Narrative distance: close in, far off, and the value of both

[Feo Takahari]

I'm not sure how much interest these dissections generate, but no one's told me to stop, so I'll keep doing them when I find something interesting.

The computer game Road of the Dead 2 revolves around two soldiers trying to escape a zombie outbreak. Diane is the first one we meet, the one we're clearly expected to sympathize with, and above all, the one who's meant to be understood. She always says exactly what she's thinking, she never holds back any secrets, and her emotions are as plain to read as her intentions. Not only does this perfectly suit her initial characterization as a naive idealist, it lets the player watch in real time as she burns out and loses hope. As the military authorities abandon or betray the pair, and their plans of escape turn out to be impossible, she's reduced to the same frustration and despair the player may be feeling.

Her compatriot Cocheta is an unknown quantity, and it's often unclear what exactly is going through his head. He always has a plan, but he's often vague about the details. He's much better informed than Diane, but it's never certain where he got all this information. He seems more thoughtful and philosophical, but he seldom says more than a sentence or two about his beliefs. The effect is a combined disquiet and anticipation--what on Earth will this guy do next?--and it all pays off when, over Diane's horrified objections, he does the most awesome thing in the entire game.

Road of the Dead 2 is probably the best work I've dissected so far. It's freeware, and I highly recommend it to any gamers reading this. (Just be warned: this isn't the "comically over-the-top blood" sort of zombie game, this is the "you just shot a former human in the face with an assault rifle; this is what that looks like" sort of zombie game.)

Have you experimented with narrative distance? Have you pulled your readers into the minds of characters they didn't expect to understand, or deliberately not explained characters they thought would get POVs? How did it turn out?

 

[BWFoster78]

Have you experimented with narrative distance? Have you pulled your readers into the minds of characters they didn't expect to understand, or deliberately not explained characters they thought would get POVs? How did it turn out?

When I started my WIP, my narrative distance was pretty far from the characters. It wasn't something I consciously chose but the way I naturally wrote. As I advanced enough to understand that the narrative distance was great, I make a decision to keep it that way.

Over the course of learning more and more, I determined that that choice was a huge mistake.

Since then, I've worked hard at getting closer and closer to my characters. As far as I can tell for what I'm trying to accomplish, it makes my story tremendously better.

It seems to me now that a close narrative distance makes it easier to engage the reader. At this point in my writing career, I'll take easier any day over harder. I need all the help I can get.

 

[buyjupiter]

I've written stories that are objective first person, subjective first person, objective with some close POV 3rd person, and subjective, very close 3rd person with lots of POV characters.

I tend to grab a hold of subjective first or third that zooms into the character's thought process and belief system. The psychological stuff is incredibly interesting to me outside of writing, and it fuels so much of what people do in everyday life that I find it harder to write an objective POV story.

The couple of times I've used an objective viewpoint, I think it was because of some inherent distaste at my character's belief system. I'm more likely to write a misogynist creep with an objective viewpoint...because I don't want to be inside his/her head.

I'm trying to break myself of that habit, because it isn't really fair to only have the "good" guys/gals/ogres get their time in the spotlight...and it can get really flat really fast, if all you see of the "bad" guys/gals/elves is their actions and not their thought process and/or emotions.

As for writing a POV character that no one was expecting to get a POV, when I write longer pieces it's hard to not let everyone have a POV. They get insistent. I suppose the one character that you don't expect to see as a POV is the sister to my protagonist, and the antagonist of the story. I didn't want her to seem like the Evil Stepmother type or the Wicked Witch type, so I had to give her a close narrative treatment. I'm trying not to go down the road of inherently evil because she controls death (in a way) or the other easy choice of she had a bad childhood.

 

[Penpilot]

Narrative distance in regards to certain characters and story style can be a nice tool to use. I think the classic badass fits that mould.

For me, I've also found that getting right in close can bring a lot to the table. In my WIP, I had a badass archetype character, who wasn't a POV character. As I went into my second draft, I found my badass archetype's personal story was interesting enough that he was demanding to be seen more, so I gave him a POV and that added a dimension to the overall story. The badass's experiences and thoughts played off my main POVs and supported the main story in ways I didn't imagine when I first started the book. I was able to echo themes and plot points without it feeling repetitive. It became a case of the whole was greater than the sum of it's parts.

 

[Svrtnsse]

I'm not sure how much interest these dissections generate, but no one's told me to stop, so I'll keep doing them when I find something interesting.

Go for it. I may not always have a good grasp of all the concepts, but it gets me something to think about at least.



At the moment I think my story is, for the most part, pretty far off. It dives in closer now and then, but then backs off out again. I'm a bit uncertain of what the differences are though, so if anyone has a good link where I can read up on it, please share - or just explain your own view.

 

[Feo Takahari]

At the moment I think my story is, for the most part, pretty far off. It dives in closer now and then, but then backs off out again. I'm a bit uncertain of what the differences are though, so if anyone has a good link where I can read up on it, please share - or just explain your own view.

I could swear I read an essay by David Brin about this, but I don't remember the title. I'll just try to explain it in my own words.

As I see it, the closest narrative perspective is first-person with inner monologue. You see what the viewpoint character sees and know what the viewpoint character knows. Third-person limited is less close, since it makes a distinction between the viewpoint character and the narration--the narrator might not say everything the viewpoint character knows, and the viewpoint character might not know everything the narrator says--but it's still intimately tied to a single POV.

In theory, the farthest perspective is both omniscient and completely ambivalent. In that case, the narrator says exactly what happens, and the characters' perspectives aren't shown at all. This is rarely used in literature, because it doesn't leave much room for emotional connections.

This theory would imply that most visual works have a far perspective--after all, they don't usually have POV characters, instead viewing the characters from the outside. However, Road of the Dead 2 manages to be very close to Diane's perspective, just through the use of clear and open dialogue that conveys what she's thinking. At the same time, it's far from Cocheta because his thoughts are often left unsaid. It's an interesting technique, and one I think could be useful if adapted to literature, allowing a connection even in a story that avoids character POVs. (To some degree, I do this myself--my most emotional scenes are scenes where the characters are forcibly stripped of their illusions and made to talk plainly to each other--but I've been using shorter narrative distance in most of my recent stories.)

 

[Svrtnsse]

Thanks for the explanation. Turn out I was a bit off track in how I understood it. It's a bit more clear now.