Narrative Voice

As promised some thoughts on aspects of manuscript editing/critiquing. 

Third person shenanigans

Most writers luckily have an instinct for viewpoints.  I say luckily, as you would not believe how complicated the whole thing is when you try and break it down.  Still, even if you are pretty comfortable with first person, third person etc... it is so easy to make little mistakes, especially in longer works, so it is worth doing a wee bitty research into the whole thing.

I am just going to cover third person viewpoints in this article, and I will try and speak as plain English as possible.  Third person is a tricky little devil and in my previous incarnation as a manuscript reader a lot of time was spent tutoring on this subject.  Most of my writers found understanding the viewpoint in more depth improved their narrative voice considerably, and helped them avoid common narrative pitfalls in future writing.

Firstly I'll start of with breaking down the third person viewpoint breaks into its three main techniques:

            1) Third Person Objective -this is a very minimal technique in which the author persona is almost completely absent and all events are described minus any emotional or editorial input.  Without this input, the author is not actively guiding the reader towards understanding the moral tone, which makes for a challenging and sometimes powerful read.  Basically the reader is left entirely alone to interpret motive and moral tone.

            2) Third Person Limited - this is a common technique in which the author uses a single character to act as a witness for the reader.  With this single viewpoint readers will find it easy to know whom they need ``invest'' in or identify with and so in this respect is more  "reader friendly".  However this technique is difficult to adapt when an author wishes to create a more complex plot and moral tone, as the reader only ever sees one viewpoint.

            3) Third Person Omniscient - this is most in depth of the third person viewpoints, and can be split itself in 3 sub techniques. The main benefit of this viewpoint is that the author's persona can be very strong, taking as tight grip on moral tone and motive as the writer wishes. 

  Firstly the narrative voice could be 'roaming' - the author persona taking on the thoughts and views of the character currently narrating the action. 

Secondly the author persona could be 'interrupting', intervening from time to time to supply necessary information (such as mini info dumps at the beginning of chapters), leaving the actions and dialogue of the characters to speak for themselves.

Lastly the author persona can be 'editing', taking a very dominating attitude to the characters and events, and constantly commenting upon them and their actions - clearly defining moral tone and motive.  This 'editing' role usually manifests as a character in the story - but distanced from main events, a separate narrator.  .

To help you understand a bit more I have attached a couple of extracts from manuscript critiques, which deal with approaches to different third person techniques:

Third Person Omniscient - 'roaming':

 " This is a great choice as it gives you a good deal of freedom in which to develop the story and is one of the more 'reader friendly' viewpoints.  It works especially well in crime stories with complex plots or large settings where we must use multiple viewpoints to tell the whole story.

From the point of view of the average reader the pairing of the 'omniscient' and 'roaming is a good, easy to read combination. It helps avoid too much unnatural intrusion from the author, especially concerning sentimentality (when the author's editorial rhetoric tries to evoke an emotional response that the story's events cannot evoke by themselves), mannerism (too much stylistic flamboyance, quirks of diction etc.) and frigidity (when the persona's excessive objectivity trivializes events or nullify emotions). 

In this case you have used this style to give us access to a variety of realistic characters and as your author intrusion is minimal, it is up to us, the reader to decide whether these characters are good or bad from their thoughts and actions.  One character that exemplifies this is Ann.    In the climatic ending Ann is revealed as having taken part in her husband's murder.  Because you have used the 'omniscient' viewpoint we have been able to witness Ann's thoughts and emotions throughout the story, and so we have an intimate understanding of her personality.   Though she may be a prominent media personality like her husband, she has still retained her humanity and this is shown in various little kindnesses - such as the help she provides Andrea and John when they run into money troubles.   We see that she is no ruthless killer, but instead a woman who has endured too much from her cold-hearted husband, and perhaps is too susceptible to the pressure exerted by the dominant pairing of her sister and her husband's 'mistress'.

The use of the 'roaming' works well in your manuscript with the 'third person omniscient' because you have a fairly complicated plot, involving many different settings from media studios to sports grounds.  This cannot all be explained by dialogue and so by occasionally using your author persona to describe settings, especially at the beginning of chapters you successfully inform the reader of the background whilst not distracting from the plot.

I would like to see just a little more interruption in the first chapter, as we jump straight into the dialogue which doesn't itself explain the setting/background clearly.  Without a good sense of where things are happening it is difficult for the reader to successfully follow the action and so they may lose interest.

I was pleased to see you showed a variety of characters POV often at the very beginning.  A mistake often made with this viewpoint is that the author fixates to closely with one character in the very beginning and the reader automatically starts to identify very closely with them.  This makes it difficult later on when the author begins to introduce a host of characters viewpoints - making the plot seem disjointed and this nullifying the effectiveness of the third person POV." 

Extract reproduced with permission from Robbins and Ward Manuscript Consultants 2008 UK

Character names and situations have been changed to protect author publishing rights.

Disclaimer - Please seek permission from RWMC before reproducing this extract.

Third person limited:

"....this is a good choice, as readers will find it easy to know whom they need invest in or identify with, because they will only see the views of one main character.   This follows the formulaic pattern of 'Chick Lit' well, where there is one strong female protagonist on whom the main plot revolves.  

However I do feel you have made several sizeable errors with your narrative voice, which do need attention.  

           Firstly you start the book from the point of view of the character Adele.   We follow her exploits for 2 chapters and then you switch over to the main character of Sarah.  You then stay with this character for the rest of the manuscript.  When you are using the third person limited you must stay with one main character only, otherwise the reader will be confused and disorientated. 

            You introduced the character of Adele successfully in the first two chapters and I found that as the reader, I began to identify well with her.  This meant that when you introduced the main character of Sarah later on I wasn't really interested, as I had already invested in

Adele and kept wondering when we would get back to her - which of course we never did. 

Although I did think Sarah was the stronger character the fact you introduced another character first lessoned her impact within the book.

 There are three possible ways you can amend this.  Firstly you could just cut the first two chapters, and amalgamate Adele's experiences into the rest of the chapters through Sarah's eyes.  Or you could (as Adele and Sarah are very similar characters) rewrite and amalgamate the two characters into one - this would enrich the main character and keep the action from the first two chapters relevant.  Or finally - and this would be quite a major undertaking - you could amend the point of view throughout the novel to the 'third person omniscient', which is when the story is told through a variety of characters viewpoints.  This would allow you to keep Adele's viewpoint but does mean you must bring her and also some other characters viewpoints back into the manuscript at some stage.  However I do not think this last option would be successful in view of the genre you have chosen.  Readers of 'Chick Lit' enjoy getting to know one character very well, and seeing events through their point of view only.