Park: Earlier today, Barb and I were talking about the craft of first-person narration… so, I thought it might be a good topic for a post. So I begin, now, by asking Barb: Who is the best writer you’ve read as far as first-person narration?
Barb: The first person that comes to mind is Raymond Chandler…
Park: Sure, that makes sense. And it reminds me how important voice is to this sort of thing, too.
Because if the narrating character doesn’t have any individual characteristics worth noting, why are you doing it that way? (There could be reasons, in that situation, but I usually don’t like the reasons. Usually.)
Barb: See, Chandler taught me that first person narration is never objective. It always shows and tells me who the narrator is. Some writers have narrators that just report on events without having an opinion concerning events. Or, the author understands that first person should be subjective, but then when describing, say, a house, the narration simply becomes reportage.
The descriptions sound more like third person, which is more objective.
Park: Right, see… Yeah. I mean: What do you think about this place, dude? Or the people in it? Do you envy them? Feel sorry for them? Both, for some reason or reasons?
Barb: Yeah!
People live their lives making judgments about EVERYTHING around them, including a house, a living room, a car, etc. We discern what what like and what we don’t like, what is safe and what is unsafe, what is kind and what is unkind ALL OF THE TIME. It’s part of our survival instincts.
Park: Wow, didn’t expect you to tie that to monkey-brain survival instinct, but I see what you mean.
I suppose it’s also tied to– well I can give multiple examples, but let’s go with– gender. You’ve talked about how women have to be constantly judging, when out in public, if this or that person, this or that situation, is safe or not.
And how likely that is to change or not change.
Barb: Exactly!
Chandler could give you so much in so little words. Take this line… “She smelled the way the Taj Mahal looks by moonlight.”
The Taj Mahal is supposedly one of the most romantic places on earth… so she’s attractive and full of mystery….
Park: There, see, that makes the average reader’s brain do a double-take for a second.
I mean, you’re right, but more specifically, he’s swapping out one of the five senses for another with no warning mid-sentence. That’s practically some synesthesia stuff, right there…
Who talks like you, Ray? Answer: a clever guy…
Which is why Dick Powell is so…
Barb: One of the problems that happens when people try and write in the style of a hard-boiled detective novel is they overdo the tough guy detective talk so it just sounds funny instead of way cool.
Park: Right! It should sound clever, but not like we’re mashing up genres to have a murder-mystery-comedy on purpose. The guy should be witty and clever, but not a comedian, or else why is he a shamus?! (A flatfoot?! A P.I.?!)
Barb: When writing first-person narration, one must remember that “I” is another. That is, YOU as an author are NOT the narrator. I’ve had narrators in our work who think in ways that I do not, that talk in ways that I do not, who have interests that I do not share. And that’s fine, because I am NOT the narrator.
Park: There’s being post-ironic, and then there’s being postmodern, and that Venn diagram is not a perfect circle, even if there’s a zone that overlaps.
Barb: Every first-person narrator that I write has a different narrator “voice.” I look at their educational level, the part of the world that narrator grew up in, their family dynamics, their life experiences, whether they’ve ever written anything before, their friends, their relationships, their professions, their hobbies, their interests, their influences, their subculture, their culture, the moment in history they are living in, what race, creed, color, sexual orientation, and gender orientation the narrator is, and so forth. Oh, and AGE.
Park: Yes. What have they lived through? How has that changed them? Their perspective…? On… stuff?
Barb: I agree with what you’re saying—what has the narrator been through? What have they survived?
I’ve written narrators who are children. I’ve written narrators that are old. I’ve written a few immortal characters. I’ve written about magical beings that are not human in origin.
Park: When they talk to someone, what judgements and/or assumptions have they already made to start with about that person, and how does it change how they talk to them?
Barb: Yes, yes, yes!!!
First impressions, although usually correct, are not always the whole picture.
Park: RIGHT– and then, how does character A change their mind about character B as they get to know them better, and how do they treat them differently? Also, though, how do they TALK to them differently?
Barb: Furthermore, because you and I read the Amber series, we talked a lot about how a narrator in a series should change and grow over time. I’ve dropped some mystery series because the characters do not change or grow.
Park: Yeah, you knew I was thinking about Zelazny…
Barb: It’s like with people. I hope that people I know, as they get older, will learn from their experiences. Some do, some don’t. Most of us change over time, but some of us do not. So, it’s sad to see authors who do not think about how the narrators need to change over time.
Park: Right. A narrator character is not the author’s knife. They are not just a tool for the author to use for hacking the way from the start of a story to the end. The narrating character is a person, or else why do I care?
“Because they’re not the main character! The interesting one!” No. Unacceptable. Nick Carraway is a person with a viewpoint and an opinion.
He has to be, because he’s got the job of telling me what happens after one character dies—and also because I’m supposed to listen to him throughout the dang book.
I’m just saying that a guy who’s supposed to feel a certain way about the death of someone he knows is more than just a walking camera.
Barb: We talked earlier today about how too many writers write their narrators as if the narrators are professional writers (even if the character isn’t supposed to be a writer, themself). Those narrators talk in “writer-speak.”
I talked about how I love the challenge of writing narrators who have no experience as writers, and them having to put down their stories for the first time, and how the narrators struggle with finding the right words, keeping events in order, not going off on tangents, not over-explaining everything, not exposition-dumping, and so forth.
Keeping the narrator’s voice real matters, but keeping the story moving forward at a proper pace matters, too. So, writing a professional level story narrated by someone who isn’t a writer is always a fun challenge.
Park: Oh! Pacing! Another very good point about narration!
Then there’s that weird kind of narration– one gets it a lot in ghost stories– where the narrator practically never talks about themselves, but they do say I and My just enough that you get that they’re a person. Washington Irving pulls that… and don’t get me started on old Trollope…
But yeah, I sit up straighter when they let something slip and I’m like “so you admit you’re a person and not an omniscient narrative cosmic being, you sly dog you!”
Barb: Yes, but wait– you just reminded me of another important point. If a first-person narrator is a creep, why read the book? Oh, there are exceptions. If I wrote about a serial-killer guy, he’d probably be a creep, but he’d have to be a fascinating, charismatic one, you know?
Narrators should, most of the time, be both charismatic and likeable, which is a challenge as many nice, likeable people are not necessarily charismatic.
Park: Right, because REALLY… well, who REALLY wants a grump grousing at them for 300 pages?
Barb: Nick in Gatsby is a good example of a narrator who doesn’t just narrate. He is a participant in the book, which makes me believe his story more, because he’s a part of things.
Well, a lot of modern authors do just that. “Hey, I’m a character with nothing but flaws, and practically no redeeming qualities to speak of. I’m realistic.” Oh, please, no you’re not. We are all light and shadow. Having nothing but shadow in a character is not realistic.
Park: Yeah, but also… Nick’s weird. He has the best sense of CONSEQUENCES. He doesn’t wanna hurt anyone. And he knows that the wrong word could do that.
And he’s surrounded by people who are emotionally careless to the point of oh-for-heaven’s-sake-you-guys.
So he’s careful. He watches and thinks about what he sees and hears… and those cautious choices on his part tell us things about his character.
Barb: Okay, let’s leave it there, because that’s a good place to end the chat.