Feo Takahari
Auror
I tend to narrate in a very formal voice, sometimes excessively so. My current project, Growing Strange and Different, has subject matter that would tend to exacerbate the problem, so I decided to counteract it with a highly informal and flippant protagonist, a seer who doesn't care much about the source of her powers and just wants to live in peace. My hope was that her way of talking would provide an interesting contrast to the narration, but I'm afraid they've instead gone to war with each other. This roughly divides into two-and-a-half problems:
1): While using a narrator who clearly doesn't talk like the seer, can I still portray the seer's thoughts at certain points? I know this is allowable in visual media (e.g. Spiderman comics with formal-sounding narration but highly informal thought bubbles over Spidey's head), but I've seen authors criticized for doing it in prose.
2): Can I imply that parts of the narration are more formal versions of things the seer might say, or do I need to keep them completely separate? (For instance, there's a bit where the narration reflects on how much the seer loves her friend the wraith, and I let some of the seer's feelings seep into the tone of the narration. It's still very formally written, and not how the seer would phrase it.)
2.5): The wraith can read minds, and she sometimes replies to things the seer thinks instead of says. Can I have her reply to something that was stated in the narration, with the implication the seer also thought it in less formal terms, or do I need to only have her reply to things the seer clearly thought in italics to avoid confusion?
I'll ditch the formal narration before I ditch the seer as protagonist, but I'd like to keep them both--there's a recurring implication the seer's a bit in denial, and it'll be harder to get that across if I'm restricted to her speech patterns.
1): While using a narrator who clearly doesn't talk like the seer, can I still portray the seer's thoughts at certain points? I know this is allowable in visual media (e.g. Spiderman comics with formal-sounding narration but highly informal thought bubbles over Spidey's head), but I've seen authors criticized for doing it in prose.
2): Can I imply that parts of the narration are more formal versions of things the seer might say, or do I need to keep them completely separate? (For instance, there's a bit where the narration reflects on how much the seer loves her friend the wraith, and I let some of the seer's feelings seep into the tone of the narration. It's still very formally written, and not how the seer would phrase it.)
2.5): The wraith can read minds, and she sometimes replies to things the seer thinks instead of says. Can I have her reply to something that was stated in the narration, with the implication the seer also thought it in less formal terms, or do I need to only have her reply to things the seer clearly thought in italics to avoid confusion?
I'll ditch the formal narration before I ditch the seer as protagonist, but I'd like to keep them both--there's a recurring implication the seer's a bit in denial, and it'll be harder to get that across if I'm restricted to her speech patterns.