Mood and reader/writer involvment.

[ascanius]

Ok so Thursday after my chem test I power read Lev Grossman's The Magician King finishing it on Friday. I just noticed something about the book. While I was disappointing with it, the first was much better, while reading it I noticed something. Throughout the novel there were many instances where the author seemed to be speaking to the reader or one of the characters, but never the main character. These instances where small expressions. It gave the story a feel like it was sitting in a room with all the characters with a main narrator telling the story to me, with random little inputs from each character. I want to note that the reader was never actually addressed, but just given the impression of being addressed. It was like a third person POV with small little bursts of first person, yeah that would be the best way to explain it. I was just wondering what other people's thoughts were one something like this.

 

[Maid Of Glass]

hmmm, this is hypothetical because I haven't actually read anything written like that, but I imagine it would be good, it's a way of getting all the views across I guess

 

[Devor]

I've read something like that. The narrator was a character who had very little to do with the story and was repeating events told to her by everyone else. So it felt like it was written in the 3rd Person. But when it came time to enter into someone's head, you would read: "She must have felt..." or "I imagine she felt..." And at times the narrator would comment directly about what she was writing, so that it felt like she was speaking to the reader.

I think there's some pretty strong advantages to that POV. It has many of the benefits writing 3rd Person Limited or omniscient, while keeping the distinct narrative voice of 1st Person.

 

[Larkin]

You might want to read Paco's Story by Larry Heinemann, a short Vietnam War novel that does (almost) exactly this, but I won't say why or how, as that would spoil the book. Lots of classic works have used something close to it -- Wuthering Heights and Heart of Darkness are the first to come to mind -- but the novel I mentioned does it much more closely than those two, for instance. I thought the novel was successful, although I will note that it'd be R-rated if it were a movie, so expect adult content.