This is topic Best way to introduce a narrator? in forum Open Discussions About Writing at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.


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Posted by nellievrolyk (Member # 1616) on :
 
What is the best way to introduce a narrator into a story? In a prologue or introduction which frames the story? Or within the story itself?

There will also be the occasional narrator comments inserted into the story itself. What would be the best way to set those off from the story itself?
 


Posted by Doc Brown (Member # 1118) on :
 
Is this a first person story?

In a third person story the reader gets to know one or more point-of-view characters, but usually not the narrator. Third person narrators don't need introductions (although you might be able to pull it off. Could be fun.)
 


Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :
 
She's talking about a narrator character. Typically you do need a prologue explaining why the story is being told if you use a narrator character. On the other hand, if the narrator is present throughout the narrative making comments and so forth, then the narrator can just explain why he is telling the story as the narrative unfolds.

When this occurs, the narrator can directly address the audience (in a science fiction or fantasy work, the audience being addressed with be a fictional creation as well--not the actual audience of the book). First person-second person-third person..."The reason that I am telling you what Abunabi (the hero of the story) did is because I want to show you that Abunabi was a hero." Think of Great Gatsby for a moment. The book is written in first person, but not from the POV of the main characters, so most of the narration is third person by the first person narrator character. Of course, being a contemporary work, the audience wasn't fictional...except for the fact that the real audience recieved the work as fiction, while the fictional narrator "Nick" never hints at the account not being factual.

Complicated enough for you? This is one reason that third person limited omniscient without elaborate suspension of disbelief measures is the most popular format for fiction today. Because it is so much easier. But artificial document fiction can have a delightful effect if well done, so I think it will never die out.

If the existence of the fictional narrator (or fictional audience) makes a big difference to the meaning of the story, then it can be important to have such a narrator character (think about how different the ending of Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome would be without the epilogue about telling the tell and turning the city lights on). So if you want to create that kind of epic feeling to the story, then creating a fictional narrator can be important, even if you don't make the narrator an obtrusive part of the narrative. Ursula K. LeGuin uses the prologue (and epilogue) of A Wizard of EarthSea to establish that Ged became one of the greatest mages of the Archipelago and explain why the story is important--but the narrator character is almost completely absent from the body of the narrative.

Lots of good art to look at. Good stuff.
 


Posted by nellievrolyk (Member # 1616) on :
 
Thank you for your replies :-)

Survivor, you ask if it is complicated enough for me? All those different POVs in one story, that is.

Yes it is. So I am thinking that I will skip having a narrator and make enough changes to the story so that I won't need one. I'm only on the second draft and have room for making changes.

Doc, the story at the moment is in first person, which will more than likely change. My problem is that the person telling the story dies in a terrible acident halfway through and cannot tell what happens afterward. Actually her body, having been changed into something tough enough to survive the accident, lives, but her brain and her personality do not. Her body is taken over by another personality which uses her name and which has access to data recorded to memory nodes while the original personality was in the body.

Complicated isn't it?

I think it will be easier all around if I keep the original personality intact.


 


Posted by Doc Brown (Member # 1118) on :
 
Interesting idea you've got there. You tell a first person story from the "I" perspective, then halfway through you redifine the meaning of "I."

Wow. I wish you success in this story. No matter what you do with the narrator, your final product will surely be unique.
 


Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :
 
Just by the by, have you ever read Malpractice by OSC? It's written as a first person journal of a guy that's being taken over by another personality. The science is merde, of course, but it isn't really science fiction anyway, as the mechanism is more of a transmigration of the soul sort of thing.
 
Posted by nellievrolyk (Member # 1616) on :
 
Doc, you're making me think that I should leave things as they are with the two "I" narrators who sequencially inhabit the same body.

Survivor, up to now I had not even heard of Malpractice by OSC. It sounds interesting though.
 


Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :
 
It's a short story he wrote for Analog. He apparently rates it just above Happy Head (I thought Happy Head a much stronger story, but I no longer have the ancient copy of Analog in which it appeared).

If you don't have Flux, The Hanged Man, or Cruel Miracles, it might be worth getting Maps in a Mirror--a collection of the short fiction of OSC (which includes all those as well as a section called "Maps in a Mirror" and another called "Lost Songs").
 


Posted by nellievrolyk (Member # 1616) on :
 
Survivor, now you'll have me going through my stacks of Analogs looking for that story. I have issues dating from 1965 and on...

I have Cruel Miracles... shall have to read again.
 




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