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In Dust and Ashes
06-03-2006, 05:47 PM
does anyone else have issues with narration?
first person narration is easy because you're the one telling the story and your character (hopefully) is already in your mind.
but what about third person narration? how do you create a strong omnicant voice for a narrator with a character not depicted in the story? how do you decide vocabulary and age? is the narrators voice subject to the description of the main charater? (like...if the main character is a prissy girl, does the narrator have to be a prissy girl?)

this stuff confuses me and I can never get third person narration right. it always sounds way off and confusing. it's like I know the narrator isn't supposed to be in the story, but as it is, I feel like the narrator is confused as to who he is or what he's telling.

Ninermike
06-03-2006, 08:21 PM
I like the way Stephen King and Michael Crichton do it, stepping halfway into the character in question, voicing their thoughts as they would have them. This is most obvious in King and Crichton villains, as only villains use racial slurs.