NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #16/NN_1992_16.iso/spool/misc/writing/2303

Text File | 1992-07-25 | 2.2 KB | 48 lines

Newsgroups: misc.writing
Path: sparky!uunet!scorn!scolex!charless
From: [e-mail] (charles stross)
Subject: Re: 1st Person viewpoints
Organization: The Somewhat Contagious Operation, Inc.
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1992 12:30:05 GMT
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
References: <[e-mail]>
Sender: [e-mail] (Account for Usenet System)
Lines: 36


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Crawford Kilian) writes:
>Apart from questions about the narrator's sex, first person raises more serious
>problems for the fiction writer.
>
>First, the narrator should plausibly be someone who might indeed take the
>trouble of putting the story down.

Good point, but it's not inevitable. You can, for example, use some
literary device such as a dictaphone; although then you get to deal
with interesting questions of linguistic style -- spoken english
does not resemble the highly stylized form of literary english which
we are taught to appreciate at an early age. Alternatively, if it's
sf or fantasy you can use some external prop for a first person
narrative; say an artificial intelligence that's tapped into the
narrators's memories and is replaying them in sequence. (I actually
used this as the framing gambit in my first sold novel.) In point
of fact, the original objection only applies if you're writing in a
straight no-frills realist mode.

>Third, the first person narrator just doesn't know enough; the author can enjoy
>a lot more freedom with third-person omniscient, judiciously used.

Nevertheless, a good first-person narrative can convey gutsy
emotional impact with an immediacy that a third-person narrative can
only approximate. First-person present-tense is especially good,
when used as a vehicle for a stream-of-consciousness commentary;
however it takes a lot of skill to get far enough into the character's
head to make this convincing, and it's easy to fall into the trap
of over-writing.

--
Charlie Stross aka [e-mail] ..... UNIX oriented text mangler
WARNING: The opinions voiced in the preceding electronic document are the
product of a warped mind. Take two before meals. Now put the following in
your sigfile: {LineEater Vaccine: Bush CIA Drugs Revolution Perot Murder}