Who is my Narrator?

The following piece I originally wrote in 2007, after attending a writer’s group I was in at the time. Being part of that group was the first time I had shared any of my writing with anyone. It was immensely helpful, but I struggled with the constant reoccurring critique of the ‘voice of my narrator’.

Here is what I came up with, after conducting some research;

I struck a hurdle in my writing today. It had been approaching for a few weeks, since I joined the writer’s group mid-March. It had appeared that first day when the subject of ‘the narrator’ was broached by the convenor of the group.

I had thought about who the narrator was for my stories but had not really investigated it thoroughly enough.

 I sat there dwelling on that one point, trying to ascertain who my narrator was. I was listening to comments on what was read, but I was stuck. I asked a couple of questions but got no real answers. I guess it was right for it to be that way as I needed to discover it for myself.

On the way home on the train, I decided to attack my research online and come to a decision before the next meeting. It was my self-assigned writer’s group task. Who is my narrator?

 I only got as far as an online encyclopaedia, because the articles I read seemed to cover and answer most of the questions. Having read, and digested, the information, I still had to decide – Who is my narrator?

 I mentally allocated all of the next week to investigate this subject. I was really surprised that it took me less than ninety minutes to work it out. My narrator is definitely ‘third person’. I sort of suspect I was already doing that, but I had never looked at the specifics of the concept. I needed to clarify the parameters of my narrator’s character. There is a fine line between an omniscient and a limited narrator. The omniscient narrator knows almost everything about everyone. Whereas a limited narrator can only tell the story as it is viewed by a single character. For the most part he will be ‘third person omniscient’ but will occasionally step in to a ‘third person limited’ role.

I got up from my desk and wandered about my apartment, music playing from my PC, thinking about how I wanted to use tense. How would my narrator view the story? Would he be ‘writing’ as it happened? Or would he be writing it after the event, referring to ‘notes’ taken as it happened? It’s interesting, the complex and excited mental machinations of an unblocked writer.

It is done; my narrator’s style and tense are decided. My narrator is third person omniscient who writes from a recollective perspective, therefore placing all he does in past tense, referring to notes taken as he saw the events take place.

Now that I had decided that my narrator would be ‘third person omniscient, past tense’, my next dilemma was applying it to the text of my books.

 At least it will make it easier to write as I now know how everything will be written.

Even though I decided to use the third person omniscient past tense voice for my stories, I have since written a story in first person. A couple of stories, to a lesser degree, are third person limited. Generally, I write in the preferred option noted above.