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      CommentAuthorNorthmark
    • CommentTimeSep 24th 2011
     

    This might seem like sort of a general thread title, but I couldn’t come up with a better short description of what I’m talking about.

    How do you guys feel about authors justifying elements of stories by claiming they’re from the narrator’s point of view? As in, third-person narration that focuses on one character’s beautiful piercings, mannerisms, and plot-convenient metal house (I’m sure there’s at least a few of you here that read that book) over and over and over again, or making certain characters seem perfect, or other things we’d ordinarily consider flaws. Is it a cop out or legitimate technique to showcase the main character?

    Personally, I don’t like to do it (on the rare occasion I even do third-person) because it tends to make other characters shallow. To use the example above, the main character’s boyfriend never really did anything wrong. I think it could work if he was actually shown making a mistake and the main character glosses over it or tries to explain it away, but that never happens.

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      CommentAuthorBeldam
    • CommentTimeSep 24th 2011
     

    I tend to think when the narrator’s point of view happens to line up with the protaganist’s point of view, then it’s really the protaganist sort of projecting their thoughts into the plane of the third person, probably because the author can’t write first person. I think having your narrator show bias is relatively legit, but only if it isn’t portrayed in such a way that the author shares that bias. For instance, if a protaganist breaks his girlfriend’s arm for eating some food out of his fridge without asking, even as the narrator justifies this it should still be obvious that the guy is a total psycho. The failing comes in when the other characters pat him on the back and tell him she was a total cow anyway and was asking for it—or the majority do, and the dissenter is treated like a lunatic.

    Author bias is different from narrator bias. If the world beyond the narrator’s perception conforms completely to his beliefs, then its definitley the author at fault. Otherwise, I agree that it’s a good way to show twisted insides of a character. It’s tough to do that if the narration constantly says, “But actually…” And the sad truth is, while it would make more sense to write that sort of thing in first person, most people don’t like reading first and even fewer people know how to write it (I know I can’t.)

  1.  

    Author bias is different from narrator bias

    Basically, this.

    What I think is that characters should be portrayed as being different people with different opinions and POVs, even if you’re doing first person (or third person limited in one guy’s head only, like Harry Potter). A lot of problems come in when it becomes clear that the character/narrator is basically just a mouthpiece for the author to go soapboxing over his/her beliefs: big culprits here are Ayn Rand, Terry Goodkind and (surprise surprise) Stephenie Meyer.

    Personally I prefer writing third person limited, switching from one head to the next at regular intervals (scenes/chapters/sections/whathaveyou). Not only is it the style that comes naturally to me, but it also enables me to clearly show the differences in my characters with regard to their thoughts. What’s important to each of them? how do they feel about something? What do they notice that someone else doesn’t? Etc.

  2.  

    I think it’s legit, and I use the shit out of it in my story. I’m using third person limited with really close narrative distance(no italicized thoughts, and lines that would be are just regular narration) and it wouldn’t work nearly as well with objective narration.

    I think the primary thing you have to do in order to get it to work right is to show disconnects between the character’s PoV and what constitutes objective reality. It’s tricky to find ways that feel natural and that readers can catch without big flashing lights, because nobody likes big flashing lights.

  3.  

    third-person narration that focuses on one character’s beautiful piercings, mannerisms, and plot-convenient metal house

    Ha, I see what you did thar. That guy was made of awesome, but he was too perfect. And he himself never really affected the plot.

    For instance, if a protaganist breaks his girlfriend’s arm for eating some food out of his fridge without asking, even as the narrator justifies this it should still be obvious that the guy is a total psycho. The failing comes in when the other characters pat him on the back and tell him she was a total cow anyway and was asking for it—or the majority do, and the dissenter is treated like a lunatic.

    Yeah, this. Wow, for some reason, I’m reminded of Charlie Swan right now…

    It is, like sansa said, a great thing. However, really, you can definitely tell the difference between narrator bias and author bias. Seth is a clear case of author appeal (the author who’s name I can’t remember is covered in tattoos herself). I think for this to work in third person limited, the author of the story you mentioned also needs to imply through their narration (a snarky style is one way to do this) that the character admiring said character’s piercings needs to get her head out of her pants. Otherwise everyone knows it’s author bias, not narrator bias. Painfully obvious.

    I think the primary thing you have to do in order to get it to work right is to show disconnects between the character’s PoV and what constitutes objective reality. It’s tricky to find ways that feel natural and that readers can catch without big flashing lights, because nobody likes big flashing lights.

    One technique I want to try (and I think it would work) is to sew up the character’s POV so tightly from their perspective—justify everything that they do and make this whole construct of logic that exists independent of reality, even dragging the reader along with them if they’re immersed enough—and then having other characters or even events of the story poke subtle holes in that logic.

    The Collector by John Fowles got it rightish. The only point where it fell down for me was that I did think it was a bit of a leap to say that most people would do the same thing as the narrator if he had it.

    Also, I’m thinking of Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby, and how his beliefs of who Gatsby was either didn’t line up with the little bits of truth he saw here and there (which he wilfully put out of his mind after noticing), or were over-romanticised (in the CS Lewis sense of the word) into something else (ie that passage that ostensibly describes Gatsby’s outrageous love for Daisy, but if you read it again several times, you notice that it’s only describing his love for her wealth, and the way he… um… ‘took’ her because he could. In that case (or mine at any rate)

    However, you will notice that both of these books are in first person.

    The Great Gatsby’s technique of having the main character notice things that don’t match up with their vision of the other person/event/whatever but deciding to ignore them because they don’t fit in with their perception of this character (or if you want to be picky about it, sort of knowing who that other person is very deep down, but not believing it, for whatever reason), is one you can still use in 3PL, though.