This is going to start out as sounding like very basic stuff, but trust me. We will get to the actual meat of why I'm talking about narration in a little bit, but just so we are all on the same page:
When referring to narration, I am referring to the actual prose of a book. The writing of it. The being that is talking about the events that take place. Another way to look at it is to see what the perspective of the book is. There are three types of perspective, First Person, Second Person, and Third Person. First person perspective is a personal account of the events of a story. The narrator is a player in the narrative. Second person is not typically used in writing stories because it refers to you, the audience. While not used a lot in books, video games use this a lot because it is interactive. Third person is an outside force describing events and can itself divide into two parts, 3rd Person Limited and 3rd Person Omniscient. Limited is when their is a narrator not connected to events, but follows only one character (or one character at a time) throughout the adventure. Omniscient is where the story teller has knowledge of everything.
So, what does it mean and how can we use this?
For all Points of Views, a fun question to ask all of them is, "Is this a reliable narrator?". This is most commonly seen in first person narrators because they are characters in the story. As a person, they are naturally limited by what they were their for or what they have learned. Maybe it's not just a matter of human error. Has the narrator lied? Are they actively not saying things or not bringing things up? Can you trust your narrator to give you any real information? Their is a video game called Analogue: A Hate Story. The game is about navigating various logs to find out what happened on a space station, but you need to navigate between two different AIs with two different personalities with two different ideas of what "relevant information" is.
Is the first person narrator the main character? One of my favorite books is called Nervous Conditions. While Tambu is the narrator and many things happen around her, the story is more about the various women in her life, and how those women effect her childhood. What is the author saying by having the action being viewed by an outsider?
Second Person is innately interactive, so think about the chooses you make. But more importantly, think about the choices you are/aren't allowed to make. In the choose your own adventure book, To Be Or Not To Be, You can play through the plot of Hamlet as Ophelia. After a while, if you make all the choices Ophelia made in the original play, the author basically tells you that you aren't allowed to play as Ophelia. What does the removal of choice here say about what theme of the story is?
If you are looking at something in terms of an adaption, think about the fact that narrators aren't a prominent thing outside of books. For most movies based on books, the narration is cut. How does the removal of the narration change characters or even meaning?
Okay, that's the basics of Narrator, and how to use it. As with anything, this is just my own take on the subject, and you can and should read more into it. Until next time my name is Jackson Palmour and this has been A Study in Narrative.
When referring to narration, I am referring to the actual prose of a book. The writing of it. The being that is talking about the events that take place. Another way to look at it is to see what the perspective of the book is. There are three types of perspective, First Person, Second Person, and Third Person. First person perspective is a personal account of the events of a story. The narrator is a player in the narrative. Second person is not typically used in writing stories because it refers to you, the audience. While not used a lot in books, video games use this a lot because it is interactive. Third person is an outside force describing events and can itself divide into two parts, 3rd Person Limited and 3rd Person Omniscient. Limited is when their is a narrator not connected to events, but follows only one character (or one character at a time) throughout the adventure. Omniscient is where the story teller has knowledge of everything.
So, what does it mean and how can we use this?
For all Points of Views, a fun question to ask all of them is, "Is this a reliable narrator?". This is most commonly seen in first person narrators because they are characters in the story. As a person, they are naturally limited by what they were their for or what they have learned. Maybe it's not just a matter of human error. Has the narrator lied? Are they actively not saying things or not bringing things up? Can you trust your narrator to give you any real information? Their is a video game called Analogue: A Hate Story. The game is about navigating various logs to find out what happened on a space station, but you need to navigate between two different AIs with two different personalities with two different ideas of what "relevant information" is.
Is the first person narrator the main character? One of my favorite books is called Nervous Conditions. While Tambu is the narrator and many things happen around her, the story is more about the various women in her life, and how those women effect her childhood. What is the author saying by having the action being viewed by an outsider?
Second Person is innately interactive, so think about the chooses you make. But more importantly, think about the choices you are/aren't allowed to make. In the choose your own adventure book, To Be Or Not To Be, You can play through the plot of Hamlet as Ophelia. After a while, if you make all the choices Ophelia made in the original play, the author basically tells you that you aren't allowed to play as Ophelia. What does the removal of choice here say about what theme of the story is?
If you are looking at something in terms of an adaption, think about the fact that narrators aren't a prominent thing outside of books. For most movies based on books, the narration is cut. How does the removal of the narration change characters or even meaning?
Okay, that's the basics of Narrator, and how to use it. As with anything, this is just my own take on the subject, and you can and should read more into it. Until next time my name is Jackson Palmour and this has been A Study in Narrative.
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