POVs, omniscient narration, and... and...

[ElectricBlue]

He learned it later (after the dame walked in) and narrated it still later.

If it were written in present tense, it would be a logic fail.

Well yes, obviously. The noir tradition, though, is that the narration has a sense of the immediate - it's not present tense, but it's not too remote time-wise from the action

It's like the voice over narrator in LA noir movies, where the PI is commenting on the action. It's very much in the now, but without the exhaustion of being in present tense.

 

[XerXesXu]

Yes. Is there a term for that, anyone?

Cinematic, or objective. What you see and hear when you watch a movie.

 

[alohadave]

Tommy has a very expressive face, people can easily read him. The hurt in his eyes was obvious to everyone in the room...

If the hurt was obvious, why tell us that people can read him? It's redundant.

 

[alohadave]

Yes. Is there a term for that, anyone?

3rd person distant.

 

[SimonDoom]

Cinematic, or objective. What you see and hear when you watch a movie.

"Cinematic" is a good way to explain it. In a film you don't know what a character thinks unless there's a voiceover, or if the characters reveal what they are thinking through dialogue.

An example I can think of is Shirley Jackson's famous short story The Lottery. At no point does the narrator of the story tell us what is going on inside any character's head. There's some "omniscient" elements because the narrator narrates the setting and background of the events in a way that might not be strictly "visible," but it's close enough. The inability to get inside the characters' heads is one of the elements that adds suspense.

Here's a link I found to the story: https://bpb-us-e2.wpmucdn.com/sites.middlebury.edu/dist/d/2396/files/2019/09/jackson_lottery.pdf.

I recommend it to anyone who hasn't read it. It's one of the classic American short stories of the 20th Century. It was published in the New Yorker in 1948, so it was a real shocker back then.

Hemingway's Hills Like White Elephants is another example. Hemingway often gets close to the objective because he often reveals little about what characters are actually thinking.

 

[Britva415]

I guess 4th wall breaking can only be a quality of 1st person POV.

I wouldn’t say that, except to the extent that it puts the character doing the break into a “you-and-I” configuration with the reader or viewer.

Whether that’s a named character doing it, or an unnamed third-person-voiced narrator. They can both break the 4th wall without being a first-person narrator.

 

[SimonDoom]

That's as clunky as a square wheeled go cart for me. The narrator has just said he doesn't know something, so how can he know it? That's a logic fail to my eye - too much of that, and I'd be saying, just narrate the thing in third person. Presenting the past is fine, but pre-empting some future knowledge makes little sense to me.

I think the implication in this passage is that the narrator, presumably a world-weary private investigator, is narrating something that happened in the past, so he can reveal facts about the other person (the dame) that he knows at the time of narration without necessarily revealing those facts in the order in which he learned them or in which they happened. It's a style that's played for effect. We're learning about the narrator, not just about the dame. You don't want to lean on this style too hard or it will seem too affected, but I think it works in doses.

 

[Britva415]

Well yes, obviously. The noir tradition, though, is that the narration has a sense of the immediate - it's not present tense, but it's not too remote time-wise from the action

It's like the voice over narrator in LA noir movies, where the PI is commenting on the action. It's very much in the now, but without the exhaustion of being in present tense.

So more of a style fail than a logic fail?

 

[SimonDoom]

I guess 4th wall breaking can only be a quality of 1st person POV.

Usually, but not necessarily. How about this:

Sam closed the door of his house behind him, sighed, and looked at you, the reader.

"What a crappy day. I hope you had more fun reading about it than I did experiencing it."


In this case both the narrator and main character, in third person, are breaking the wall.

Admittedly, this sounds rather ridiculous.

 

[SimonDoom]

I tried and proved i couldn't write a two different POV stories in one with Phantom Flings...so will now out the conversation!

Don't out us. We're trying to keep this on the down low.

 

[ElectricBlue]

So more of a style fail than a logic fail?

I think so, yes.

It's curious, when these discussions come up, how often folk cite some obscure singular work as evidence that, yes, you could write like that - it worked once for this guy - rather than acknowledging, don't be too clever, just use something that's always going to work. It's disagreeing for the sake of it. It's no wonder people get confused.

 

[TheRedChamber]

First person can only be limited or close, by definition. The narrator is the person, I.

It's curious, when these discussions come up, how often folk cite some obscure singular work as evidence that, yes, you could write like that - it worked once for this guy - rather than acknowledging, don't be too clever, just use something that's always going to work. It's disagreeing for the sake of it. It's no wonder people get confused.

I'm aware that I'm disagreeing with you right after you've complained about people disagreeing. Oh well...

First person doesn't have to be close. The person doesn't have to tell you what they are thinking.
Similarly, it doesn't have to be limited in the strictest version of the term - you can narrate a story in the past tense where the male MC knows everything his wife is thinking during a scene because she's told him afterwards and that information drops naturally back into the flow of the telling of the story.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Usually, but not necessarily. How about this:

Sam closed the door of his house behind him, sighed, and looked at you, the reader.

"What a crappy day. I hope you had more fun reading about it than I did experiencing it."


In this case both the narrator and main character, in third person, are breaking the wall.

Admittedly, this sounds rather ridiculous.

OTOH, this one works well enough:

"Hobbits have no beards. There is little or no magic about them, except the ordinary everyday sort which helps them to disappear quietly and quickly when large stupid folk like you and me come blundering along...Now you know enough to go on with...The chance never arrived, until Bilbo Baggins was grown up, being about fifty years old or so, and living in the beautiful hobbit-hole built by his father, which I have just described for you."

And later in the same book:

"I imagine you know the answer, of course, or can guess it as easy as winking, since you are sitting comfortably at home and have not the danger of being eaten to disturb your thinking."

If one wanted to stand on technicalities, one could argue that the mention of "I" makes this a first-person narrative. But functionally it's third person; there's no real sense of who the "I" or "you" characters are and they never take part in the action. They're only invoked as an excuse for the author to offer a bit of commentary or to emphasise that his story is set in the past of our own world, not some unrelated land.

In the end, we can come up with neat classifications like "first person" vs. "third person", "close" vs. "distant" vs. "omniscient" perspectives etc., but actual stories aren't obliged to fit neatly into those lines.

That kind of narration, mostly third person with occasional first-person interjections, is less fashionable than it used to be. But authors like Tolkien, and IIRC Dahl and Lewis, who used it are still influential enough to make it pretty familiar. I think Rowling might slip into it occasionally too, but I don't recall for certain.

 

[Bazzle]

If the hurt was obvious, why tell us that people can read him? It's redundant.

Because the reader doesn't know? They are not in the room?

 

[XerXesXu]

I think so, yes.

It's curious, when these discussions come up, how often folk cite some obscure singular work as evidence that, yes, you could write like that - it worked once for this guy - rather than acknowledging, don't be too clever, just use something that's always going to work. It's disagreeing for the sake of it. It's no wonder people get confused.

If I read you correctly, and I'm sure I do, you don't even convince yourself with that lame riposte.

 

[SimonDoom]

OTOH, this one works well enough:

"Hobbits have no beards. There is little or no magic about them, except the ordinary everyday sort which helps them to disappear quietly and quickly when large stupid folk like you and me come blundering along...Now you know enough to go on with...The chance never arrived, until Bilbo Baggins was grown up, being about fifty years old or so, and living in the beautiful hobbit-hole built by his father, which I have just described for you."

And later in the same book:

"I imagine you know the answer, of course, or can guess it as easy as winking, since you are sitting comfortably at home and have not the danger of being eaten to disturb your thinking."

If one wanted to stand on technicalities, one could argue that the mention of "I" makes this a first-person narrative. But functionally it's third person; there's no real sense of who the "I" or "you" characters are and they never take part in the action. They're only invoked as an excuse for the author to offer a bit of commentary or to emphasise that his story is set in the past of our own world, not some unrelated land.

In the end, we can come up with neat classifications like "first person" vs. "third person", "close" vs. "distant" vs. "omniscient" perspectives etc., but actual stories aren't obliged to fit neatly into those lines.

That kind of narration, mostly third person with occasional first-person interjections, is less fashionable than it used to be. But authors like Tolkien, and IIRC Dahl and Lewis, who used it are still influential enough to make it pretty familiar. I think Rowling might slip into it occasionally too, but I don't recall for certain.

I remember that. As I recall, Tolkien adopts that habit in his Hobbit Prologue but not anywhere else in the trilogy. The way I read it, it gives it a folsky, casual tone. It's like Tolkien is settling down with you to tell you a story by the fireplace and he's giving you a few words of explanation before he starts the main story, and once he gets started he sheds that style.

It's an example of the narrator breaking the wall, but not the character breaking the wall. If the narrator does it, is it really breaking the wall? (I'm not sure).

 

[intim8]

omniscient - Knows things the characters aren't currently thinking about. (Is it correct to put back stories here?)

I think it is broader than that. An omnisicient narrator can know things none of the characters know at all.

And yes, a back story is usually done as an ON. Couching it in a character's explicit memories, dialog with another character ('as you know, Bob...'), etc., to avoid ON usually comes off as contrived, though it can be done well if you're really good.

 

[StillStunned]

And yes, a back story is usually done as an ON.

I find that an omniscient narrator is a great way to set the stage for sci-fi and fantasy. Present a scene, provide the local colour, then zoom in on your character, first from the outside and then shifting to their close perspective.

 

[burgwad]

There’s a case to be made from writers like Raymond Carver or Ernest Hemingway that even extremely limited, or what I was taught to call “minimalist,” third-person narration (i.e. that completely omits explicit description of thoughts or feelings, and only describes outward behaviors or context) can still pack a potent emotional punch. Heavy feelings in particular seem to really shine through in this format. It is also super effective for getting readers to immerse and empathize, since so much is left for them to infer. This kind of writing has to be deft and observant, though, as well as creative and resourceful.

Uhm. Sorry. My point being, “closeness” of third isn’t necessarily a neat, tidy, organizing concept in my mind. It’s semantics. So much of how “close” a narrative feels to me comes down to execution - clarity, emotional intelligence, prosody, etc.

 

[AG31]

Here's another category. The personality/presence of the narrator. Are they a presence, or are they unnoticed except for their way with words? Is there a term for this category?

I think this is independent of 1st, 2nd or 3rd POV.

I'm going to edit this into the OP, in case this thread wakes up again down the road.

Back when I was an A student at a prestigous college I could have made up examples of what I'm talking about in no time. Alas those days are gone. I'm hoping some of you can come up with examples of present and not present (invisible?) narrators.

 

[burgwad]

Here's another category. The personality/presence of the narrator. Are they a presence, or are they unnoticed except for their way with words? Is there a term for this category?

I think this is independent of 1st, 2nd or 3rd POV.

This almost sounds like having an introverted vs an extroverted narrator?

 

[AG31]

This almost sounds like having an introverted vs an extroverted narrator?

Mmmm.... For me those are both attributes of a personality. If you knew they were either, they'd be a present narrator.

 

[SimonDoom]

Think of an omniscient narrator as God. An omniscient narrator knows absolutely everything there is to know: not just what all the characters are thinking, but everything that is happening, and why it is happening, in the world in which the characters live.

That doesn't mean the omniscient narrator is going to tell you everything. That would be unworkable. Omniscient narrators vary greatly in how much they tell you. But they COULD tell you everything if they wanted to.

 

[AG31]

Are there other main categories for classifying these sorts of things? Is there an over-arching term for this sort of stuff?

I had a flash of inspiration in the night. What about "narrative structure?" Unfortunately it seems to be taken. Just posting here to eliminate as an answer to the above question.

The Classic Story Structure, also known as narrative structure or dramatic structure, has been a standard format used for many centuries in visual stories and novels. This structure's seven main parts include the exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution, dénouement, and themes.

Blurb.com

 

[StillStunned]

Are there other main categories for classifying these sorts of things? Is there an over-arching term for this sort of stuff? That is, a narrative style, but not including things like spare, flowery, descriptive, klunky, etc.

Technique, perhaps, or mechanics. It's the skeleton that the story is built on.