Hatrack River Writers Workshop: Speaking to the reader

This is topic Speaking to the reader in forum Open Discussions About Writing at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

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Posted by cvgurau (Member # 1345) on :

Stephen King says not to, and who am I to argue with the King? But then, OSC does it, and he manages to pull it off quite nicely.

Any thoughts?

Posted by EricJamesStone (Member # 1681) on :

OSC says you can break any rule if you're willing to pay the price.

I'm not sure what you (and Stephen King) mean by "speaking to the reader," though.

Do you mean something 19th-centuryish like "And now, dear reader, we will leave Earnest and Georgina some privacy while they speak their words of love to one another..."

Posted by writerPTL (Member # 895) on :

If he said not to . . . he's being a hypocrite. He wrote Dolores Claiborne that way if I'm not mistaken . . . and the beginning of Needful Things.

Posted by cvgurau (Member # 1345) on :

And the first 70 or so pages of Black House, if memory serves, but that book was so godawful I almost feel bad for mentioning it.

And yes, Eric, that's what I mean.

Chris

[This message has been edited by cvgurau (edited August 24, 2003).]

Posted by pickled shuttlecock (Member # 1714) on :

Speaking directly to the reader will "pop" him out of the story and remind him he's reading a story. I'd say that's generally undesirable, unless that's the effect you're going for.

Posted by Khyber (Member # 1651) on :

Personally, I'd say not to. To me, thats the sort of thing that would kick me out of the book into reality. The price you pay is that the reader is going to be distracted.

Posted by Khyber (Member # 1651) on :

Woah, damn near same points - posted at the damn near same time :P Now my post is redundant

Posted by Narvi (Member # 1376) on :

There are times when you want to pull back a little, and addressing the reader directly can be effective. Sometimes you just don't want to give something much attention (see Mike Fink's "vow of non-violence" near the end of Alvin Journeyman). Sometimes you need a more distant perspective for clarity, but don't want to burden your world by including it (this is done occasionally in The Hobbit).

It does pull you out of the story a little, but sometimes that's ok. There's another danger though: if you do this too often, readers are going to start wondering who this narrator is and how he knows all this.

Posted by pickled shuttlecock (Member # 1714) on :

Khyber: Redundant? Naw, you're just backing me up.

There's a corollary to all this (going off of the "wondering who this narrator is" thing): if you're writing a story in first-person, you can probably get away with it more often if it doesn't slow the action down. In those cases, a "dear reader" might be the best way of revealing the narrator's thoughts - or even his thoughts as he narrates if they're different than they were.

Of course, you can get really cheesy if you do it wrong:

"He said that then, but I didn't realize until later that he was actually lying, and that someone else was the real killer!"

(Hang on while I take a trip to the toilet.)

I don't think I'd want my narrator playing smarter-than-thou like that. Obviously there's also a third-person version, which is worse.

[This message has been edited by pickled shuttlecock (edited August 24, 2003).]

Posted by loggrad98 (Member # 1724) on :

I know this is off-thread, but I had to comment on Black House (King/Straub), since someone else brought it up and I am reading it right now...

I think the "Now we move down the road" format they use at the beginning is distracting at first, but they use pretty good alliteration through much of it, and when they move away from that style, it is another distracting point as I was getting used to and expecting it...that said, I did not like it and it took me four tries to get into the book (in fact I exhausted my other reading material so I was forced to read it or <<gasp>> read nothing!...or re-read "Ender's Game" for about the 30th time)

The biggest thing pulling me down in that book is that it is yet another story tied to the Dark Tower extravaganza, which is fine, but it is starting to get old (when I first read the stand, I said enthusiastically "wow, a dark tower story", now, dozens of other dark-tower-hinting novels later, it is said with a yawn)

Sorry to digress...had to get in my two cents, even if it isn't worth a plug nickel.

[This message has been edited by loggrad98 (edited August 25, 2003).]

Posted by James Maxey (Member # 1335) on :

In some ways all first person narratives could be seen as a direct address to the reader. There is a distinct voice aware that it is telling a story to a reader in first person.

I don't think a writer should ever categorically rule out any tool of story telling. Direct address is a great tool for delivering important information fast, and there may be times when it is simply the most useful solution. It does come with a cost, but sometimes paying the price of removing the reader from the story to deliver clear, concise background information is better than paying the cost of risking reader confusion as the information is worked in more subtley.

--James Maxey

Posted by Khyber (Member # 1651) on :

quote:

(Hang on while I take a trip to the toilet.)

I'm sure a line like that would immediately kick me out of the book, but the whole audacity of it would leave me laughing for awhile Just slip that into the middle of your next book somewhere :P

Posted by cvgurau (Member # 1345) on :

quote:
that said, I did not like it and it took me four tries to get into the book

Hm. Maybe one of these days, when I have nothing better to read (God forbid!), I'll give it another go.

Posted by MaryRobinette (Member # 1680) on :

I just finished reading "Issola" by Stephen Brust. He has a whole series that he has written in first person and periodically addresses the reader directly. I don't know how he does it, but somehow you feel like you're sitting at coffee with the character and he's confiding in you. I've read plenty of stories where that would pull me straight out of the story, but he's really good at it. I'm thinking about rereading this one immediately so I can pay attention to craft. I'll let you know if I figure anything out. (The first book in the series is "Jhereg" if anyone has an interest.)

Mary

Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :

The Princess Bride does it brilliantly, and manages to pull you into the story at several levels, or that is, several different stories at several different levels. Of course, all of them are fiction (I hope, or else his wife is going to...or rather already has, killed him), but the "meta" levels of the story, in between the adventures of Wesley and Buttercup and the adventures of present day famous author with controlling wife and neurotic son, are compelling and completely convincing.

Actually, the reason that speaking directly to the reader used to be so common was precisely because of the necessity of persuading the audiance that the story was an actual account of real events, by a party with some intimate knowledge of those events. And that is exactly the main purpose for which it is still a useful technique, to persuade your readers that some key element of the story is the actual truth, It isn't necessary to convince them consciously that the story is true, that would require publishing your book in the non-fiction catagory. But emotionally, when we read, it is easy to forget whether we are reading fiction or not when a fictional character claims to be telling us the fictional story. We know the story is fiction, but we aren't so sure about the narrator. And sometimes, when he gives us a good reason that he is telling us this story as a fictional rather than factual account, we can be sucked into buying the whole thing--emotionally at least.

But of course, if you do it badly (and like all complicated schemes, this one is easy to screw-up), your readers will not be your readers very long.