an easy job—they're the one telling the story, right? It's obvious with first person and third-person limited points of view, but once you get into third-person omniscient point of view, narrators can get a little murky.

An omniscient narrator stands outside the story, with access to multiple views, thoughts, and characters. They can be a faceless voice trying desperately not to be noticed, or a strong personality telling the story as they see it, with all the judgment and attitude of a strong character.

The more distant your narrator, the less connected they can feel to the story itself, and this holds true no matter which POV style you use. Are they the author? Are they a god-like being who sees and knows all? Do they change depending on which part of the story they're telling? 

How Far is Too Far? How Narrative Distance Affects Telling

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

There can be a fine line between a far narrative distance and telling.

Not all points of view use the same narrative distance. A first-person point of view pulls readers in close, while an omniscient point of view keeps them at a distance. Both are valid narrative distances, but the farther away you get from the reader, the riskier it is you’ll slip up and start telling instead of showing.

Maybe you pull away from the narrative for style, or because you want to show more than just what the point of view character knows. Maybe you aren’t comfortable inside a character’s head and don’t yet know what’s going on in there. Or maybe your point-of-view-skills are still a little shaky and you don’t even realize you’re doing it—until your get feedback with comments such as “this feels told” or “I felt detached from the character.”

I see this most often in third person point of view novels, where there’s already a layer of distance between reader and character. If you’re not solid in the point of view character’s head, it’s easy to forget who’s narrating the story and start explaining why characters act as they do, or what a character knows. If a distant omniscient narrator is your goal, that’s fine, but if you want a tighter perspective—that’s a problem.

Whose Head is it Anyway? Understanding Omniscient Point of View

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

An omniscient point of view can be tricky to write if you don't know who your narrator is.

One of the more challenging point of views to write is the omniscient point of view. You'd think it would be easiest, since it's "someone outside the story telling the story," and the author fits that description, but an omniscient narrator makes it easier to fall into a common writing issues, such as infodumping and telling.

For those unfamiliar with the term, third person omniscient point of view is when someone other than a character in the book is telling the story. This outside narrator knows things the characters don't, can make comments about what's happening (or about to happen) or see inside the heads of other characters.

That's the key to omniscient point of view: it conveys things the characters don't or can't know.

Seems easy enough, right?

The trouble is, a detached third person limited can sound a lot like third person omniscient, especially if it's not changing characters. So much so, that sometimes it's hard to know the difference.

Are You Talking to Me? Addressing the Reader

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

It's not always a good idea for your novel to talk back to readers. 

In most stories the narrator is telling the story to an ambiguous “someone.” The fourth wall (the reader) is never broken and everything happens as if no one was watching, just like TV.

But sometimes narrators break that wall and speak directly to the reader. Done well, it can make the reader feel as if they’re listening to a story by a good friend. Done poorly, it jars the reader out of the story and reminds them they’re reading a story.

When you think about it, all first person stories are talking to the reader. The narrator is saying “I did this I did that,” so sometimes you can have sentences that feel like the narrator is addressing the reader when they’re actually not. The comments are more like rhetorical questions or musing to oneself.

It wasn’t like they’d shoot me for it, right?

This is fairly common in first person, so it’s not technically speaking directly to the reader. The "right?" could just as easily be the narrator trying to reassure themselves.

Deep POV is Not the Only POV

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

I'm a fan of deep point of view (POV). I enjoy being in the head of a character and feeling like I'm experiencing the story as they do. The more distant the POV, the less I connect to the characters. But this isn't true of all readers, and many dislike that close feeling. They'd rather sit back and watch a story unfold with a safe measure of distance between them and the characters.

With so much focus on deep POV, it's easy to think that's the "right" POV to use, but there's nothing wrong with a distant POV if that's how you choose to tell your story. A narrator who hovers over the tale and describes it all to readers is just as valid as a tight in-their-head narrator.