Narrator/Character/Author – What is the Difference?


Every work of fiction will have a narrator, the person who is telling the story to the reader. It’s worth noting, however, that the narrator isn’t the author, as some writers mistakenly think, although – and this is where is can get confusing – the narrator can be a character in the story.
This might sound baffling, but in reality it isn’t. It depends on the type of narrator you’ve chosen for your story. In effect, the narrator is an onlooker who is relaying the story of the characters to the reader.
The author creates, the narrator relates and the character lives the story.
The different viewpoints available to writers offer different ways to approach narration. There are number of narrator types to choose from:
The 3rd person omniscient narrator is not usually a character in the story, but is an all-seeing, all-knowing outside observer who knows what all the characters are thinking, feeling and doing, and refers to them as ‘he/she or they’. In other words, this narrator knows everything that is going on in the story.
The 3rd person subjective narrator usually focuses on one or two main character’s thoughts, feelings or actions, and how they see the world. This subjective viewpoint can also be used to show a character who is also the narrator.  For instance, the character might be a secondary who is relating the story of the main character to the reader.  Writers choose to show main characters through the eyes of other characters as an interesting perspective.
The 1st person narrator is usually the main character within the story, because the subject of the story is ‘I’, who is telling the story from his or her point of view. The reader sees everything through the narrator’s eye, but it’s not possible to show other character’s thoughts, which is why it is a limited viewpoint. That said, it’s also possible that the first person is not the narrator. It’s entirely possible for another character to relay the story of a main character instead.
The last one – and rarely used – is the 2nd person narrator. This means the reader is referred to as ‘you’, as though they are a part of story, but because it is an archaic and unwieldy viewpoint, writers hardly use it.
In simple terms the narrator is not the author.  The narrator can be a character in a story, as with a 1st person viewpoint, or a secondary character in a 3rd person viewpoint, that relays the events of the story to the reader.  More commonly, the narrator is an unknown entity who is telling the story of one, two or multiple characters within a 3rd person viewpoint story.
We, as authors, use narrators to describe everything that happens with characters, settings, emotions, conflicts, actions and dialogue. Without the narrator, the reader won’t be able to access the imaginary worlds we create.

We create the story, the narrator(s) tells it and the characters live it.

Comments

  1. Unknown22 October 2020 at 00:50

    This really helped me teach my 9th grades how to separate author/3rd person omniscient. They're arts students and value seeing it from a creative perspective. 👍

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Chapter & Novel Lengths

Just how long should a chapter be? What’s the best length? And does a novel have to fit into a set amount of words? These are just two of the most common questions asked by writers.   They assume they have to work to a strict template of X amount of words and X amount of chapters, usually because most novels have around 30 or 40 chapters and around 80,000 words.   Novel Lengths Firstly, let’s dispel a few myths - novel lengths are dictated by the story itself, not the writer or the editor or a specific written formula.   Secondly, writers don’t have to fit their word count into generic set amounts.   Again, the story will dictate how long the novel will be. It’s also worth knowing the different types of novels that work well with different word counts.   Uncomplicated stories containing minimal characters tend to be short – usually around 20,000 to 60,000 words.   These are called novellas. Longer, more complex stories, which contain a handful o...
Read more

What Makes a Story Dark?

If you’re a horror writer or you love to write dark, psychological stories and thrillers, or moralistic tales, this is the one question that needs an answer. Wanting a dark story and writing one are two different things, so how do you actually make a story dark? To answer that you first have to understand what is meant by ‘dark’. We usually define ‘dark’ as quantifiable elements that we know and are familiar with, but it’s more than that. Dark doesn’t necessarily mean scary or gory with a crazy psychopath going around chopping people into bits. Instead we have to think of ‘dark ‘as anything outside our accepted rose-tinted reality. Dark is the underbelly of our society; it’s the handling of ideas, themes, social issues and behaviours that would be seen as morally unacceptable. It’s less about fictional monsters but more about the real monsters that lurk in the shadows, something that is underscored by our fears and anxieties. It’s the unknown, because the things we don’t know ...
Read more

Modifiers, Intensifiers and Qualifiers - Part 2

Unlike modifiers, which modify words or phrases, an Intensifier is a term for a modifier that amplifies the meaning of the word it modifies. An intensifier is used exclusively to modify adverbs and adjectives and is placed  before the word it is meant to modify.  In simple terms, the intensifier emphasises adverbs and adjectives - it makes them more intense . The word is derived from Latin, meaning to “intend or stretch”. In grammatical terms, the intensifier lends no weight to the meaning of a sentence other than to give it an additional emotional nuance to the word it is modifying, however, since they modify adverbs and adjectives, they should be treated in the same way adverbs adjectives – used little and sparingly wherever possible within your writing. This is where learning to spot them will benefit your quality of writing. Intensifiers are attributive and serve only to fill space, so unless there is a valid reason to intensify the meaning and emotion ...
Read more