I always think of tone as a final-draft move: the kind of thing it's easier to be subtle and clever about when you know the shape of the full story. Tone choices are all over first drafts, sure, but I think too much anxiety over whether they're effective or not can bog down the flow state.
For anyone struggling with tonal issues, I'd advise pressing ahead, and focusing on simply getting the shape and thrust of the narrative the way you want it. No one nails voice on a first draft; one of the several reasons that editing can be so cognitively rewarding.
I agree with this. I love to play with voice. But this sense of play only possible when I let things infold without judging them too much. I love this element of surprise, when these completely imaginary characters do, and say things I could have never imagined. My only job is to type. Then, comes the second (and third, fourth… ) draft, where I put my analytical/ craft hat on and see if it works/ could work better. But the first draft for me is pure play , even if it’s « shit »….
I appreciate that you mention 'not judging them too much'; judgement is consistently a stopping point for me. I might write and then start to categorize a character as weak/dull/jerk and we don't know why/too innocent, etc. etc. How to lessen the noise of judging to keep writing - helps to have the reminder!
I just want to take this moment to thank Mr. Saunders for this incredible site & "community" he has created. I have been a professional writer for over twenty years & one of the things I truly love about writing is how challenging it is & how one should strive to always get better at the craft. Story Club is a wonderful gift to all of us who endeavor to be storytellers.
Great piece on tone voice, George. I don't think about consistency. I just follow the story, or whatever kind of writing it is, and now and then circle back with dustpan and broom and clean up after it. Something like that.
As a playwright, I'm looking at this from a slightly different perspective, though hopefully not one that's completely irrelevant; though I guess that means this is more about the voices of my characters, rather than any overall consistency (or otherwise) of tone.
Given most of what I write is dialogue, things like tone, vocab, and subtext are vital in helping to express something more than exposition. People speak differently depending on their emotional state, what they want and what they're willing to do to get it, who else is in the room, etc, etc.
It's not impossible to directly illustrate the internal lives of my characters - monologues still work well in the theatre; but if I don't go down that route, then what people say and how they say it are the signposts I use.
I once saw a short out-take from a local news item in which a dairy farmer was being interviewed. The off-camera reporter asked him a question, and the farmer replied in quite a formal way, almost like he was a presenter himself. He then saw something (perhaps a gate was open that shouldn't've been, I don't quite remember the details), and shouted in a very informal but dominant way to someone else off camera to rectify it. He then in a conversational tone asked the reporter where they were up to, then returned to his own 'presenter' tone - all in the space of a minute.
If those shifts of tone can happen in the real world, in such a short space of time, then they can surely happen over the course of a whole story.
For me, the thing that 'jars' is if I've taken so long to write a play, my perspective changes along the way. If it's taken so long that I'm essentially a different person by the end, this is inevitable. That's one of the reasons I'm working on becoming a much faster writer - which is also more fun, and helps me write with a better 'feel' rather than becoming too literal or analytical.
I'm fascinated by the idea that "... a changing tone is really about the narrator changing, in response to the events of the story." I have a character whose mindset is currently shifting, as has her voice. I have been worrying about it, but now I think I might just need to explore what her new voice might be. Thank you for the helpful post!
OK, after reading this about “voice” and “tone,” I am reminded of my previous and current habits not only in my writing but in my life.
What am I saying about the world? How am I saying it?
I know (but usually discount) it doesn’t matter how important I think my words are, if I use the wrong “tone of voice” I will be ignored. I have to say I haven’t been ignored, really, but I’ve gotten into trouble numerous times for not expressing my “voice” properly in certain contexts.
Plus, I’ve discovered that when writing stories or plays, my voice is constantly attempting to interrupt the characters.
It’s like going into a room for the first time that’s full of strangers. I walk in with my own baggage, OK, I mean by own sense of how the world works for me and how I approach it. The people in the room have their ideas. But I’m not listening. I’m trying to protect my own ideas.
It’s really a battle between “voice” and “tone” all the time for me.
I agree with George about “consistency.” I mean a well-crafted story can have numerous characters with seemingly disparate agendas as portrayed through dialogue and narrative details about them. But, a reader will still be cruising along comfortably with the author. In other words, we still know the author is there.
I really like how George writes: “ … different characters are stepping up to the microphone, and are allowed as many excesses and idiosyncrasies as the reader will tolerate. ...” Yes, absolutely.
I think I tend to be afraid my developing characters will contradict my “voice.” Well, then perhaps I don’t know my own voice as well as I thought I did? It takes courage to let those characters have their times at the microphone, don’t you think? This could be exciting, huh?
I love the way you put this, and the reflection that your own voice wants to argue with the character. I find when this happens it shows the character really is speaking for themselves. I learned a different way of being thanks to the two main female characters in my debut novel so I'm glad I gave them rein. I've mentioned before that interviewing them helped me find their voices.
Consistency of voice is one of those writing things that sounds like a rule, but actually you can break it anytime the story wants it broken--even if you aren't sure why the story wants to break it while you're writing it.
You have to follow the energy and take it on faith that the reason is there... though it's helpful to look at it later to see if you can work out why, so that you can ensure you support that throughout the story in revision.
Actually, all the writing things that sound like rules go that way. They all can be broken if the story wants it broken.
As a historical fiction writer I have needed to locate voice sometimes. This means I can't rely on myself to just come up with it, I need to research to find the original voices.
I've found this to be particularly true in respect to lower class characters or women or indigenous people who did not have agency in a system where the narrators composed the system and had a stake in its development and how that was viewed, the baton of privilege handed to privilege.
I am far more interested in those who had less power and how they expressed this.
I found some great voices in original court records - not the transcribed, formalised speech - but the original voices recorded by journalists. Here were women and men flouting the law, declaring their statements for freedom, spurning the system, and doing it in style with theatre and voice. I fell in love and had to release them in my fiction.
When finding the voice for my missionary character I researched the diaries of missionaries and found horror stories, fatal misunderstandings, and regrets.
Real voices are very different to those presented as suitable for serving to the public. They love being found. They scream at us that they are sick of being buried. They leap up from the grave to thump the table.
This is so interesting. I'm not sure this is the same thing, but I've noticed, especially in literary fiction, really tight beginnings--everything's under control--and then the book releases into something else--looser and more conversational language. I'm sure it's a consequence of the author polishing the 1st, and maybe 2nd chapters, more than the rest of the book. For a reader, it can be jolting. It's not necessarily bad. I've just noticed it. Perhaps this phenomenon is something different, though?
I've often thought opening sections get a lot more attention from the editor because that's what readers look at before buying a book, and sometimes that's all that book reviewers read, too. (Sometimes you can tell the exact page the reviewer stopped reading.) But I don't think that's quite the same thing as what the questioner was asking about.
I think one thing we may be talking about here is the believability of a tonal shift — will a shift or break in continuity fly with reader? — and the connection this tonal believability may have with a corresponding shift or variation in the continuity of the character(s) it’s describing. If that character shift (or shift in a narrator’s voice — whether it be maturation, revelation, degeneration, contraction or expansion of view, etc. — is not believable in some way, a noticeable attempt at a corresponding change in tone or voice might not work either. Maybe in such a case, the character shift itself needs to be rethought — or maybe it could work, but needs to shored up by more detail to support a potentially jarring shift or break in character continuity. Interesting topic to think about.
Thank you George. That's such a helpful tip about the omniscient narration being used as a transition. The room observed, the statement that it is yellow, and then this colour is 'felt' through the eyes of the character. I don't think I've read or listened to a story more than 'Mother's Day'. When I first came across it in The New Yorker I was captivated. I was so completely in one - not particularly likeable - character's head, and then hey presto, I'd crossed the street into another.
I had this sense of the story of both women, their totally different perspectives. I saw their lives shaped around a man, and their perspective of the other woman, which was not a correct perspective. I knew this. I wanted to shout at them - you are wrong, she isn't like this, or 'it is his fault', and why was this? Why did I have such loyalty to one character and then the other, each in their way, an unreliable narrator? I had this feeling for them, a love for them, a sympathy, because I saw life through their lens, and if I moved out I could see that this view of their own life was not completely correct, and that saddened me.
You give us voice and with voice you conjure empathy. I am so completely immersed in the sound and the visuals of the character's world that I care, I truly care about them. And this does help me care for the wider world, for all people, and all that binds us.
So, once again, thank you. Both for the writing tip and for the way you help me connect to life with empathy and hope.
Two short stories with noticeable changes in tone come to mind. The first is Salinger's "For Esme, With Love and Squalor," where not only the tone but the point of view changes from first person to third person. Salinger apparently felt that the story required or was best told with a radical shift, perhaps to dramatize what we would now call PTSD and throw it into sharp relief against the more peaceful episode between the two main characters.
The second story that came to mind for me is Tobias Wolff's "Firelight"--the story starts out describing one set of circumstances, and then all of a sudden the narrator says "There is pleasure to be found in the purchase of goods and services. I enjoy it myself now, playing the part of a man who knows what he wants and can take it home with him." It's kind of a jolt, and as I write this it occurs to me that this might even be a deliberate effect, given that the story is in part about escaping deprivation and what it feels like to reach escape velocity for only a short time, only to be jolted back to earth.
I note that both of these stories use the changes to signal a different time, to indicate that events from a later period will be juxtaposed against the events described early on. I don't know if that is helpful to the questioner. It does seem to me that Salinger and Wolff must have given themselves permission at some point to bend their stories out of absolute consistency, perhaps as George says, "in response to the events of the story."
It's hearing the voices of all those characters on that second doodled not book page -
"Me, me... my turn at the mic" / "Aw just bide your turn short stuff" / "Well that takes the biscuit, how rude do you need to be me? / "Give me a break? You? Bursting with something underwhelming to say! / "Now, now, please, can't we just be kinder to one another? Someone's gonna' make it to the mic, get to be the pick, if it's not me I'll still the kind kinda' kid I've always been. Honest." / "You're right, let's face it this is an audition for a bit part, not a party political convention."
- not that I'm sure the 'it' is, or that I'm hearing rather than just imagining, but if there's anyone on the page or standing just off it who hasn't got a word in yet please don't be shy: make yourself heard! Others have, so why not you too?
A friend recently shared a story with me that broke tone toward the end. At least, it did from my perspective. I pointed it out that he might want to fix it, but this post makes me question my critique. When I noticed that the tone changed, I dove back into the piece to see how it had changed. What was the tone like before? How did he set it? What was my reaction when it changed? Where did it take me? The shift, intentional or not, challenged me as a reader to become more engaged in the piece. To be active, rather than passive. It reminds me a bit of music and how adding a note outside the key to a song can wake up the listener and add a flavor/color you didn't expect.
This is really weird and exactly at the right time for me.
I recently finished my second edit on a short story 18,000 words. It starts off in the 1st person and changes to the 3rd person in the second chapter, then goes back to the lst person and alternates thereafter.
It was only on the second edit that I realised the first narrator was unreliable in that he does not always tell the truth. This is only clear later on when the inconsistencies become obvious. However, as the story continues his arc begins to change and develop because of the 'good' influence of his aunt, but he is still under the spell of the 'evil' antagonist.
I quite like the idea of the first narrator being unreliable - he is 10 yrs old.
This is my first experimental story - I am still learning the craft - but I am quite pleased with it.
PS In view of this article I will probably go back and edit again, and again and again! My full novel was edited 30 times before I was relatively happy with it.
I wonder if the story might work better in all close third (rather than switching back and forth with first). Keep the different povs, but maintain a more consistent narrative with the close third. I have a novel that started as four different first person voices, but when I switched it to all close third (with the four povs), it worked so much better. Happy writing, in any case!
I had wondered about switching to 3rd, but rejected it because the child =1st person, has a particular voice - of the annoying little sh.... person, with snob value - a class value thing, and I couldn't work out how to do that without using the 1st person. Neither could I work out how to tell the tale with all 1st person because there are other characters who go on mimi quests that he is not privy to - so how could he know about what was happening with them?
Basically it works - I think, I have had one person read it and this problem did not come up.
Let me ask about this variant. If you are writing a humorous novel, the overall tone is very important to maintain. Dialogue shimmers and crackles and bounces back and forth in a way that is clearly not realistic, but all the more enjoyable for being banter or barbs of wit. While one measure of a novel’s worth is in the creation of distinctive voices for the characters, I think the tone of a comedic novel works against this metric. Part of the pleasure comes from the fact that most of the characters are witty or at least comical, and, as a result,their literal voices may not be easily differentiated.
I think they can be because of all kinds of intrinsic expressions of character and extrinsic factors like role and so forth. Think of Jeeves and Bertie. I wish I knew more contemporary writers but I don’t know any who write comedy. Maybe you can help me out?
Yes, all kinds of indicators of character other than dialogue. But if you look at a comic masterpiece like The Philadelphia Story, I challenge anyone to say which line came from which character based on the “voice.” Can you tell Tracy Lord for Elizabeth Imbrie from the line alone??
I’m going to have to read it! Sorry I don’t know it as a novel. This is a challenge and maybe the characters are not differentiated because that was not the purpose of the author who may have opted for a single voice in order to prioritise the humour. I’m going to have to get hold of a copy.
I didn’t mean to throw you for a loop. It isn’t a novel—only a script for the play. I haven’t read the script for the movie, but it follows the play fairly closely. I used it as an example because I think it has some of the best dialogue and lines ever written.
I guess this might depend partly on what's currently 'in vogue'.
Perhaps it's only my own preference, but thinking of plays (or indeed films) in which wit (or battles of wits) plays a big part, the ones that stick in my mind often have two fairly well-matched 'wits' at the centre - so, if you'll allow me to stretch the definition of 'wit' here and there, the ones that spring to mind are things like Much Ado About Nothing, When Harry Met Sally, His Girl Friday, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (I'm sure others will occur to me).
Like Cassandra, I'm not familiar with The Philadelphia Story, though I can think of some plays / films with more than two witty characters - The Importance of Being Earnest, for example. I guess if the writer is witty enough, and a good enough writer, they can make that work, regardless of fashion.
With most of the theatrical dramaturgs I've worked with recently, describing dialogue as 'banter' is very much not a compliment, and there seems to be a consensus that one sign of 'good' writing is when you can cover up the names of the speakers and still work out who's who from the way they speak.
Like all fashions and orthodoxies, there will be exceptions.
Mrs Maisel popped into my head the other day as an example of great storytelling with multiple witty characters. I'd say you can definitely sense the author(s) at work, but when the dialogue's this sharp, that's not necessarily a bad thing.
I always think of tone as a final-draft move: the kind of thing it's easier to be subtle and clever about when you know the shape of the full story. Tone choices are all over first drafts, sure, but I think too much anxiety over whether they're effective or not can bog down the flow state.
For anyone struggling with tonal issues, I'd advise pressing ahead, and focusing on simply getting the shape and thrust of the narrative the way you want it. No one nails voice on a first draft; one of the several reasons that editing can be so cognitively rewarding.
Even tone-perfect authors don't get there easy. Hemingway:
"I rewrote 'A Farewell to Arms' at least fifty times. You've got to work it over. The first draft of anything is shit."
I agree with this. I love to play with voice. But this sense of play only possible when I let things infold without judging them too much. I love this element of surprise, when these completely imaginary characters do, and say things I could have never imagined. My only job is to type. Then, comes the second (and third, fourth… ) draft, where I put my analytical/ craft hat on and see if it works/ could work better. But the first draft for me is pure play , even if it’s « shit »….
I appreciate that you mention 'not judging them too much'; judgement is consistently a stopping point for me. I might write and then start to categorize a character as weak/dull/jerk and we don't know why/too innocent, etc. etc. How to lessen the noise of judging to keep writing - helps to have the reminder!
I hear, hear
Yes! The shit is where the interesting stuff happens 😁
I love this shit :)
I just want to take this moment to thank Mr. Saunders for this incredible site & "community" he has created. I have been a professional writer for over twenty years & one of the things I truly love about writing is how challenging it is & how one should strive to always get better at the craft. Story Club is a wonderful gift to all of us who endeavor to be storytellers.
Great piece on tone voice, George. I don't think about consistency. I just follow the story, or whatever kind of writing it is, and now and then circle back with dustpan and broom and clean up after it. Something like that.
As a playwright, I'm looking at this from a slightly different perspective, though hopefully not one that's completely irrelevant; though I guess that means this is more about the voices of my characters, rather than any overall consistency (or otherwise) of tone.
Given most of what I write is dialogue, things like tone, vocab, and subtext are vital in helping to express something more than exposition. People speak differently depending on their emotional state, what they want and what they're willing to do to get it, who else is in the room, etc, etc.
It's not impossible to directly illustrate the internal lives of my characters - monologues still work well in the theatre; but if I don't go down that route, then what people say and how they say it are the signposts I use.
I once saw a short out-take from a local news item in which a dairy farmer was being interviewed. The off-camera reporter asked him a question, and the farmer replied in quite a formal way, almost like he was a presenter himself. He then saw something (perhaps a gate was open that shouldn't've been, I don't quite remember the details), and shouted in a very informal but dominant way to someone else off camera to rectify it. He then in a conversational tone asked the reporter where they were up to, then returned to his own 'presenter' tone - all in the space of a minute.
If those shifts of tone can happen in the real world, in such a short space of time, then they can surely happen over the course of a whole story.
For me, the thing that 'jars' is if I've taken so long to write a play, my perspective changes along the way. If it's taken so long that I'm essentially a different person by the end, this is inevitable. That's one of the reasons I'm working on becoming a much faster writer - which is also more fun, and helps me write with a better 'feel' rather than becoming too literal or analytical.
I'm fascinated by the idea that "... a changing tone is really about the narrator changing, in response to the events of the story." I have a character whose mindset is currently shifting, as has her voice. I have been worrying about it, but now I think I might just need to explore what her new voice might be. Thank you for the helpful post!
Hello everyone,
OK, after reading this about “voice” and “tone,” I am reminded of my previous and current habits not only in my writing but in my life.
What am I saying about the world? How am I saying it?
I know (but usually discount) it doesn’t matter how important I think my words are, if I use the wrong “tone of voice” I will be ignored. I have to say I haven’t been ignored, really, but I’ve gotten into trouble numerous times for not expressing my “voice” properly in certain contexts.
Plus, I’ve discovered that when writing stories or plays, my voice is constantly attempting to interrupt the characters.
It’s like going into a room for the first time that’s full of strangers. I walk in with my own baggage, OK, I mean by own sense of how the world works for me and how I approach it. The people in the room have their ideas. But I’m not listening. I’m trying to protect my own ideas.
It’s really a battle between “voice” and “tone” all the time for me.
I agree with George about “consistency.” I mean a well-crafted story can have numerous characters with seemingly disparate agendas as portrayed through dialogue and narrative details about them. But, a reader will still be cruising along comfortably with the author. In other words, we still know the author is there.
I really like how George writes: “ … different characters are stepping up to the microphone, and are allowed as many excesses and idiosyncrasies as the reader will tolerate. ...” Yes, absolutely.
I think I tend to be afraid my developing characters will contradict my “voice.” Well, then perhaps I don’t know my own voice as well as I thought I did? It takes courage to let those characters have their times at the microphone, don’t you think? This could be exciting, huh?
I love the way you put this, and the reflection that your own voice wants to argue with the character. I find when this happens it shows the character really is speaking for themselves. I learned a different way of being thanks to the two main female characters in my debut novel so I'm glad I gave them rein. I've mentioned before that interviewing them helped me find their voices.
Consistency of voice is one of those writing things that sounds like a rule, but actually you can break it anytime the story wants it broken--even if you aren't sure why the story wants to break it while you're writing it.
You have to follow the energy and take it on faith that the reason is there... though it's helpful to look at it later to see if you can work out why, so that you can ensure you support that throughout the story in revision.
Actually, all the writing things that sound like rules go that way. They all can be broken if the story wants it broken.
As a historical fiction writer I have needed to locate voice sometimes. This means I can't rely on myself to just come up with it, I need to research to find the original voices.
I've found this to be particularly true in respect to lower class characters or women or indigenous people who did not have agency in a system where the narrators composed the system and had a stake in its development and how that was viewed, the baton of privilege handed to privilege.
I am far more interested in those who had less power and how they expressed this.
I found some great voices in original court records - not the transcribed, formalised speech - but the original voices recorded by journalists. Here were women and men flouting the law, declaring their statements for freedom, spurning the system, and doing it in style with theatre and voice. I fell in love and had to release them in my fiction.
When finding the voice for my missionary character I researched the diaries of missionaries and found horror stories, fatal misunderstandings, and regrets.
Real voices are very different to those presented as suitable for serving to the public. They love being found. They scream at us that they are sick of being buried. They leap up from the grave to thump the table.
This is so interesting. I'm not sure this is the same thing, but I've noticed, especially in literary fiction, really tight beginnings--everything's under control--and then the book releases into something else--looser and more conversational language. I'm sure it's a consequence of the author polishing the 1st, and maybe 2nd chapters, more than the rest of the book. For a reader, it can be jolting. It's not necessarily bad. I've just noticed it. Perhaps this phenomenon is something different, though?
I've often thought opening sections get a lot more attention from the editor because that's what readers look at before buying a book, and sometimes that's all that book reviewers read, too. (Sometimes you can tell the exact page the reviewer stopped reading.) But I don't think that's quite the same thing as what the questioner was asking about.
I think one thing we may be talking about here is the believability of a tonal shift — will a shift or break in continuity fly with reader? — and the connection this tonal believability may have with a corresponding shift or variation in the continuity of the character(s) it’s describing. If that character shift (or shift in a narrator’s voice — whether it be maturation, revelation, degeneration, contraction or expansion of view, etc. — is not believable in some way, a noticeable attempt at a corresponding change in tone or voice might not work either. Maybe in such a case, the character shift itself needs to be rethought — or maybe it could work, but needs to shored up by more detail to support a potentially jarring shift or break in character continuity. Interesting topic to think about.
Thank you George. That's such a helpful tip about the omniscient narration being used as a transition. The room observed, the statement that it is yellow, and then this colour is 'felt' through the eyes of the character. I don't think I've read or listened to a story more than 'Mother's Day'. When I first came across it in The New Yorker I was captivated. I was so completely in one - not particularly likeable - character's head, and then hey presto, I'd crossed the street into another.
I had this sense of the story of both women, their totally different perspectives. I saw their lives shaped around a man, and their perspective of the other woman, which was not a correct perspective. I knew this. I wanted to shout at them - you are wrong, she isn't like this, or 'it is his fault', and why was this? Why did I have such loyalty to one character and then the other, each in their way, an unreliable narrator? I had this feeling for them, a love for them, a sympathy, because I saw life through their lens, and if I moved out I could see that this view of their own life was not completely correct, and that saddened me.
You give us voice and with voice you conjure empathy. I am so completely immersed in the sound and the visuals of the character's world that I care, I truly care about them. And this does help me care for the wider world, for all people, and all that binds us.
So, once again, thank you. Both for the writing tip and for the way you help me connect to life with empathy and hope.
Two short stories with noticeable changes in tone come to mind. The first is Salinger's "For Esme, With Love and Squalor," where not only the tone but the point of view changes from first person to third person. Salinger apparently felt that the story required or was best told with a radical shift, perhaps to dramatize what we would now call PTSD and throw it into sharp relief against the more peaceful episode between the two main characters.
The second story that came to mind for me is Tobias Wolff's "Firelight"--the story starts out describing one set of circumstances, and then all of a sudden the narrator says "There is pleasure to be found in the purchase of goods and services. I enjoy it myself now, playing the part of a man who knows what he wants and can take it home with him." It's kind of a jolt, and as I write this it occurs to me that this might even be a deliberate effect, given that the story is in part about escaping deprivation and what it feels like to reach escape velocity for only a short time, only to be jolted back to earth.
I note that both of these stories use the changes to signal a different time, to indicate that events from a later period will be juxtaposed against the events described early on. I don't know if that is helpful to the questioner. It does seem to me that Salinger and Wolff must have given themselves permission at some point to bend their stories out of absolute consistency, perhaps as George says, "in response to the events of the story."
Thanks for providing these examples, Justin.
George, I love your sketches^..^
It's hearing the voices of all those characters on that second doodled not book page -
"Me, me... my turn at the mic" / "Aw just bide your turn short stuff" / "Well that takes the biscuit, how rude do you need to be me? / "Give me a break? You? Bursting with something underwhelming to say! / "Now, now, please, can't we just be kinder to one another? Someone's gonna' make it to the mic, get to be the pick, if it's not me I'll still the kind kinda' kid I've always been. Honest." / "You're right, let's face it this is an audition for a bit part, not a party political convention."
- not that I'm sure the 'it' is, or that I'm hearing rather than just imagining, but if there's anyone on the page or standing just off it who hasn't got a word in yet please don't be shy: make yourself heard! Others have, so why not you too?
A friend recently shared a story with me that broke tone toward the end. At least, it did from my perspective. I pointed it out that he might want to fix it, but this post makes me question my critique. When I noticed that the tone changed, I dove back into the piece to see how it had changed. What was the tone like before? How did he set it? What was my reaction when it changed? Where did it take me? The shift, intentional or not, challenged me as a reader to become more engaged in the piece. To be active, rather than passive. It reminds me a bit of music and how adding a note outside the key to a song can wake up the listener and add a flavor/color you didn't expect.
This is really weird and exactly at the right time for me.
I recently finished my second edit on a short story 18,000 words. It starts off in the 1st person and changes to the 3rd person in the second chapter, then goes back to the lst person and alternates thereafter.
It was only on the second edit that I realised the first narrator was unreliable in that he does not always tell the truth. This is only clear later on when the inconsistencies become obvious. However, as the story continues his arc begins to change and develop because of the 'good' influence of his aunt, but he is still under the spell of the 'evil' antagonist.
I quite like the idea of the first narrator being unreliable - he is 10 yrs old.
This is my first experimental story - I am still learning the craft - but I am quite pleased with it.
So thank you both for the input. :-)
PS In view of this article I will probably go back and edit again, and again and again! My full novel was edited 30 times before I was relatively happy with it.
I wonder if the story might work better in all close third (rather than switching back and forth with first). Keep the different povs, but maintain a more consistent narrative with the close third. I have a novel that started as four different first person voices, but when I switched it to all close third (with the four povs), it worked so much better. Happy writing, in any case!
I had wondered about switching to 3rd, but rejected it because the child =1st person, has a particular voice - of the annoying little sh.... person, with snob value - a class value thing, and I couldn't work out how to do that without using the 1st person. Neither could I work out how to tell the tale with all 1st person because there are other characters who go on mimi quests that he is not privy to - so how could he know about what was happening with them?
Basically it works - I think, I have had one person read it and this problem did not come up.
But thank you for your input.
Sure-- whatever works best for you. Sounds interesting--
Let me ask about this variant. If you are writing a humorous novel, the overall tone is very important to maintain. Dialogue shimmers and crackles and bounces back and forth in a way that is clearly not realistic, but all the more enjoyable for being banter or barbs of wit. While one measure of a novel’s worth is in the creation of distinctive voices for the characters, I think the tone of a comedic novel works against this metric. Part of the pleasure comes from the fact that most of the characters are witty or at least comical, and, as a result,their literal voices may not be easily differentiated.
I’d love to have some thoughts on this.
I think they can be because of all kinds of intrinsic expressions of character and extrinsic factors like role and so forth. Think of Jeeves and Bertie. I wish I knew more contemporary writers but I don’t know any who write comedy. Maybe you can help me out?
Yes, all kinds of indicators of character other than dialogue. But if you look at a comic masterpiece like The Philadelphia Story, I challenge anyone to say which line came from which character based on the “voice.” Can you tell Tracy Lord for Elizabeth Imbrie from the line alone??
I’m going to have to read it! Sorry I don’t know it as a novel. This is a challenge and maybe the characters are not differentiated because that was not the purpose of the author who may have opted for a single voice in order to prioritise the humour. I’m going to have to get hold of a copy.
I didn’t mean to throw you for a loop. It isn’t a novel—only a script for the play. I haven’t read the script for the movie, but it follows the play fairly closely. I used it as an example because I think it has some of the best dialogue and lines ever written.
Mr. Saunders, by his own admission, writes "comedic SyFy".
I guess this might depend partly on what's currently 'in vogue'.
Perhaps it's only my own preference, but thinking of plays (or indeed films) in which wit (or battles of wits) plays a big part, the ones that stick in my mind often have two fairly well-matched 'wits' at the centre - so, if you'll allow me to stretch the definition of 'wit' here and there, the ones that spring to mind are things like Much Ado About Nothing, When Harry Met Sally, His Girl Friday, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (I'm sure others will occur to me).
Like Cassandra, I'm not familiar with The Philadelphia Story, though I can think of some plays / films with more than two witty characters - The Importance of Being Earnest, for example. I guess if the writer is witty enough, and a good enough writer, they can make that work, regardless of fashion.
With most of the theatrical dramaturgs I've worked with recently, describing dialogue as 'banter' is very much not a compliment, and there seems to be a consensus that one sign of 'good' writing is when you can cover up the names of the speakers and still work out who's who from the way they speak.
Like all fashions and orthodoxies, there will be exceptions.
Mrs Maisel popped into my head the other day as an example of great storytelling with multiple witty characters. I'd say you can definitely sense the author(s) at work, but when the dialogue's this sharp, that's not necessarily a bad thing.