Friday, March 7, 2014

The First Person Narrative

An increasingly common style in fiction, and self published fiction in particular,  is the use of the first person voice. Stylistically, there is nothing wrong with the first person voice. Well executed, it has been used to great effect in commercially and critically acclaimed novels from Jane Eyre to The Hunger Games.

However, encountering a narrative that begins and ends with a single view point tends to telegraph that there is a limit to the scope of the world that has been crafted. Crafting a story in a rich, detailed world is possible in the first person narrative (again See Hunger Games). However, the scope of that world will always be limited to places that the character has personally experienced.  Everything else, exposition, news, conversations with travelers, all of it is unreliable. Third Person narratives overcomes this limitation by usually establishing a number of view points that breathe life into various facets of their world.

Compare the universe of The Culture Novels or Game of Thrones to the world of Twilight or The Hunger Games. The former layers the individual stories and thoughts of multiple characters into the narrative tapestry. The latter, while telling compelling stories in their own right, rest on a foundation that the primary character is the most important person in this world. In the latter, the narrator (and your) view is given prominence over all others. We are left with second hand dialogue, with possible unreliable news or information, to gain insight into the motivations of others and the contours of their world. Events that occur outside your view are never as important as things you see.  For example, do we know the true motivations of the other characters in Twilight.  Do we know the true motivations of the residents of the Capital in Hunger Games? Do we care? 

More important than simply wishing to hear a different voice; the first person set up an uncomfortable divorce from a diversity of view points. The authors of first person stories typically have a significant overlap with their characters. That makes them easier and interesting to write for the author, but doesn't explore how others experience the same world. What results are stories about members of the racial and economic Majority, encountering a world that is an escape from the bland monotony of their comfort. Of course, most readers are reading from a position of comfort so the match is a fair one.

But in matching the audience to primary point of view, it becomes easy for an author to wipe away the lack of diverse characters in their books. By focusing squarely on a character that the author relates physically, emotionally and economically, they are tacitly arguing that the story can be told without anyone else's thoughts.  When you only have one voice, it is easy to argue that it should reflect you the author. Diversity then becomes a simple matter if sprinkling your world with some different characters for your character to interact.

The core problem is that you avoid is putting yourself in the role of a character that is different. Fiction at its highest skill involves transporting us to other worlds, but also to other people. The readers lose something if you close the world down to only one view point, one that is a slight variation of their own. Good fiction allows the reader to find themselves in the characters, not only temperamentally, but also physically, emotionally, sexually. If you are truly crafting a new world, then it should be big enough for more than one person's thoughts.

Moorsgate Media
    

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