The Memoir Voice...
Mar. 28th, 2006 03:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
khiemtranI've just discovered something important about the elusive "storyteller" voice I've been trying to nail. It's really just a memoir voice, but told in third person instead of first. Past omni bookends, narrative intrusions, a licence for digression as long as it's interesting, it's all there. I should have realised a lot earlier, of course, but it was only today that it clicked.
This has some interesting implications for the stories I'm working on. For The Silver Bowl, there's a reason it's told in third - the narrator was one of the characters but is following a literary convention in telling the story. I could switch it to first without any real trouble though, although the feel of some of the scenes might change. For the others... I'm not sure. Some of them might work better as straight memoirs. There might be a danger of the voices of all the different characters coming out too similar.
The memoir voice has some interesting rules about pacing and background. It has the freedom I want and need for the narrator to draw on background scenes and anecdote, and to wax lyrical about certain things, even if it slows the pacing down. In fact, that might well be one of the defining characteristics - a sort of slow, waltzing gait that moves faster then slower, pausing for reflection at crucial moments. It also has fairly generous rules for the sorts of things the narrator can tell the reader - far less needs to be implied and the extra layer of things not openly stated can be used for authenticity and mood instead of background.
Hmm. I think some more reading is in order now...
This has some interesting implications for the stories I'm working on. For The Silver Bowl, there's a reason it's told in third - the narrator was one of the characters but is following a literary convention in telling the story. I could switch it to first without any real trouble though, although the feel of some of the scenes might change. For the others... I'm not sure. Some of them might work better as straight memoirs. There might be a danger of the voices of all the different characters coming out too similar.
The memoir voice has some interesting rules about pacing and background. It has the freedom I want and need for the narrator to draw on background scenes and anecdote, and to wax lyrical about certain things, even if it slows the pacing down. In fact, that might well be one of the defining characteristics - a sort of slow, waltzing gait that moves faster then slower, pausing for reflection at crucial moments. It also has fairly generous rules for the sorts of things the narrator can tell the reader - far less needs to be implied and the extra layer of things not openly stated can be used for authenticity and mood instead of background.
Hmm. I think some more reading is in order now...
