Narrative voice versus protagonist voice

[Feo Takahari]

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.

 

[Jamber]

Hi Feo Takahari.
Can I ask what POVs you're using in this narration? Is it an omniscient POV, i.e. author speaking? If so, I think you'd need to give a sense where the narrator/author is quoting the seer in terms of her manner of talking. Something like:

There are many ways a hunter can catch a duck. Sadly, at some level they all involve behaving like a duck. That process may be acceptable when sitting comfortably on the bank of a dawn lake with a duck-whistle at one's lips, but when said hunter is a floundering twelve year old in gumboots up to his thighs trudging through misty reeds, and the water is sodding cold, and I wonder when my uncle's going to blow the whistle, and is that a shark?–well, things can go a little belly-up.

I'm not sure if I've understood the problem, so forgive me if this is out on a limb. Do you have examples of the paragraphs in question?

Jennie

 

[Feo Takahari]

I have a (bad?) habit of blurring the line between omniscient and limited, but this will definitely be closer to omniscient--I'll describe things the seer can't directly see. As for examples, I'm still very early in the writing, but the narration says things like "Years in close proximity result in a certain blending of personalities", and the seer would be more likely to say that as "She's turning into me. Only she can't see through walls, and she can't predict the future, and her sense of humor still sucks--but she talks kind of like me, so that makes her me, doesn't it?"

 

[Jamber]

Ah, okay. I think I see the quandary.

Some writers get around the issue of omniscient vs limited by having the omniscient narrator introduce the whole show, then step back, allowing close personal POV to develop, but interrupting it occasionally with little wry asides when the reader knows the POV character is making a goof or when they want to bridge between that character's POV and someone else's. In other words they use omniscient very sparingly, and mostly for introductions. (I hate to harp on about Pratchett but he does this all the time.)

If you're moving between omniscient and limited POV without irony, then it would make sense to use the omniscient voice for scene-setting alone. However I feel that choosing a formal voice in the introduction jars a bit against the close POV character's language and tone, and makes it seem there's an ironic distinction even if you don't mean for there to be one. I feel it tends to foreground the 'author' as a sort of meta-character, a bit pompous or didactic (not meant in any sort of a negative way) contrasting with her flippancy and/or street-smart voice.

Are you perhaps better off using a style of overall narration that's more in keeping with your main character's POV in terms of language and so forth (if you want to avoid any of the above sense of playfulness)?

It might help to map out how/where you plan to use the two POV/narration forms, and try to stick to a reasoning for each one, when it gets used...

I'm sure somebody else could think this puzzle through in clearer terms than I can (and probably you can yourself, Feo Takahari)... But it's an interesting question.

Not sure I've helped... But good luck.

cheers
Jennie