12/30/2023 0 Comments Narrator voice![]() It doesn’t have to be strictly true to the world of the novel. Unless you’re writing something very experimental, the narrative voice is not a stream-of-conscious transcription of a character’s literal thoughts in another time and place. It’s okay to hit pause and simply explain unfamiliar concepts to the reader (such as how the protagonist met their significant other). “Angie rolled her suitcase through the harsh light of Terminal B” is some really brief physical description, but I bet you can fully picture that setting without needing an entire page describing every single weary traveler and frazzled gate agent. Even if your novel is dialogue-heavy, it shouldn’t mean no physical description, it might just mean economical physical description. The narrative voice provides crisp, clear physical description and action that helps anchor the reader in the setting and, better yet, immerses them in the setting. Writers who can’t think past dialogue and neglect narrative voice end up concocting wildly convoluted conversational workarounds that are scarcely believable.ĭon’t do that. “Remember how we met on and then we went on a date on a cable car and now we’ve been dating for ten years?” -> CLUNKY When was the last time you mentioned the context for how you met your significant other to your significant other? “Wow, look at that black cat that’s walking across the street toward the house with the broken down porch and the scruffy lawn.” -> CLUNKY When was the last time you described a setting or action that was taking place around you when the person you’re standing next to wasn’t visually impaired? That’s because smushing physical description and context into dialogue invariably feels extremely forced. ![]() The different roles a narrative voice plays in storytellingĮven in dialogue-heavy novels, narrative voice still has a crucial role to play. Dialogue is like the frosting and adds some unique flavor, but if you constructed a cake with only frosting, you’d have a big mess on your hands.īut it’s not just that: there’s a personality that’s woven into the voice. If a novel is a cake, the narrative voice is the base. Dialogue gives you a chance to let secondary characters speak for themselves, but the narrative voice is the guide that pulls the reader through the novel and provides all of the information that’s necessary for the reader to understand what’s happening. ![]() Don’t worry, if that sounds like gobbledygook, we’re going to spend the rest of the post unpacking it. ![]()
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