posted
There are more things to consider than whether to use first or third point of view.
(By the way, I'm reading Ann Leckie's THE RAVEN TOWER, in which she uses first person point of view, but the first person narrator addresses one of the other characters as "you" all the way through, so it feels like second person as well, sort of. Ann Leckie does interesting things with point of view - I recently read ANCILLARY JUSTICE in which the point of view character refers to the other characters with the female pronoun - because of the language they are "speaking" - regardless of the other characters' genders. Interesting way of messing with the mind.)
That said, one of the things authors may want to consider with regard to point of view is the question of whose point of view (whether first or third) the story will be told from - and if multiple points of view, which character when.
The Sherlock Holmes stories would not work as well if told from his point of view, so Doyle used a kind of "everyman" point of view character in order to engage the reader's sympathy and to make Holmes larger than life.
The various point of view characters that Tolkien used in THE LORD OF THE RINGS tended to stay as close to "everyman" as possible. And once a character became "larger than life" he didn't use their point of view any more.
Michael Swanwick used a nameless point of view character in his STATIONS OF THE TIDE as did Owen Wister in THE VIRGINIAN (for the most part), in order to let the point of view character be the observer (a kind of "limited camera eye") of the main character, among other reasons, I'm sure.
Whom an author chooses for the point of view character can make a difference in how the story is experienced and in how the other characters are perceived. The main character may not be the point of view character for good reasons.
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Narrative point of view and viewpoint are separate, distinct, and divisible narrative features. Viewpoint applies to individual personas' natures, personalities, behaviors, includes speech and thought behaviors, and attitudes, includes narrators separate from implied or real writer (also are dramatis personae, though for distinct functions).
Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions, entails the gamut of several distinct writer-narrator-viewpoint agonist personas.
Narrative point of view is an overall grammar set of a given narrative, and entails grammar person and number, grammar tense, grammar voice, grammar mood, auxiliaries, and tone -- no more, no less -- and expressly an attitude toward a subject or topic, always a human condition topic in the persona of an individual, entity, or social force; satire, that is.
Each of narrative point of view's facets are writer selected and, therefore, shape a writer's personal participation and contribution to a narrative therefrom and only therefrom, tone most, ideally. Any other writer intrusion is invasive and deprecated anymore. Exceptions abound, most for creative nonfiction, with its own separate set of distinct writer exclusion workarounds, issues of the perpendicular pronoun "I" mitigated most.
Second person is yet more of a prose challenge than first person. Actually, prose's second person is a first-person auxiliary: addresses to the self, like you voice-over narrate your life to yourself in thought or spoken soliloquy.
Second-person addresses to readers are deprecated for the possible implied or actual direct or indirect imperative lecture of commands and moral law assertions second person might entail. Otherwise, implied second person imperative is the grammar person of recipes, instruction manuals, and directions.
Matters of objectivity and subjectivity are paramount considerations for narrative point of view selections.
First person is most subjective, and second-person auxiliaries, if any.
Third person is most objective.
Main simple present tense is most subjective.
Main simple past tense is most objective.
Plural persons are more subjective than singular persons' greater objectivity.
Passive and static voices are more subjective than active and dynamic voices' greater objectivity.
Grammar moods: indicative, most objective; imperative, subject to wide subjectivity latitude; subjunctive mood, most subjectivity -- the very definition of subjunctive mood.
Tone's attitude toward a subject or topic subjectivity-objectivity axis, by and large, depends on audience target. If the mores, values, and beliefs of a tone align with target readers', then more objective; if different, then more subjective.
Narrative point of view does not switch among parts of a given narrative, except in clumsy writer hands. Viewpoint personas' emphases may transfer from part to part, though, yet nonetheless remain related to a persona hierarchy: protagonist, deuteragonist, triagonist, antagonist, up to seven or so pivotal agonist-contestant personas per ensemble cast parcel or whole narrative.
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H extrinsic. I like that "dark and stormy" start. It's moody. I vicariously experience that scene.
I am not sure how you are going to write that with sensory experience, but it's hard to imagine that drawing me in.
If you start talking about a character's head being down, you are describing a scene to me. Also, that's something I don't notice or think about. So I imagine being detached.
If you put me inside a characters head, I will attend to what the characters is feeling, such as things more important than a hard storm. You essentially filter the storm.
Does that make sense?
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posted
The dark and stormy start is a detached narrator-writer outsider looks in from afar summary and explanation tell. Readers may impose personal imprints upon it, though the passage lacks definitive and definite context and texture. Context: who, when, where; texture: what, why, how.
A "character's head being down" is likewise an external perspective, whether from a detached to remote to middle distance outsider narrator's perspective or insider viewpoint agonist's personal perspective of the other character's head bowed.
"If you put me inside a characters head, I will attend to what the characters is feeling, such as things more important than a hard storm. You essentially filter the storm."
If what's meant there is the agonist perceives and thinks about circumstances other than a storm, and thus filters out the storm, okay, maybe. Then why and how does the storm matter to whom, when, where, and what anyway? Omit the weather then, albeit a narrative authentication feature of verisimilitude, or develop the weather's personal to whomever dramatic context and texture substance.
Two features would enhance the dark and stormy passage: relative to insider whom and whom's motivations and stakes within the scene and whomever's attitudinal responses to the weather of an otherwise detached narrator "cinematic" weather report. Cinematic isn't per se a shortfall; the use there is a significant shortfall.
posted
Hi extrinsic. I need some words, I am getting lost in your terminology.
If I write a story in first person present tense from the perspective of the wife, and the readers take the perspective of the husband, what do you call that?
For "It was a dark and stormy night", I imagine myself in the scene and feel the rain and how horrible it is to be out there. What is my POV? (I can use Of Mice and Men if want a different example).
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Second tense is auxiliary? I'm not seeing that.
You step out of the shower, feeling clean, warm, and relaxed.
I step out of the shower, feeling clean, warm, and relaxed.
Second person forces the reader to be the character. Or at least imagine being the character. So first person isn't that. So what is first person?
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Dramatic irony, as I understand, requires two POVs.
In Jurassic Park, a "bad guy" is out at night, he hears dinosaurs, he expects to be attacked, and . . . the dinosaur spits on him. You can imagine his reaction.
The reader has been told earlier that the spit is poisonous. To appreciate the scene, the reader has to have two perspectives.
What are they called? Do readers always have two perspectives?
To make a point about writing, I suspect the basic idea of POV inhibited my ability to use dramatic irony.
Or my problem is that I usually write in first person present, making dramatic irony almost impossible. However, the dual perspective is common in Y/A, when the main character has a goal (leave town, for example), that the reader knows is not really a to-be-solved problem.
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"If I write a story in first person present tense from the perspective of the wife, and the readers take the perspective of the husband, what do you call that?"
Reader alignment to or rapport with the husband's plight, a shared Standpoint, albeit of an invisible bystander? The shape would be Jerome Stern's Specimen. Wife takes, say, a negative position toward husband, and readers believe she misrepresents him. A common perception of first person, present tense is that's a narrative point of view ripe for the Unreliable Narrator, at the extreme subjectivity end of the subjective-objective axis.
Such an Unreliable Narrator exhibits a permanent or temporary mental defect and, therefore, cannot keep factual matters true. The wife-husband scenario and an Unreliable Narrator wife would elaborate, embellish, outright invent unlikely negative perceptions of husband due to intoxication, actual mental disorder, or out of spite and scorn, an emotional disorder affect.
Dramatic irony does come into play there. Readers soon realize wife is unreasonable to an extreme degree, though she is oblivious. What, though, does that express about husband? Is he a doormat she walks all over at whim, likewise oblivious? Or does his sense of honor and the marriage bond require him to nobly grin and bear her torments? And similar other whatever?
"For 'It was a dark and stormy night', I imagine myself in the scene and feel the rain and how horrible it is to be out there. What is my POV?"
"POV" is a shorthand term for a gamut of narrative principles and all but useless due to the gamut of ill-defined principles and somewhat synonyms the abbreviation is meant to encompass. Neither narrative point of view nor agonist persona viewpoint compasses your "POV" there. The emotional response is invisible bystander (perspective Standpoint, from where an invisible "camera" observes) empathy or sympathy alignment or rapport for Dummie's foul-weather plight.
Curiosity, maybe realized or subconsciously aware, subliminal, that is, wonders what urgent matter brings Dummie out in such foul weather. Maybe Dummie wonders, too, though unrealized or is oblivious to the weather and the true import for the object of his quest.
Dummie is the narrator's Specimen shape, not even the viewpoint persona of the moment, as is the weather and the London neighborhood. The narrator is the viewpoint persona and the observer -- the objective persona, through which readers access a Standpoint. Dummie is the subject, the subjective persona Specimen of the narrator, and the weather, etc. There, "objective" differs from the definition "factual observation," merely means the observer observed object. Likewise, "subjective" merely means the subject an observer observes.
Those empathy or sympathy emotions are tension facets, includes an emotional cluster, oftenest sympathy and fear, and suspense's curiosity. (See Gustav Freytag, Technique of the Drama, 1863, overall topic: Tension and as related to Causation. Faint glimmers of Antagonism -- unnamed, unrealized.)
POV? Narrative point of view, Viewpoint, Standpoint, Opinion position, Perspective fields of view? Each somewhat related though distinct and divisible facets of narrative features. Real-world general overlap synonym uses are generic and insufficient for nuances of the divisibility of rolls and parts each plays for creative expression.
"Second tense is auxiliary? I'm not seeing that.
"You step out of the shower, feeling clean, warm, and relaxed.
"I step out of the shower, feeling clean, warm, and relaxed.
"Second person forces the reader to be the character. Or at least imagine being the character. So first person isn't that. So what is first person?"
Second person, like all grammar persons and attendant tense syntax, and auxiliaries, ranges from indicative to imperative to subjunctive grammar moods, plus nuances of grammar moods: emphatic, reflective, reflexive, for a few examples of a dozen or so "realis" or "irrealis moods."
Second person as first person auxiliary concerns the reflective and reflexive facets of indicative, imperative, and subjunctive moods; that is, private addresses to the self, often are reflective or reflexive thoughts or spoken aloud.
"You step out of the shower, feeling clean, warm, and relaxed.
"I step out of the shower, feeling clean, warm, and relaxed."
Those are indicative mood, the realis facet end of the real-unreal, realis-irrealis mood axis, factual, neither, per se, reflective or reflexive addresses to the self. (See Webster's for "reflexive's" several definitions. Generally, directed back to a self.) This below is second-person reflexive, though bland, lackluster, and static; context and texture wrap would heal those deficits:
//You feel cleaner, warmer, and more relaxed after the shower.//
Each of these is linguistics distinctions and divisions of grammar persons, here, second person's: Second person direct address to readers, a type of apostrophe or epistle or dramatic monologue. Second person implied. Second person imperative, direct or implied, jussive or subjunctive. Second person subjunctive: conditional, optative, potential, hypothetical, inferential, deontic, epistemic. Second person reflective. Second person reflexive.
Prose's second person most concerns "reflexive" as auxiliary to first person, and occasions a third person auxiliary, too. The use intends access to the deepest self's thoughts and instincts brought forth for reflexive considerations, as it were, conversations of a self among the id, the ego, and the superego.
Prose's second person reflexive wants a reader robust abstract cognition inversion. Not the conspiratorial reader alignment and rapport of "we," rather the voyeuristic appeals of access to the most intimate of another self's being rigidly hidden from others. Second person reflexive evades more than a few writers and readers' ken, who attempt the quirky and rugged narrative point of view auxiliary.
First person likewise appeals most from access to a self's intimate and private thoughts and instincts, though avoids direct addresses to the self, which is second person reflexive auxiliary's roll. Occasions third person, close, limited's roll and intimate access appeals, too, which can likewise use auxiliary second person reflexive, as well as first person, each for explicit situations of a viewpoint Specimen's private, most danger-close intimate and hidden thoughts and speech.
Narrative arts entail no forced manipulation or force, per se, to become a narrative's character persona, rather, alignment, rapport, or the empathy arts of a vicarious "walk in the footsteps of another." Persuasion's seductions, maybe, at best, to become a kindred being, or antipath, who vicariously witnesses, participates, or contributes to a dramatic movement, for though a fixed and immutable narrative, the experience is nonetheless a writer-narrative-reader emotional conversation. Or isn't, and the writer failed to accommodate reader emotional engagement expectations.
Dramatic irony wants several perspective standpoints: those surely in the know, those surely not in the know, and those who think they know and are not sure, yet are curious to have their anticipations confirmed, or further surety though anticipations not fully confirmed, or anticipations refuted. Prose most concerns the latter: those readers' Standpoint who learn details and think they know yet are unsure to variant degrees until a bittersweet outcome end's surety, if then.
"Or my problem is that I usually write in first person present, making dramatic irony almost impossible."
First person present affords as much dramatic irony occasion as any other narrative point of view. The unaware self and self-deluded self and Unreliable Narrator self are ripe occasions for dramatic irony. Here's a proverb that illustrates: The lies you tell yourself are the biggest, worst, most harmful of lies, especially the lies of omission. (An auxiliary second person, present tense, indicative mood, emphatic, woebegone emotional attitude [tone], reflexive expression addressed to a first-person self and fraught, non-mime complication and conflict portents.)
A challenge for dramatic irony is how to keep a viewpoint persona in the dark, and others as wanted, yet occasion readers' access to pivotal details. Rare few narratives hold readers in the dark for long, rightly so. Artless withholds annoy and alienate from exclusion's nuisances. Agatha Christie's The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, 1926, is one of those narratives that readers are ambivalent about its dramatic ironies.
An infamous example of dramatic irony, and a situational irony, too, is Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, 1906. Even writer was unaware and self-deluded about the work in his hands. Sinclair aimed for the people's moral consciences and eviscerated their bowels instead. His representations of livestock and workers rebound to workers as visceral livestock, in which management consumes every part except workers' squeals, as intended, yet meant to educate people about the workers' plight, not intended to expose corporate corruptions of the food supply. Exquisite serendipity.
"What are they called? Do readers always have two perspectives?"
Personal Standpoint per reader. May be of one cognitive perspective, observer; may be two, or multiple cognitive accesses; observer, bystander, witness, vicarious participant, active contributor; dependent upon reader cognition and comprehension aptitudes, recreational narrative wants, emotional statuses, values, beliefs, mores, etc.
"However, the dual perspective is common in Y/A, when the main character has a goal (leave town, for example), that the reader knows is not really a to-be-solved problem."
An initial want need not be a true destination, nor even a matter at first of two congruent opposite perspectives, may be one or more simultaneous, contemporaneous, and sequential perspectives; may be a bridge complication, in fact, more appeal if otherwise, appeal from dramatic irony's three or more perspectives, that is.
So what is the true want for whatever situation's destination? And how soon do readers realize the true situation's satisfaction destination? And how soon later does a personal sojourner realize a satisfaction destination? Complication satisfaction, that is, not per se conflict resolution or to-be-solved problems. Might as well add timely writer destination realization to the mix, too, for more than a few narratives evince deficient writer realization, and exquisite dramatic irony and situational irony serendipity therefrom.
Maturation is at the core of personal sojourner satisfaction destinations. Want for adult privileges, or further privileges for later age phase sojourns, and realizations those come at the proportionate costs of adult responsibilities are the satisfaction destination and kernels of sojourner quest dramatic irony.
A most desired, ideal reader location within a narrative's milieu is at least full immersion into the reading spell dream, most so as an active participant, though vicarious, due from emotional responses and advocacy urge contributions for viewpoint personas' maybe poetic justice outcomes or otherwise poetic injustices, maybe some of each.
Bertolt Brecht and his "Distance Effect" (Verfremdungseffekt), 1936, disciples disagree, rather, believe audiences should not be so completely engaged as to be gullible about a narrative's subversive emotional, mental, social, and moral persuasion influences against a person's "better interests." Valid enough, though high brow and primitive thought, as if Brecht presumes to speak for others' cognitive switch capacity for linked alpha-world situational awareness and simultaneous appreciation for secondary-world deep immersion.
Many of the above are technical, granular nuances to an extreme degree. Any given writer might not notice or care, and readers, too, though adept practitioners nonetheless intuit more than a few, nor think any of the above necessary to know intellectually and applied second nature therefrom. However, a professional developmental editor would do well to appreciate the gamut of language arts and sciences involved and more, and valuable if a writer would take them up and tame their manifold convolutions.
Reacting to "Unreliable". When I write in first person present tense, the narration is what that character is thinking/feeling/experiencing. "He's angry" means nothing more, or less, than she thinks he's angry.
And that narration is perfectly correct. If you think of me as the narrator, describing her thoughts and feelings, I am perfectly reliable, all of the time.
Of course, a person's thoughts and feeling might not match reality. If the reader draws inferences from her thoughts about what is reality (as the reader will surely do), the reader's inferences are not always reliable.
I tell this scene twice. From his point of view: "She makes a large sniffle, again feeling her pain." From her point of view: "I make a larger sniffle than my dwindling sadness requires." From my point of view, there was nothing unreliable, he just misinterpreted the situation and the narration accurately portrayed that.
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"Of course, a person's thoughts and feeling might not match reality. If the reader draws inferences from her thoughts about what is reality (as the reader will surely do), the reader's inferences are not always reliable."
Readers eager to locate an Unreliable Narrator and claim so often confuse subjectivity for unreliableness, especially first person, present tense.
Part of a writer's responsibilities is to give target audience readers ample evidence for reliable inferences, usually, not exclusively, includes contestant personas' unaware self-delusions or other self-deceptions and misapprehensions as wanted, which occasion strong dramatic irony appeals.
Denis Johnson's "Car Crash While Hitchhiking," first person, present tense, peculiarly works the manifold mischiefs of an unreliable though reader fully informed of evidence narrator and dramatic irony appeals. Arguably, the Unreliable Narrator suffers temporary mental defects from substance abuse addiction and minor car crash trauma. Nope, the picaresque novel Jesus' Son later short story installments show "F---head's" behavioral condition, for which substance abuse is a treatable symptom, is persistent.
posted
POV, as in choosing the personal pronouns that will be used, is an authorial choice, and in the majority of cases, the story would be as interesting were the POV changed.
Yes, stories in which there's a good bit of authorial interjection, like comedy and hard-boiled detective, seem to work better in first And where we don't want the reader to forge an empathetic tie with the character(s), a third person fly-on-the-wall approach is useful. But the thing to remember, is that the author, as the narrator, uses those personal pronouns when they are talking about the character. For the one living the story, it's always first person present tense, as it is in life.
So POV takes a distant second place, in importance, to viewpoint, because it's viewpoint that will make the reader identify and care. And caring is what makes them need to turn the pages.
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posted
Do you mean that first person, present tense is the only non-writer intrusion narrative point of view or that real-life transpires in a first person, present tense progression?
I am ambivalent about both, and the relevant one is narrative point of view.
Time, for me, does move chrono-linearly; however, time is also dimensionally fluid, may accelerate, slow, stall, stop briefly, leap ahead a minor span, or back a likewise minor span, sometimes even sideways or other dimensional time-space shift spans, each someway co-attendant to chrono-linearity.
Several narrative points of view resemble first person, present tense's now moment sensibilities and writer displacement, metaphorically; third person, close, limited, simple past tense, indicative, for one. A least appreciated other one is third person, close, multiple, in which the narrator is emotionally active though covert and displaced, and writer yet more displaced. Another, a narrative in which narrative point of view is fluid, may start from overt narrator and displace narrator incrementally to fully covert, and writer in the narrator's backseat passenger role leads suit.
Of course, writer choices populate a narrative, overtly or otherwise, though covert writer and narrator displacement are often, anymore, preferred, though not exclusively.
posted
A probably irrelevant addition to the discussion. Writing "I [or he] woke up with a hangover" doesn't say much about the state "I" or "he" woke up in---just a single word, without much on the physical or emotional state "I" or "he" is presently in.
Just something that bothered me since I saw the first post. Carry on with your discussion, it's very interesting.
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quote:Originally posted by Robert Nowall: A probably irrelevant addition to the discussion. Writing "I [or he] woke up with a hangover" doesn't say much about the state "I" or "he" woke up in---just a single word, without much on the physical or emotional state "I" or "he" is presently in.
Just something that bothered me since I saw the first post. Carry on with your discussion, it's very interesting.
Suppose one book started with "He woke up with a hangover" and another with "I woke up with a hangover" Does your mind have the same response to them?
I think, for "I", I take the place of the character and get a hangover feeling. For "he" or "she" I imagine seeing someone with a hangover.
For "he", I am more likely to think it's his own fault. For "I", I am more sympathetic.
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posted
"Close" is a part of narrative distance's separation degree between an outsider narrator's expression and an insider viewpoint persona's expression. Close means closer degree than a narrator's perceptions or closest to an insider's perceptions, often from personas' interior locations: personal thought, personal stimuli and sensation perceptions, responses, and emotions (psychic access, omniscience "limited" to one persona).
Hence, yes, closer distance to a "particular character" than a narrator.
Neither "He woke up with a hangover." or "I woke up with a hangover." are particularly close, the former a detached narrator and wide open narrative distance; the latter, somewhat closer, middle distance, by default, "I" narrator-agonist summary and explanation tell.
Show me there are hangovers and then there are HANGOVERS. Ouch. Plus, from what? Booze? Drugs? Caffeine? Tobacco? Sugar? An Internet or computer or television or theater or reading marathon?
The metaphor of third person, close, limited, past tense, indicative, strong personal attitudinal tone is a substitute for first person, present tense, etc., yet occasions more Standpoint and narrative distance flexibility than first person, occasions middle-distance auxiliary narrator participation at times, most often at outsets and starts of wholes and parts and for Standpoint and narrative distance transition setups, deliveries, and follow-throughs.
quote:Originally posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury: (By the way, I'm reading Ann Leckie's THE RAVEN TOWER, in which she uses first person point of view, but the first person narrator addresses one of the other characters as "you" all the way through, so it feels like second person as well, sort of.
Songs give me this perspective. I always take the "I" in a song as referring to the singer, even though I know the singer probably didn't write the song. In my mind, "you" is someone the singer is singing to, and I'm just overhearing. ("We were both young when I first saw you", Swift, Love Story).
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quote:Originally posted by extrinsic: "Close" is a part of narrative distance's separation degree between an outsider narrator's expression and an insider viewpoint persona's expression
To me, the farthest reader POV is "This is a book." Sometimes called taking the reader out of the story. Did you want to include this on your list?
Techniques for doing this presumably include the author talking to the reader. For me, telling the future also works.
In one book a character drives her son to Montauk so he could take a bus north. This flagrant impossibility took me out of the story. So I guess I'm taken out of the story by things in the narration that do not allow me to create a story.
Note again my distinction between reader POV and ways of achieving (or avoiding) this POV.
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"This is a book" and the like, in terms of narrative point of view, more so narrative distance, depends on whom addresses whom.
I could see going to Montauk to catch a bus north, and a long bus ride east first, or a briefer ferry ride to New London, Connecticut, or Mom's internal misapprehension subject to adjustment upon arrival at the Greyhound station. Otherwise, might be a research shortfall.
Seymour Chatman, Story and Discourse, 1978, identifies an axis for the relationships of the several personas of a narrative's conversation, adjusted per moi's further observations:
Real writer | implied writer | narrator >> viewpoint persona << narratee | implied reader | real reader
Narrator is a must, and may be overt or covert. Viewpoint persona is discretionary, and whom may be a Specimen observed instead of an internal Standpoint. The rest are often somewhat invisible, somewhat visible, at times, depends on the wants of a given narrative's parts and wholes and writer deftness.
An uncommon novel that illustrates the real writer through to implied reader compass, Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions, 1973. Vonnegut, by turns, takes and plays real writer, implied writer, narrator, viewpoint persona, several, actually, as Billy Pilgrim and Kilgore Trout are Vonnegut dopplegangers, narratee, and implied reader roles.
Vonnegut uses the "This is ____" zero person pronoun construct for dramatic effect, and for self-address, though is not second person. Albeit used for overt writer direct address to real readers, anticipated, actual readers, that is, the novel's slipstream timeline and slipstream narrative point of view, several viewpoints and Specimens, Standpoints, Perspective fields of view, etc., slip any surly bonds such routine expectations occasion.
Only took me a few dozen close reads and many the midnight candle burnt to unravel Vonnegut's designs and mannerisms therein. I went from a faraway Standpoint the first raw read to an up close and as personal as possible Standpoint the more recent read. I walked, then, in Vonnegut's footsteps.
A reason to write in third person past is not liking the limitations of first person present.
But it's common now to write in a "limited" third person, in order to get more closeness. So, I guess, accepting the same limitations as first person present leads to the same closeness.
But then why would anyone write their limited close story in third person past? First person kills third person on pronouns, because it adds an "I". Present tense has simpler verbs than past (I was happy, I am happy, I will be happy. Versus I had been happy, I was happy, I would be happy.)
So there must be more going on. But what? I think I can find websites saying the above and stopping here.
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posted
Third person and past tense are narrative point of view objectivity facets. Those imply or intimate the truth of a matter.
First person and present tense are subjectivity facets. Open to question and challenge re the truth of a matter, may be a personal subjective truth contrary to a larger truth.
A truth may be personal, local, regional, global, or universal.
Note that traditional journalism uses third person, past tense, indicative mood, objective narrative point of view. New Journalism, through a facet of correspondent personal involvement, uses first person, sometimes main simple present tense, sometimes main simple past tense, main indicative mood, sometimes subjunctive mood auxiliary, and is subjective for the gamut.
Third person, close, limited, indicative enjoys the variant flexibilities of the full subjective-objective narrative point of view axis.
First person pronouns in less skilled hands evince degrees of narcissism, writer surrogacy, self-idealization, self-efficacy, and unnecessary extra lens filters: I, me, my, mine; we, our, ours.
Third person: she, he, her, him, hers, his; they, their, theirs. Each defuses narcissism, etc., if in deft writer hands.
Denis Johnson's Jesus' Son someways brags and gloats about the first-person narrator-viewpoint agonist's narcissistic misdeeds: situational and dramatic ironies.
"Present tense has simpler verbs than past (_I was happy_, I am happy, _I will be happy_. Versus I had been happy, I was happy, _I would be happy_.)"
"I was happy" is past tense, indicative mood. "I will be happy" and "I would be happy" are future tense, subjunctive mood. However, "I would be happy" can otherwise be indicative mood and present tense if contexture wrap indicates, that is, a present tense declarative exclamation: irony.
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I just meant in simple technical ways. If there is a conversation between two women, the author always stops calling them by name and calls them both she and her. Then that has two kept clear who "she" means. We all have that problem.
But in first person, if one of the character is "I", then that's perfectly clear and so is "she". First person simply allows more pronouns to be in play.
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posted
I: subjective case pronoun Me: objective case pronoun My: possessive case adjective Mine: possessive pronoun, or possessive case adjective
She or he: subjective case pronoun Him: objective case pronoun Her: objective case pronoun, possessive case adjective, or possessive pronoun Hers or his: possessive pronoun, or possessive case adjective
Still four of each case, either way: subjective case (syntax subject), objective case (syntax object), possessive case, adjective case.
Either female-female or male-male circumstances show pronouns are shorthand for names and often too convenient a habit for clarity's sake. One third person method for clarity's sake is always name a sentence subject if a sentence, clause, or phrase identifies two or more personas, only another persona's speech names a viewpoint persona, and otherwise, the viewpoint persona is identified in object position by an objective or possessive pronoun or adjective case pronoun. Or clarify by contexture wrap. And other judicious, timely, clear name and pronoun swaps as indicated.
Pat brought her her book bag. She brought her her books. She packed them into her book bag.
Pat brought him his book bag. He brought him his books. He packed them into his book bag.
Pat brought me my book bag. She brought me my books. She packed them into my book bag.
I brought Pat her book bag. I brought her her books. I packed them into her book bag.
However, a local cohort, everyday conversation dialect habit would omit the third person objective case pronouns and confuse whom is whom and whose whose.
I brought Pat the book bag. I brought the books. I packed them into the book bag.
Pat brought her book bag. She brought her books. She packed them into her book bag.
Pat brought his book bag. He brought his books. He packed them into his book bag.
A substantive prose pronoun organization distinction is the overall social etiquette principle of name the self last in any group, and demote the self to last for greater emphasis:
Pat, Lacy, Joe, and I got our book bags.
Pat, Lacy, Joe, and she got the book bags.
Or demote a self (first person, second person, or third person) to syntax object case, for likewise last identified is more emphasized, and is done to, defuses an I or self's narcissisms.
Pat, Lacy, and Joe, got _our_ book bags, and Pat brought _me_ mine.
Pat, Lacy, and Joe, got the book bags, and Pat brought you yours.
Pat, Lacy, and Joe, got the book bags, and Pat gave Linda hers.
Subjective case: syntax, sentence, clause, or phrase nominative subject of a predicate. Objective case: syntax, sentence, clause, or phrase nominative object of a predicate. Nominative: name, label, proper or common noun, pronoun, or nominal phrase.
posted
I collected some data on this. It was amazing. A man describing his interactions with a woman. The pronouns are unambiguous (he vs. she), and no proper names are used.
quote:Why had he not told her? Perhaps because he knew implicitly that he could trust her with his life. Or perhaps because she looked at him with such piecrcing intelligence that he knew that no other explanation than the truth would convince her. Even so, he had not told her the half of it, for even she would have thought him mad. (Postwatch, Card)
The same character, same author describing his interaction with a man. (A third man appears briefly). Now it's a barrage of proper names -- the main character's name appears in every sentence. And the few pronouns are potentially ambiguous.
quote:It was a daring thing for him to say, for only if Cristoforo reached reached Cipangu and returned to Spain would the title Admiral of the Ocean-Sea belong to him. And Cristoforo well knew that last night, when Don Pedro had affirmed that he saw the same light, Sanchez had insisted that there was no light, that there was nothing in the west. If anyone was going to cast doubt on Crisoforo's claim to first sighting, it would be Sanchez. Yet he had supported, if not Cristoforo's testimony, then his authority. (Page 238)
posted
The second example's pronouns exhibit the nearest antecedent subject principle, and clarity who is who therefrom.
The first example exhibits the grammar valency of pronoun-subject referents for clarity, per subjective, objective, possessive, adjective case in terms of transivity: argument between a syntax subject and the capacity of a verb to take a syntax object. A transitive verb takes two arguments, subject and object; a ditransitive verb takes three arguments, subject and two objects; or a tritransitive verb takes four arguments, subject and three objects (or as the case might be, main objects and object complements).
"Why had he not told her?" [Transitive.]
"Perhaps because he knew implicitly that he could trust her with his life." [Tritransitive.]
"Or perhaps because she looked at him with such [piercing] intelligence [Ditransitive, dependent clause, subject complement clause] | that | he knew that no other explanation than the truth would convince her." [Tritransitive, main clause.]
No pronoun ambiguity of who is who or whom or whose in either sample.
An intransitive verb takes a subject argument only, no object arguments, and is avalent. Avalent, or intransitive, verbs and syntax thereof afford powerful sentence and paragraph composition variance. Of the syntax: subject, predicate, no object; thus, of course, not much occasion, either, for complex, compound, complex-compound, loose, or periodic sentences. Rain fell.
Narrative distance of the two samples is another matter altogether: somewhat middle distance narrator for the second; the first, somewhat closer to the viewpoint persona.
Grammar transivity and valence reach rarefied linguistics principle territory, not to mention psychology valence concepts for words, too: the emotional charges' words and contextures might signal, which is a facet of semiotics.
posted
Otherwise, the above pronoun observations are astute and worth the candle burnt. More to unravel, too, about prose expression best appeal practices re pronouns and their relationships to narrative point of view and viewpoint, etc.
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quote:Do you mean that first person, present tense is the only non-writer intrusion narrative point of view or that real-life transpires in a first person, present tense progression?
No. What most pre-published writers miss is that only the narrator uses the selected POV pronouns, and they can use them only to talk about the protagonist, in overview, which is why I say that since the narrator can only "tell" the tense and the person chosen are of lesser importance.
The protagonist's viewpoint lies within that small slice of time they call "now." And viewpoint is, and must be, first person present tense for the one living the story. The only pronouns they use are aimed at others, or part of dialog.
The narrator, being an outside observer, whose vocal emotion cannot be heard, can only speak in support of the protagonist and their actions, in summation. And doing that stops the action. As Jack Bickham put it: “To describe something in detail, you have to stop the action. But without the action, the description has no meaning.”
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Are you saying there is some simple rule for knowing the referent for a pronoun?
quote: Linda gave Patricia her license. She had found it on the floor.
Linda gave Patricia her license. She was grateful.
Isn't the first "her" ambiguous? And the "She" isn't, but only by meaning. Which is to say,
quote: Linda gave Patricia her license. She ...
This "she" is, so far ambiguous. The reader is supposed to be using the meaning of the pronoun to figure out the meaning of the sentence, not somehow using the meaning of the sentence to figure out the meaning of the pronoun.
posted
Just to be clear, there is a "now" of any story. The defining feature of past tense is describing the now of the story in past tense. So a sentence like the following is common:
Now I was unhappy.
The defining feature of present tense is:
Now I am unhappy.
So:
Yesterday I was in France, now I am in Spain, tomorrow I will be in Germany. [present tense]
Yesterday I had been in France, now I was in Spain, tomorrow I would be in Germany. [past tense]
The first sentence, in present tense, has the simpler verbs.
You can also look at the tense of an individual sentence, but that doesn't indicate POV.
This is just a fact. Because of this, past tense doesn't handle the verbs in a flashback as well. It is a nontrivisal problem. I read the wrong meaning at least a few times in King's Lisey's Story.
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posted
Again. First person limits: One limit is that the reader learns only what the focal-character thinks and experiences. If you don't want that limitation, you probably want third person.
But some authors want that limitation. Limiting has advantages, and they want those advantages. So why don't they write in first person present? There must be some reason, right? Especially given the additional problems in pronouns (third person) and tense (using past tense).
I am not saying they should. I am asking, what are the advantages of third person?
It's easier to narrate things in a way the character would not?
It's easier to violate chronological order?
It's easier to use regular verbs in place of progressive tense?
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A thought about the two examples you gave above where the woman was never named, but the men were.
It would seem to me that the example in which the woman is not named implies that the viewpoint character is so close to her that it isn't necessary to give her name. In the viewpoint character's thoughts, there is only she, and to name her would cause distancing.
In the other example, there is more distance between the characters, so they need to be named by the viewpoint character (and therefore by the narrator). Also, there are more than two characters, so naming them helps keep them sorted (but can also be confusing to a reader who has not been previously introduced to them - so not a good example if it were in the opening of the story).
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First person, by default, enjoys the closest, deepest access to an interior of a persona's existence and is subjective for it, open to question and challenge and interpretation. Those are first person strengths.
Third person enjoys a more objective truth of a matter, and greater narrator flexibility than first person. Those are third person strengths.
First person objective is a narrator performance, too. A fully and unequivocally trustworthy first person narrator wants trust and truth objectivity developed and established. By default, third person starts at that sentiment, though can be spoiled soon or late, by design or unintended mistake, or appeal from mistake serendipity.
Third person, close, limited, metaphor for first person, enjoys both objectivity and subjectivity strengths as wanted.
That's a breakdown of first and third person's predominant strengths, matters of degree of subjectivity and objectivity by default or design. For prose, subjectivity is more wanted than objectivity, due to reader interpretation and inference appeals, from active and lively intellectual and emotional participation, that is.
"Yesterday I was in France, now I am in Spain, tomorrow I will be in Germany. [present tense]"
Now moment though a tense sequence: past tense auxiliary, present tense now moment main tense, future tense auxiliary.
"Yesterday I had been in France, now I was in Spain, tomorrow I would be in Germany. [past tense]"
Now moment though a tense sequence: past perfect tense auxiliary, now moment main past tense, conditional future tense auxiliary (subjunctive mood).
Tense also affects subjectivity-objectivity. Past perfect is the more objective, perfect to mean over and done in many respects, events processed for objective conclusions, that is. Future tenses are the more subjective for conditional and, therefore, not yet transpired or processed sequences.
Simple present and simple past are close now moment neighbors, present more subjective from happens now, still unfolds, and subject to interpretation processes of the moment, and still open for conclusions. Past more objective from already this immediate past moment happened and ripe for or already completed interpretation processes and conclusions.
Present tense the more subjective tense; past tense the more objective tense, by default. Which is more a strength is a matter of the wants of a given narrative part or whole. Subjectivity or objectivity appeals? Or artful ambiguity? Discern what facets are subjective and what parts objective, that locates the core theme-moral-message contest of a given narrative.
Science fiction and fantasy want parts that are objective, that intimate the truth of a fiction matter, all fiction and creative nonfiction want facets of objectivity, for that matter, and wants parts that are subjective, that leave outcomes open for interpretation until a bittersweet end.
First person, present tense, works hard for objectivity, enjoys subjectivity appeals by default. Third person, past tense works hard for subjectivity, enjoys objectivity appeals by default. And any given narrative point of view facets between those two now moment spectrum ends, main or auxiliary.
Main third person, past tense, close psychic access, limited to one persona, indicative mood narrative point of view enjoys the most flexibility and motility of subjectivity and objectivity and narrator access out of several dozen narrative points of view. Flexibility and motility are its strengths. Motility: capacity to "zoom in or out" of a single persona's internal and external perceptions and thoughts as well as selective omnipresence, now moment motility who, when, and where context Standpoint to unravel a narrative.
Main third person, past tense, close, limited, indicative allows for middle to remote to detached distance auxiliary narrative points of view and Standpoints, includes perfect, present, and future auxiliary tenses, auxiliary psychic accesses, auxiliary though secondary viewpoint personas, auxiliary subjectivity-objectivity quotients, and auxiliary grammar moods.
First person, present tense is limited to a single persona's Standpoint of who, when, and where context: motility limited to when and where progressions, none for who, some tense, degree of access to the first person persona's internal existence, subjectivity-objectivity axis, grammar mood, etc., motility.
Objectivity and subjectivity are an axis of narrative point of view, in deft hands, are reader-effect appeals.
quote:Originally posted by EmmaSohan: Are you saying there is some simple rule for knowing the referent for a pronoun?
For subjective case pronouns, subject antecedent referents are a simple principle, "antecedent" the operative term and a matter of first antecedent noun. Objective case pronouns enjoy looser antecedent and proximal location principles, especially for prose's de re functions. Possessive and adjective case pronoun principles are looser yet and proximity related as well.
Though personal pronouns are not relative case, like relative pronouns, they are someway proximity related to syntax subjects. Relative pronouns: this, that, these, those, here, there, yonder, etc.
quote:
quote:Linda gave Patricia her license. She ...
This "she" is, so far ambiguous. The reader is supposed to be using the meaning of the pronoun to figure out the meaning of the sentence, not somehow using the meaning of the sentence to figure out the meaning of the pronoun.
The "her" subject referent, as is, is also vague. Linda gave Pat Linda's or Pat's license?
Meaning of a pronoun from a sentence and meaning of a sentence from a pronoun? Both, actually, multiple transitive syntax arguments relative to a predicate verb. Syntax expletive pronouns: it, there, they, for examples, illustrate pronoun intransivity or transivity arguments. It rained. There is a puddle. They buy enough candy for their threesome selves and the whole class. And similar other pronouns without an antecedent, proximal, or overall relative subject referent.
Those above example "her" (adjective case) and "she" (subjective case) pronouns entail vague, as is, subject referents. Context wrap would -- ought should -- clarify who "her" and "she" are. For prose, that involves part a prior, immediate proximity antecedent subject referent, part a loose proximal subject referent, and part an overall subject referent, the latter mostly, from who a given viewpoint persona is and overall de re reference to that whom, as wanted per narrative point of view variants.
//"Your ID, please," Officer Patricia Whict said. Linda gave the Patty Whack cop her license. Actually seventeen, Linda thought, she was twenty-two per the card.//
Might as well be all dramatic, emotional, and ironic about who's who, whom, and what's whose, too, as well as clear, while at and about it anyway.
quote:And no problems, simple perfect clarity with
quote: Linda gave Tom his license. She...
I gave Tom my license. He...
Valid enough. So what are kernel insights from personas of same or opposite sexes and grammar person distinctions for prose purposes?
quote:Originally posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury: A thought about the two examples you gave above where the woman was never named, but the men were.
It would seem to me that the example in which the woman is not named implies that the viewpoint character is so close to her that it isn't necessary to give her name. In the viewpoint character's thoughts, there is only she, and to name her would cause distancing.
In the other example, there is more distance between the characters, so they need to be named by the viewpoint character (and therefore by the narrator). Also, there are more than two characters, so naming them helps keep them sorted (but can also be confusing to a reader who has not been previously introduced to them - so not a good example if it were in the opening of the story).
It was a paragraph in the middle. She had already been mentioned. But that's interesting and may be a factor.
But more looking (this time at Connolly, The Last Coyote) suggests the same: (1) when the pronouns are unambiguous, they get used, and (2) only when the pronouns are ambiguous do names get used a lot. Connolly seemed to like to use "Boesch" exactly once when the pronouns were unambiguous, so he wasn't quite as extreme as the Card example. But the same stark difference was there.
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quote:Originally posted by extrinsic: Third person enjoys ... greater narrator flexibility than first person. Those are third person strengths.
Thanks extrinsic, it might take me some time to absorb what you are saying.
Connolly writes in third person past. Part of the flexibility is that he can describe events that his focal character doesn't experience. But he doesn't do that. An unwanted flexibility.
So there must be some other "flexibility" that he wanted, because he didn't choose third person past for its ease in handling pronouns and flashbacks.
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posted
The Last Coyote, Michael Connelly, 1995, benefits from third person, past tense, close access, limited to one persona, indicative, objective narrative point of view's, metaphor for first person, present tense, potent objectivity and subjectivity flexibility. A standout flexibility: objectivity for the truth of the matter while it unfolds; subjectivity for the viewpoint persona, Hieronymus "Harry" Bosch, his subjective and personal truths of their now moments while they unravel toward an unequivocal, irrevocable global truth outcome.
Dramatic movement, also, from subjectivity to objectivity throughout: doubt to certainty overall.
The first sentence opener is a mite of speech from a disembodied mind shortfall, though; not per se a necessary facet of the narrative point of view type, however, a common convention shortcut to close distance out of the gate for whatever narrative point of view.
quote: Just to be clear, there is a "now" of any story. The defining feature of past tense is describing the now of the story in past tense. So a sentence like the following is common: Now I was unhappy.
Common? “now I was?” Seriously? How often do you use that expression in life?
What you’re missing is that the “now” of the story as the storyteller sees it is irrelevant It’s a report by someone not in the story. And changing the personal pronouns the narrator uses to a different person does not magically change authorial exposition to real-time experience by the protagonist.
Story happens, it’s not talked about by someone not on the scene. First person is narration, like second, and third, comes from someone who is not on the scene. It’s exposition, not action, so the narrator, be that the author, or the author pretending to be the protagonist at an unknown time and place after the events happen, cannot appear onstage with the protagonist and maintain any semblance of reality.
“Now I am unhappy.” = exposition, not action. Presenting it as, “Now, she’s unhappy,” says exactly the same thing with the same lack of emotion because the viewpoint is the narrator’s not the protagonist’s.
quote: Linda gave Patricia her license. She had found it on the floor.
That’s 100% authorial interjection. If the goal is to inform the reader you would use that construct. If the goal is to place the reader into Linda’s viewpoint, though, making her the reader’s avatar, it would be more like:
“Hey, Pat,” Linda said as she retrieved the license she’d found on the floor. “Here, this is yours.”
No need for personal pronoun, and clarity is inherent because the scene is being lived, not explained by someone not on the scene, after-the-fact. It lives in the perception of the protagonist, not the memory of the storyteller, and there are two ticks of the scene-clock: Linda realizes that she has Pat’s license and reaches for it, then presents it along with the expectation that she will respond, presumably by taking it, and responding in some way.
That’s action that we assume sets the scene, moves the plot, or develops character (or perhaps several of them at once). The original only informed the reader, and no real-time action was involved.
quote: Just to be clear, there is a "now" of any story. The defining feature of past tense is describing the now of the story in past tense
But it’s not. Tense is just as irrelevant as person. Both are authorial choices as to the narrator’s voice.
There’s no difference between:
Jack took the hundred-dollar bill from the table and studied it before saying, ”You’re right, it’s counterfeit.” And: Jack takes the hundred-dollar bill from the table and studies it before saying, “You’re right, it’s counterfeit.”
Nor does it change if you use: I took the hundred-dollar bill from the table and studied it before I said, “You’re right, it’s counterfeit.” Or I take the hundred-dollar bill from the table and study it before saying “You’re right, it’s counterfeit.”
The same person takes the same bill from the same table, and reaches rthe same conclusion.
Ihe author is using personal pronouns when talking about the protagonist. The one living the story is in their own present tense no matter what the narrator uses, because tense and person are authorial choices for how they will present the story, and have nothing to do with how the living protagonist views their life.
quote:One limit is that the reader learns only what the focal-character thinks and experiences.
Naa… In both first, and third, the same protagonist notices the tone of voice, the body language, and a hundred things, as we do in life, to determine what’s motivating those they interact with. Again, no difference between:
In response my comment Hank shook his head and said… And: In response to Sid’s comment, Hank shook his head and said…
A first person viewpoint says you can’t change viewpoint mid-scene but it doesn’t limit our protagonist, since s/he’s living the scene in real time and must react in real-time, not overview.
quote: I am asking, what are the advantages of third person?
It’s a but more common. Perhaps that’s because readers prefer it, and so it’s easier to sell?
And as you mentioned, we can change viewpoint mid scene if there’s a strong emotional reason to do so.
quote: It's easier to narrate things in a way the character would not?
A narrator is a narrator. As Sol Stein put it: “In sum, if you want to improve your chances of publication, keep your story visible on stage and yourself mum.”
As for first vs. third, Sol had some observations I like:
“The first-person point of view is valuable, for instance, if you’ve drawn a character who is highly intelligent or perceptive. His or her complex thoughts can be conveyed much more directly and intimately to the reader.”
On the other hand:
“A point sometimes overlooked by beginners is that if a story centers on the narrator’s ability to survive life-threatening dangers, some suspense will be lost in the first person because the character will have to survive to finish the story!”
And finally, because it relates to narration, be it first or third:
“There are three areas in which the writer is particularly vulnerable to telling rather than showing: when he tells what happened before the story began; when he tells what a character looks like; and when he tells what a character senses, that is, what he sees, hears, smells, touches, and tastes. Those are all places where the author’s voice can intrude on the reader’s experience.”
Hope this makes some sense.
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quote:Originally posted by Jay Greenstein: Common? “now I was?” Seriously? How often do you use that expression in life?
In real life, probably never. It's illogical to use a past tense verb to describe something happening in the now.
In third person fiction writing, it's common enough that I didn't bother collecting more examples. You have read it and not noticed just because it's so natural. Who would notice?
And, sorry, but perfect example: You use that a lot when you write. A few from A Chance Encounter:
Now that she was here...
Now they were waiting.
Now she was well and thoroughly pissed.
quote:Originally posted by Jay Greenstein: There’s no difference between:
Jack took the hundred-dollar bill from the table and studied it before saying, ”You’re right, it’s counterfeit.” And: Jack takes the hundred-dollar bill from the table and studies it before saying, “You’re right, it’s counterfeit.”
There is a difference -- #1 is in past tense and #2 is in present. The meaning is that same, which is the point you wanted to make. But that's what I wanted to say too, after noting the difference in tense. And assuming that #1 is from a passage written in the style of past tense, "now" can be added to both sentences and no one will blink.
If #1 is a short flashback from a book written in present tense, then a "now" would be jarring to add.
I checked one other short book.
Now Candy aroused himself. Now the light was lifting as the sun went down, Now her rouged cheeks and her reddened lips made her seem alive... Now Candy spoke his greatest fear
Note that an ellipsis was necessary, because, unlike the example you originally provided, it was part of her real time reaction and internalization, not an observation by a narrator:
Delia swallowed hard. Now that she was here the idea of playing spy seemed an absurdity, as foolish as expecting the man to hire her right off the street. Context matters a great deal.
quote:Now they were waiting.
Again, you quote out of context. In this case, Dee is at a meeting, where she will be introduced as someone who will make huge changes in company procedure, and is understandably nervous, So the words you quoted were part of her personal reaction, not those of a narrator explaining, in overview. It’s a prelude to her action taken in response to her internalization.
The staff, watching her so expectantly, had certainly been discussing her coming and going—as she and Frank prepared for this day—so they knew something important was in the wind. Now they were waiting. And now, after a look around the table, it became plain that giving the speech she’d carefully prepared would be a mistake.
quote:There is a difference -- #1 is in past tense and #2 is in present.
But neither have any relevance for the protagonist. And if they don’t, and are interchangeable, the tense the narrator uses is irrelevant. So the idea that telling a story in first person is, somehow, more relevant or personal is wrong. The same protagonist does the same thing, for the same reasons because they are living in their present.
I never said that you can’t use the word “now,” in a story, only that “Now I was unhappy,” is awkward because you were mixing tenses.
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posted
Um, "Now I was" is awkward and mixing tenses, but "now they were" and "Now that she was" and "now she was" are okay?
We are saying the same thing. There is a story time. The scene clock is on. Time is running. And even though events are described in past tense ("was"), the reader experiences it in present tense.
And all I am saying is that otherwise illogical "now" makes sense. You seem to be agreeing with me that it makes sense when you write it. And your explanation is the same as mine. ("it was part of her real time reaction")
You didn't literally mean "real time", right? It's fiction. You meant story time, right?
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posted
A personal idiolect or a local cohort dialect usage raises numerous prose grammar considerations, glitches, mistakes, and errors. Stream of consciousness grammars or convenient habits, or other, say, a persuasion function through a tic or an outright tic?
Yet convenient habits and tics are natural for and sensible to regular users thereof.
Often, Ing Disease is a tic: a preponderance of -ing words disproprotionate to ordinary use. Jumbled tense sequence is also a tic.
-ing usage overall across the literary corpus amounts to ten percent verbs and includes participles and gerunds. Past perfect and pluperfect amount to ten percent. Simple past amounts to forty percent and includes participles. Simple present amounts to thirty percent. Future and infinitive tenses amount to ten percent. Peculiarly, the ten percent "rule of thumb" principle also applies to passive voice proportion to active voice. How about static to dynamic voice? Uh-huh.
Everyday conversation and extemporaneous speech, and published written works dashed off in a rush on deadlines and for eminent current events, frequency proportions skew toward copious -ing usage and jumbled tense sequences. Incidences of jumbled tense sequences likewise increase the more rushed, convenient habits, and tics background a work.
In any case, prose wants variety and eloquence of a greater degree than everyday-trivial conversation convenient habits and tics. A semblance, as wanted for dramatic effect, of conversational expression, yes, not as real-world proportioned habits and tics. For prose, that is through conscious diction and syntax register efforts for clarity and eloquence strength appeals, includes narrative point of view facet selections.
The above approximate stats according to several Word Lists by Frequency surveys of extant works, intended for composition and vocabulary expansion pedagogy.
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quote:You didn't literally mean "real time", right? It's fiction. You meant story time, right?
If your story doesn't give the reader the feeling that the story is happening in real-time they're reading a report. People don't read horror, for example, to learn that the protagonist is terrified, they want the author to terrify them. And that only happens if the reader feels they're living the story in real;-time, with the protagonist as their avatar.
That's why viewpoint matters so much. A dispassionate outside observer explaining what they see as happening in the story can give no illusion of reality. Only when the reader is immersed in the action, as the protagonist, will they become emotionally involved.
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quote:Originally posted by Jay Greenstein:If your story doesn't give the reader the feeling that the story is happening in real-time they're reading a report.
This is one of the reasons I generally dislike first person: way too often it slides into retrospective voice (not that third can't, but first does it routinely) -- where the protag tells you about what happened some other time. It's not happening now; it happened then. Frex, where everything is in the form of:
She wasn’t going to get much sleep that night.
that night -- is not tonight. It's some other night. We're being told about it at a later date; we're not living it.
Regardless of person/tense/voice, it helps enormously to get rid of needless filtering, where we're told what the POV-character thinks or feels or sees from a distance, rather than having it happen in realtime -- as if we need to constantly remind the reader whose eyeballs we're looking out from, so we get:
I saw him walk across the road and throw something into the ditch.
First we have to parse seeing (who else would it be?), and then we get to the action. More direct (happening, not being described) would be:
He walked across the road and threw something into the ditch.
where because we already know whose POV we're reading, it's obvious "I" observed these events; we don't need to be told that.
Now, if you need to point out that "I" wasn't supposed to see him sneak over there and dispose of something, then the first form might be in order. But it's a specialized form for a specific purpose, and shouldn't be weakened by abusive filtering.
As to another bit that came up about tenses... one might hear this dialog:
Bob slurped his beer. "So I'm standing on the corner in front of Joe's Bar, and this guy comes along wearing nothing but a tutu."
Obviously Bob is storytelling an incident from the past, not something happening this instant, despite the dialog's apparent present tense. It could be done in simple past, but here he's reliving the incident for his audience, which is what good storytellers do.
And note how that changes Bob's voice, and our expectation that the story will continue:
Bob slurped his beer. "I was standing on the corner in front of Joe's Bar, and this guy went by wearing nothing but a tutu."
Or if you want Bob to sound like he learned English from a book, or is perhaps relaying the incident to the cops:
Bob slurped his beer. "I stood on the corner in front of Joe's Bar. A man went by, wearing nothing but a tutu."
Point being, don't get so hung up on perfect structure that the story winds up sounding robotic. Natural-sounding prose that pulls along the reader isn't always technically-correct.
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quote:Originally posted by Jay Greenstein:If your story doesn't give the reader the feeling that the story is happening in real-time they're reading a report.
This is one of the reasons I generally dislike first person: way too often it slides into retrospective voice (not that third can't, but first does it routinely) -- where the protag tells you about what happened some other time. It's not happening now; it happened then. Frex, where everything is in the form of:
She wasn’t going to get much sleep that night.
that night -- is not tonight. It's some other night. We're being told about it at a later date; we're not living it.
I am not sure what you are saying. That sentence seems to be third person past. First person present, I am expecting
I'm not going to get much sleep tonight.
Does that solve the problem? Of course, that would have to be taken as her thought, leaving out (as we seem to agree should happen)
[I suspect] I'm not going to get much sleep tonight
With "that night" now being an obvious mistake.
Third person, that sentence sounds like the narrator is explaining the future, which to me is a different issue. Ionce read something like
She woke up this morning.....
It was "this morning" to the author and reader, not the character.
No one seems to call out first person present for its failures to follow the assumed limitations. I would like to understand better why people don't like first person present.
Posts: 407 | Registered: Apr 2018
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"She wasn’t going to get much sleep that night."
Negation statement, past progressive future infinitive tense predicate (oh my!), subjunctive mood, time distance proximity pronoun "that" demonstrative case intensifier : intensively introduces a restrictive word, phrase, or clause -- "night," that is, tonight. Idiomatic expression predicate, stream of consciousness, third person narrator received reflection thought, possible litotes.
In the future, later the night of the same day, she thinks she would sleep little. Leaves open, due to litotes' congruent opposite irony, she might be surprised to sleep well, despite her thought.
Clutter reduced and per Standard English grammar principles:
//She would sleep little that night.//
Or litotes, clearer and stronger irony, situational irony in particular:
//No, she would sleep little, if any at all, that night.//
Wants for contexture wrap in any case, too. The expression is a patent conditional conclusion per tension segment sequences, third segment; that is, a partial tension relief segment, wants prior tension setup and relief delay segments, and later payoff delivery.
Litotes : understated congruent opposite meaning of a statement's plain sense read, often affirms the positive opposite of a negation statement. ---- "this morning" is likewise a time distance proximity pronoun demonstrative case intensifier "this," a closer, more adjacent relative time distance than counterpart "that." A third similar pronoun is yonder, further or farther yet removed time or place.
First person, overall, a primary reader discomfort with the person is too easy and convenient vanities of the narrator person, lends itself to writer surrogacy's self-idealization and self-efficacy brags and gloats of improbable and unnatural human beauty, truth, goodness, and ability, also known as Mary Sue or Marty Stew. Plus, too much self-narrator filtration lenses.
Present tense's objections are related to too easy and convenient static voice of the three degrees and, due to static-ness, restricted Standpoint immersion, alignment, or rapport.
In other words, effective first person, present tense challenges writers and readers more than other narrative points of view, except second person auxiliary of first person.
quote:She wasn’t going to get much sleep that night.
The line, unless there's something that mitigates, fails because only the author knows what's going to happen later in the story, so this crystal-ball interjection falls into the dreaded "Little did Timmy know that in four days, he..." construct, where the author becomes an active character onstage (and the author receives a rejection).
Here's the thing: if she doesn't wake up exhausted from a night of tossing and turning that will interfere with her actions and decision-making, who cares? There was no need to mention it. And if it does matter, why tell about her coming lack of sleep when simply staying in her viewpoint tells the reader the same thing, naturally, and in context?
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