# Narrative Modes



## Goldstar78i (Dec 28, 2009)

As much as I regret it, it seems like I have jumped into writing before understanding the narrative.  

I've heard the terms before: third person subjective, third person objective, third person omniscient.  Pretty clear and easy to understand them, but that's not the problem.  

I feel like I am writing with a sort of subjective omniscience.  My characters have their feelings laid bare before the reader, their thoughts, their questions.  Then I jump away to someone else, or to describing the scene.  

Several things I have been using are worrying me:

1.  I haven't been introducing a new characters name until it is spoken in dialogue - is this appropriate?  More characters are entering the story now.  Do I simply not introduce the less significant ones, give the names immediately, or wait before the name is spoken?  

2.  The story has a main character.  I originally used the name dropping method to give a sort of feeling that you are connected to him - ie you don't know the name until he knows it.  The problem is: I switch views from this to others that sometimes don't know his name.  And that brings me to another point.  

3.  If I have "bad" characters, does it detract from their badness if I describe what they are seeing, thinking?  I feel that it does.  

and last but not least, the grandaddy question:  

How do I know when to simply leave it as action, and keep thoughts out of the mix?  

Hopefully I haven't made my story sound like a hopeless jumble of narration.  It's not bad, but I need to catch onto the proper way to do things before I start introducing too many characters.   

Thanks in advance to whoever can help me.


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## HidesHisFace (Dec 28, 2009)

Well, it really depends...
First person narrator can't know everything - you describe what he feels and thinks as a character, but you cant describe feeling and thought of other characters until they become a narrator.
Third person narration is much more flexible:
- He can know everything (bu thats not the must), he can also be an invisible observer, who knows as much as reader.
- He can feel thoughts and recognize all the feelings (again, not a must)
- He can remain neutral or not.
- Well, in fact, he can know everything you want.

About names - I think it is a good choice to introduce the character names in dialogue, unless the character is someone really well known in your story, than, you can assume that character already know him or her.
Protagonists name - if you use the first person, it would be nuce to reveal the characters name in its thoughts or something. Dialog is also a good choice, just be sure to reveal the name of protagonist early, unless you want a nameless character.
As for "bad" characters - I don't think that revealing their whole back-story, motives and all thoughts is a good thing, it is far more interesting to leave some place for readers imagination, but not too much. You can write from their perspective, just don't show everything they think or feel.


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## Goldstar78i (Dec 28, 2009)

I'm going to post a link to the story in question - if that's not OK then I will remove it.  

All I ask is: is the switching of views appropriate?  I'm not sure if this really falls under the category of third person omniscience, or what.  

http://www.furaffinity.net/view/3163770


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## Raska (Dec 28, 2009)

Goldstar78i said:


> As much as I regret it, it seems like I have jumped into writing before understanding the narrative.
> 
> I've heard the terms before: third person subjective, third person objective, third person omniscient. Pretty clear and easy to understand them, but that's not the problem.
> 
> ...


 
It depends on how you want to introduce the character, really. Also, it depends on whether or not your Point of View (PoV) character already _knows_ the character being introduced. If they don't, then yeah, make one of your other characters 'introduce' the new one. If they do (say that you're introducing a king, president, ruler, etc. Someone your PoV will _know_ or know _of_), then introduce the name when the character is introduced.  Say like, "Tandao Cazar, the king of Camea, walked into the room, drawing surprised stares and gasps from the other guests..." (That was using one of my own characters, but the point remains.) 



> 2. The story has a main character. I originally used the name dropping method to give a sort of feeling that you are connected to him - ie you don't know the name until he knows it. The problem is: I switch views from this to others that sometimes don't know his name. And that brings me to another point.


 
Give me an example of what you're talking about here, I'm not sure what you're asking.



> 3. If I have "bad" characters, does it detract from their badness if I describe what they are seeing, thinking? I feel that it does.


 
This is a great way of giving the reader insight into _why_ your bad character is bad. Maybe they were abused as a child. Maybe they're just plain insane, make their thoughts give insight into the character. 



> and last but not least, the grandaddy question:
> 
> How do I know when to simply leave it as action, and keep thoughts out of the mix?


 
Depends on what the action is. As I said above, thoughts should give insight into a character's motivations / feelings / thought processes. For instance, I like showing what my characters are thinking during a fight, because a fight is essentially trying to outmaneuver your opponent, so they should be constantly thinking about how to act and react.


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## Goldstar78i (Dec 28, 2009)

Raska said:


> It depends on how you want to introduce the character, really. Also, it depends on whether or not your Point of View (PoV) character already _knows_ the character being introduced. If they don't, then yeah, make one of your other characters 'introduce' the new one. If they do (say that you're introducing a king, president, ruler, etc. Someone your PoV will _know_ or know _of_), then introduce the name when the character is introduced. Say like, "Tandao Cazar, the king of Camea, walked into the room, drawing surprised stares and gasps from the other guests..." (That was using one of my own characters, but the point remains.)
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 
Thanks for the tips Raska!    I've been reading some of my old Redwall books to try to get narrative ideas, as my story is something similar to that.  However, it seems Brian Jacques hardly ever mentions what characters are thinking.  He seems to let the actions define them and it makes quite a few of his characters cut and dried - the villains for example.  Don't know if it's a good thing.


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## Raska (Dec 28, 2009)

Goldstar78i said:


> Thanks for the tips Raska!  I've been reading some of my old Redwall books to try to get narrative ideas, as my story is something similar to that. However, it seems Brian Jacques hardly ever mentions what characters are thinking. He seems to let the actions define them and it makes quite a few of his characters cut and dried - the villains for example. Don't know if it's a good thing.


 
That's just Jacques'  style. You need to find your own, which is why you should never take anyone's advice as set-in-stone. Other writers have different ways of writing certain scenes and different ways of characterizing their characters. You have to remember that, essentially, Jacques writes for children, and so doesn't get into the more adult aspects of his characters, to make them easier for his readers to relate to.


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## Atrak (Dec 28, 2009)

Goldstar78i said:


> Thanks for the tips Raska!    I've been reading some of my old Redwall books to try to get narrative ideas, as my story is something similar to that.  However, it seems Brian Jacques hardly ever mentions what characters are thinking.  He seems to let the actions define them and it makes quite a few of his characters cut and dried - the villains for example.  Don't know if it's a good thing.



Ick. Don't mention Brian too much on here, as a lot of us don't like him  . And he also doesn't like furries.

As for character introductions...I usually save them for dialogue. It just seems more realistic that way. Narration techniques...yeah, make the 'bad guy' more mysterious. You can write about his actions, but don't go into his thoughts and motives, otherwise people will see why he does what he does, and he won't be much of a 'bad guy' so much as a 'misunderstood guy.'


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## Goldstar78i (Dec 28, 2009)

Yeah I've pretty well outgrown good old BJ (haha); found that out when I tried reading Redwall again.  Although it doesn't keep me from wanting to study how he deals with so many characters.  I really don't know much about fiction writing, so any help I can get is a step in the right direction.


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## Atrak (Dec 28, 2009)

Aight, well I suppose I can give it a go, and hope that any of the more experienced writers correct me if I'm wrong  . I only have one real tip to give: when writing from the perspectives (or even just about) lots of characters, don't go into too much detail. Maybe slip in a bit of info here and there, but mostly do it subtlety, like it's not that important, even if it's the crux of the plot. Make the reader just absorb it without thinking. Meh, that's all I got, atm ^^ .


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## Raska (Dec 28, 2009)

atrakaj said:


> Aight, well I suppose I can give it a go, and hope that any of the more experienced writers correct me if I'm wrong  . I only have one real tip to give: when writing from the perspectives (or even just about) lots of characters, don't go into too much detail. Maybe slip in a bit of info here and there, but mostly do it like subtlety, like it's not that important, even if it's the crux of the plot. Make the reader just absorb it without thinking. Meh, that's all I got, atm ^^ .


 
I second this. Thoughts should be subtle and shouldn't interrupt the flow of the action.


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## Atrak (Dec 29, 2009)

Fixed a grammatical error in my paragraph  .


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## M. LeRenard (Dec 29, 2009)

> 1. I haven't been introducing a new characters name until it is spoken in dialogue - is this appropriate? More characters are entering the story now. Do I simply not introduce the less significant ones, give the names immediately, or wait before the name is spoken?


Personally, I think some characters don't merit names.  Too many names floating around makes things really confusing for the reader, so I think it's usually better to just refer to someone as 'the blond-haired man' or 'the butcher' or what have you, rather than trying to give them a name.  Important characters deserve names, of course, but no one will remember in ten pages that Jim was the butcher in Podunk the MC briefly crossed paths with.  And if you refer to Jim ten pages later, the reader might have to go back ten pages to find out who the hell Jim was, which gets their attention out of the story.
As for introducing the names... do it however you feel like, just as long as you do it early.  Honestly, I don't even see anything wrong with just starting off a story with the name, i.e., "Jim raised his butcher knife and brought it clopping down onto the ham hock."  But if you want to introduce it in dialogue, that's fine too.  It's all about context; try not to force it in there, but do get it in there somehow.



> 2. The story has a main character. I originally used the name dropping method to give a sort of feeling that you are connected to him - ie you don't know the name until he knows it. The problem is: I switch views from this to others that sometimes don't know his name.


Then this goes back to the first question, of how to introduce a name.  In this case, of course, you're introducing it a second time, so you can probably take more time to do so, but the methods remain the same.  Context.



> 3. If I have "bad" characters, does it detract from their badness if I describe what they are seeing, thinking? I feel that it does.


Hell no!  If anything, doing this [correctly] can make them all the more "bad" in the readers' eyes.  If you want a good example of this, read some Stephen King.  He often switches and writes the villains' points of view for whole chapters, and by doing so you get a feel for how the fellow thinks, which makes you hate him even more.  _The Talisman_ does this a lot, and to good effect.  So again, no way.
To be honest, I hate it when villains are portrayed as these mysterious evil entities, like Sauron or what have you.  It makes them wholly unimportant, just a background thing you know needs to go away but otherwise is barely even present.  Not so much a character as an atmospheric effect.  Villains are so much more interesting when you know _why_ they are villains.




> How do I know when to simply leave it as action, and keep thoughts out of the mix?


Uhhhh... tough question.  Usually it works for me just to play it by ear.  There's a modern narrative style that I really like (that I'm using in my novel) where thoughts are included as part of the narrative without any indication that they're thoughts.  Kind of a freestyle really limited third-person perspective.  Some people probably find it confusing, but I've always enjoyed the effect.
But you don't have to do it that way.  Some authors never write thoughts and just go with actions, others barely use actions and instead write a lot of thoughts.  I suppose maybe one hard and fast rule I could come up with would be that you rarely want to say what a character is feeling through their thoughts (i.e., in first person: "Boy was I mad about that."  Depending on the context, that line could sound really stupid), but otherwise I don't know.
This is sort of a 'show, don't tell' question, which is complicated.  I'd go with what Atrakaj said for the most part.

Brian Jacques... I never could get into his work.  I started by trying to read _Lord Brocktree_, and I had to put it down because it was so incredibly lame and generic.  He's not a very creative guy, I don't think.  Almost like he assumes the novelty of talking animals is all he needs in his books to make them masterpieces.


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## Raska (Jan 4, 2010)

BTW, goldstar, I started reading your story (the one you posted a link to above) and...it's really good. There were a few little nitpicky grammar / spelling errors, but the _story_ was very good. I haven't completely finished it yet, and since my internet's out (see my user page) I won't be on as frequently as I used to be, so...

but, good job, dude!


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## VÃ¶lf (Jan 7, 2010)

M. Le Renard said:


> Personally, I think some characters don't merit names.  Too many names floating around makes things really confusing for the reader, so I think it's usually better to just refer to someone as 'the blond-haired man' or 'the butcher' or what have you, rather than trying to give them a name.  Important characters deserve names, of course, but no one will remember in ten pages that Jim was the butcher in Podunk the MC briefly crossed paths with.  And if you refer to Jim ten pages later, the reader might have to go back ten pages to find out who the hell Jim was, which gets their attention out of the story...
> 
> Brian Jacques... I never could get into his work.  I started by trying to read _Lord Brocktree_, and I had to put it down because it was so incredibly lame and generic.  He's not a very creative guy, I don't think.  Almost like he assumes the novelty of talking animals is all he needs in his books to make them masterpieces.



Agree, completely


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