During my senior year of college (first semester, so about a year ago) I took a class on Narrative Voice and Character, it was an interesting class to say the least–made somewhat more so because the professor had never taught a creative writing class before and was still caught up in Bahktinian dialogics as the only framework for writing novels. The class itself focused much on how to write a novel, since those are the largest pieces of narrative and tend to have a lot of character. For this class we used a little out-of-print book titled “Thirteen Types of Narrative” (and somewhat dubiously subtitled “A practical guide on how to tell a story”) This book starts with an outline of a “situation to be made the basis of a series of exercises in narrative method, each demonstrating a different technique.” Okay, I can understand that particular way to teach narrative technique, show people how to tell the same story different ways. What really ended up bothering me about this book was the amount of information we were given in the “situation” I didn’t have enough information to make the characters based on the outline alone (without making stuff up) and I was given too much information to make them MY characters. We were told that the scene revolves around an American soldier named Peter Ellison (all of which is completely irrelevant to the scene–other than the American part) and that he is in England (stationed on duty) and has gone up a cathedral tower to take some pictures (for his uncle who used to live in the village and gave Peter the camera) we are given a detailed synopsis of the weather before we get to the important fact that he encounters a fat man (who thankfully does not have a name) who is distressed and intends to commit suicide. We are told quite frequently throughout the outline what Peter is thinking and feeling and (as you probably could have guessed) in the end Peter drops his camera over the edge of the cathedral tower with an attached note and tries to stall the fat guy until help arrives. The outline ends with help arriving.
The book then continues in 14 chapters (one for each ‘type’ of narrative and one conclusion) in which is gives a description of each type along with examples from literature and the authors own envisioning of the initial situation. For class we were tasked with writing journal entries which included writing segments or whole portions of the outline in draft form in various narrative forms from different perspectives.
The Thirteen Types of Narrative according to the book are, 1. Third Person Past 2. Third Person Present 3. First Person Past (As If Spoken) 4. First Person Past (As If Written) 5. First Person Past (Spoken) In Third or First Person Framework 6. All Dialogue 7. In the Form of a Play 8. Catechetical 9. Epistolary 10. In the Form of a Diary (how this is different then First Person Past (As If Written) I’m not sure. 11. Documentary 12. Stream of Consciousness and 13. Series of First Person Narratives in Third Person Framework.
While I still think it is generally rather silly to try and focus in on a single element like Narrative Voice, and I had a strong problem with the way that the outline was set up the class was rather useful to me. First, I originally went into the class thinking that a story could only have one narrative form that would work for it, but quickly realized that this was not strictly true. A story told in a different way is a different story. Choosing narrative framework and viewpoint are highly important to the overall shape and meaning of the story. So now I like to explore other possible viewpoints on stories that I am writing just to see what they could have to say. The other thing I learned is how to force myself to write within someone else’s framework. . . and how to make my own freedoms. In one entry I managed to have the fat man succeed in committing suicide (because the outline only ever said that help arrives, it does not necessitate, though much of the book assumes, that the help be effective. I also wrote Peter as a secretly arrogant jerk who is only seems to be the noble hero that the outline forced him to be. I learned how to have fun within constraints (which interestingly enough helped me later to write my resume.) I also was forced to write a whole lot of stuff in a relatively short period of time.
I still hated that stupid outlined situation. And that book.
Comments
Couldn’t it be assumed that the difference between 4 & 10 would be the “target audience” of the narrative? A diary is something intended solely for the individual and would perhaps be more personal in its detail and style than, say, a letter.
Author
That is kind of what the book ends up saying. It sees 4 as being more a structured memoir with a more intentional focus and audience while 10 is a personal internal day-by-day chronically. Now I still think that 10 is a form of First Person Narrative as Written, and don’t think it should really be its own category (and would probably only ever use it as part of a story, not as the whole.)
Personally, I think a book that reads like a diary would be rather annoying. Good writing rarely goes into a diary, so you’re either stuck with a diary that no real person would have written besides, maybe, a writer or you have to put up with a disjointed narrative. Neither really works.
I find those 14 categories pretty weird.
I think that exercises that force you into a box like that often produce some pretty creative work–although that box seemed particularly tight. My students had to write a short-short story where two characters were in a car, with the following limitations: one person could leave the car, but one always had to be inside it; the engine must never stop running; they must talk to five people. One girl wrote a pretty good piece that she turned into a short story with a lot of promise.
As for different narrative forms producing different stories … the story I’ve been struggling with all summer (and am finally putting aside from now as a semi-completed horrible draft) is written in third–a bit too close to the character, for the time being–but I also tried writing in in first person from the pov of a daughter who doesn’t exist in the current version. I would like to write both stories someday, I think.
Author
Yeah, I found the categories to be quite weird myself. I mean I can get behind some of them. . . but is “As a Play” really a form of narrative, or a completely different genre of writing? Isn’t Epistolary just a form of First Person Past (As Written) that goes back and forth in a Dialog (Okay, that one I can get behind being a different form of Narrative)? And what is the difference between First Past (Spoken) and (As If Spoken)?
The book was not the best organized, and it didn’t do the best job dealing with the subject. And I didn’t even go into all the details of how tight the box was.
And I was remembering some of the things I have heard about your draft and pov issues, Rosemary, when I was writing that section of the post.
I can sort of see dialogue too … but just dialogue stories are in great danger of being cheesy or simply no good. Even when written by good authors. And I’ve never run across a good undergraduate-written one. 😛 It just seems to be drawing more attention to itself as a form than doing any service to the story …