Is this a problem?

I do see it as a fundamental problem, and kudos to you for recognizing it at this stage.

If you try hard enough, you can get just as close and intimate with a deep 3rd person POV as you can with 1st person. Honest, you really can––and it would solve your problem.

Don't dumb down the vocab. You can stretch the perceptions of your 12-year old MC and he'll just seem a bit precocious, which is fine, you can totally get away with it.

rwam said:

Okay, so my current WIP (urban fantasy with elements of suspense) is based in 1976. The MC narrator is twelve but the book's not YA.

Anyway, here's what I'm struggling with. The voice and vocabulary of the MC is not twelve years old. The antagonist in the story is a very evil neighborhood boy a couple years older than the MC and there are points in the story where the MC will feel his life is in danger (as will the reader with any luck).

However, I worry that if the voice of the MC as he's narrating is obviously an adult in retrospect, any half-savvy reader will figure out that the MC is not going to die.

Do any of you see this as a fundamental problem? Or am I obsessing too much?

I know part of the problem is my penchant for writing in 1st Person and that writing this in 3rd Person would probably resolve the problem. But if I insist on writing this in 1st Person, would I be better off setting the story in present day and dumbing down the vocabulary and insights?

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I had this exact same thing in 2 novels. My readers told me, "But the MC's voice is too old for 12." I made it clear that he was telling the story as an adult who was 12 at the time of the story. Both novels...same ages...same problem. One of the novels featured an MC who thought his life was in danger...in real danger too, like he thought he'd be dead by the next page danger. I don't think it was an issue. Knowing he made it through to tell the story does NOT lessen the excitement....IMHO.

If it's clear this is a retrospective it shouldn't be a problem. If your reader has credibility issues with your MC, then that would be a problem and you'd need to address that somehow. Stand By Me did it, so maybe you could take a peek there for some inspiration. Or even The Lovely Bones (though the MC *is* dead it's still has a retrospective feel). Most MCs don't die so I don't think that would be an issue for your readers. They don't expect it anway. Just make sure you have enough threats there that readers can still worry what will happen.

As for first vs third, what's the "point" of the story? Is it an adult thinking back to a time in his life (a'la Stand By Me) because of some present day trigger or the story of a young boy with a problem? Having an adult book with a young protagonist can be tricky, so you want to make sure you know *whose* story this is. The grown man's or the boy's. That should give you a better feeling toward which POV to put it in. And 12-year-olds aren't as dumb as you may think. Maintaining a young voice doesn't mean you have to use tiny words and short sentences. You might try reading a few middle grade novels to get a feel for what that age group understands and reads to see how "adult" you can be.

One thing that dd stick out for me (because I seem to be seeing a lot of this discussed lately) is the setting. Is there a reason it takes place in 1976? Urban fantasy in that timeframe just hit me as odd, though it would be different. Does the historical aspect affect the plot?

I agree with number 2- you can get intimate with 3rd person. I just read the book All the Numbers by Judy Larson, and she doesn an excellent job using third person inner dialogue - which is what I'm trying to work on right now. I prefer 3rd person, but I understand the importance of making the reader feel they know the mc intimately. I think I'm succeeding, or at least the people who've read my ms say that (or else they're just being nice which is totally possible! )

I don't see it as a problem at all. There are literally thousands of first person narratives out there that pit the MC/narrator against danger of some kind. If the voice is handled well enough, we still feel that danger even though we know that character's not going to die.

Has nothing to do with death, really. It has everything to do with the safety of the MC. If we care for the character enough, then we will be rapt even if there is only the hint of slightest harm coming to that person.

Will Lavender said:

I don't see it as a problem at all. There are literally thousands of first person narratives out there that pit the MC/narrator against danger of some kind. If the voice is handled well enough, we still feel that danger even though we know that character's not going to die.

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This is what I was thinking. We may think/know the narrator survives ... but *how* is up to you.

I also agree that it isn't a problem. Even in close 3rd, if it is really the main, main, main character, we pretty much know he isn't going to die either.

rwam said:

However, I worry that if the voice of the MC as he's narrating is obviously an adult in retrospect, any half-savvy reader will figure out that the MC is not going to die.

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Regardless of the voice, I think there's an inherent issue with 1st person in that if the narrator has the chance to tell the story, he probably survived whatever that came his way. So whether you tell it in a 12yo voice or an adult's in retrospect, you're still going to have the similar issue (unless you try to create the suspense by using present tense -- yes, even 1976 -- but that poses other issues as well).

I concur with Jamie that you may avoid the issue with 1st person (if you want to have that suspense: does the MC survive or not?) by using a close 3rd person. That way, you can still maintain an intimacy with the character but free yourself from the language issue and create a narrative distance -- yeah, your MC may die, since it wasn't narrated by him!

There have been instances of characters who don;t make it through to the final page/end credits but still offer narration throughout.

Film, American Beauty. Poor old Lester Burnham is able to give us some narration and then at the end... He gets killed.

If you can word it in such a way that the reader might be misdirected into thinking that he/she is reading the posthumous thoughts of the main character, they might be in for the heightened sense of danger and/or surprise when it comes round that they're still alive and just reflecting deeply on events in th past.

A great many of my writings have had a character narrate or give a short voice over style monologue. And sometimes it's worked quite nicely. But what you're shooting for isn't a paradox. Keep it going... Who knows, it might all suddenly fall into place and make sense for you.

Rob.

I read a book many years ago now and no longer remember the title, but basically it involved a narrator telling about his youth. The interesting thing that the author had done was make it very unclear whether the narrator was a ghost looking back or a still living person. I can't even remember the story, but I thought it an interesting approach. Until the final scene, you never could tell whether the narrator had survived or not.

Best of luck,

Jim Clark-Dawe

Another issue to consider is to not underestimate a 12-year-old's vocabulary. My youngest daughter is 8 and sounds like an adult when she speaks.

Hmm... I wouldn't fret. People love a good prequel, and you always know there that the characters aren't going to die. Basically, if you write it well, I think readers will still be in suspense, even if the rational side of their brain is saying, "He's telling the story from later on-- he's not gonna kick it."

Just my opinion, though. Good luck!

Everyone knows James Bond can't die, will not die, but audiences feel panic when Jimbo is in a jam. We get caught up in the story. Sure you can hint that the narrator might be a ghost telling his tale from the grave as one poster suggested... that's fine. But a lot of times, if the story is written right, the reader will forget the first person thig and fear for his life.

Even if the reader knows the narrator survives, the fun may be in seeing just how he escapes--that's the fun of a mystery where you have a dead body on the first page; you wonder how it was done, who dunit.

And does it have to be a life or death issue? The threat of severe bodily harm, or permanent damage to one's lifestyle or reputation can be just as intriguing depending on how it's written.

Hope this helped.

Jeopardy to the main character can be something other than the risk of the character's death. If this is an adult narrator telling a story about something which happened long ago, then yes, the narrator survived, but in what kind of shape? What else can hurt the narrator? Maybe the narrator needs to survive, but everyone else in the story is fair game. Sometimes surviving is the worst thing which can happen.