Does it work in a novel?

mrittman · Jan 15, 2008

I recently watched "Lucky Number Slevin." Obviously third person omniscient wouldn't work revealing Slevin's thoughts. The same can be said of revealing the boy's point of view in "The Sixth Sense." Both these films keep much hidden in order to wow the viewer at the end. Would the same tricks used in these films work in a novel or romance? Any good examples of this?

Sage · Jan 15, 2008

The same trick is used in lots of novels. Omniscient would make the reader feel cheated, but a third limited or first person POV from a character who didn't know the plot twists would work exactly the same way.

IReidandWrite · Jan 15, 2008

There is no internal dialogue whatsoever in my novel. LOL. Mostly 'cos I think it's cheesy......

chroniclemaster1 · Jan 15, 2008

Absolutely, that's a key factor in deciding some of the basic elements of your novel. As Sage pointed out, if you were going to novelize Sixth Sense, POV is a critical issue. While it might be "challenging" to write it in 3rd person omniscient, it would be an incredibly different book. Writers have been working with all kinds of similar techniques to achieve particular ends or effects that they wanted. There are lots of other examples. For one, writers have used metaphor and innuendo for thousands of years to avoid censorship, usually writing better works than if they had said directly what they wanted to say.

Danger Jane · Jan 15, 2008

An objective third person narrator would eliminate all internal thoughts and feelings and narrate only observable action or expression. Not over the shoulder and not omniscient--it has elements of both. Tough to pull off, but also awesome when done well.

Project nachonaco said:
There is no internal dialogue whatsoever in my novel. LOL. Mostly 'cos I think it's cheesy......

A lack of internal dialogue doesn't make a narrator objective. The following sentence is still limited third--

"Johnny blushed with embarrassment."

--because of the prepositional phrase: "with embarrassment".

An objective narrator must show everything. That's why it's so hard to do well. An objective narrator would say simply, "Johnny blushed."

It's the polar opposite of stream of consciousness.

Shweta · Jan 15, 2008

Yeah, I think it can be done in anything other than omniscient, though objective would probably be easiest.

Megan Whalen Turner's The Thief manages to dump a great big plot twist on you at the end, regarding the 1st-person narrator. I had to read that book several times to figure out who she does it; I think it's impressive.
I wouldn't trust myself to try it, tbh.

SageFury · Jan 15, 2008

Sage said:
The same trick is used in lots of novels. Omniscient would make the reader feel cheated, but a third limited or first person POV from a character who didn't know the plot twists would work exactly the same way.

I agree =)

Shweta · Jan 15, 2008

I guess I was trying to say that it can work even when the narrator does know the twist, if done exactly right. Thus bringing up The Thief.

Straka · Jan 15, 2008

In terms of internal narrative I had one book where I had the character's thoughts in italics. My GF read it and bluntly said they didn't add anything to the story. So I cut them out and honestly I think it made a stronger story because those thoughts were telling and not showing. They gave too much away.

I'm not saying that always has to be the case, but I've never used internal monologue since.

loiterer · Jan 15, 2008

mrittman said:
I recently watched "Lucky Number Slevin." Obviously third person omniscient wouldn't work revealing Slevin's thoughts. The same can be said of revealing the boy's point of view in "The Sixth Sense." Both these films keep much hidden in order to wow the viewer at the end. Would the same tricks used in these films work in a novel or romance? Any good examples of this?

It's a fundamental of fiction-writing to choose your POV based on the type of story you are writing.

There's any number of examples of limiting a point of view (whether it be third person limited or first person) in order to increase the suspense of a plot, and to keep hidden from the reader the climax of the novel. Think about the POV of a book you have recently read. You must have read a first-person or limited-third recently if you read even on an irregular basis. Think about why the author used that POV, and whether the story would have worked as omniscient. Sometimes a story will work with any POV, but most of the time something important is lost or changes when the POV changes.

The most popular example on the planet right now would be Harry Potter, right? I've only read the first book, and that was back in 2001, but I recall it being limited-third, and imagine all the rest are, too. (EDITED TO ADD: coincidentally in another thread someone mentions Harry Potter, and apparently the first chapter might begin with a different POV, when Harry is still a mite--I'd fogotten about that. But I'm sure the rest is in limited-third. If not, HP is a bad example by me...

)

ACEnders · Jan 16, 2008

Straka said:
In terms of internal narrative I had one book where I had the character's thoughts in italics. My GF read it and bluntly said they didn't add anything to the story. So I cut them out and honestly I think it made a stronger story because those thoughts were telling and not showing. They gave too much away.

I'm not saying that always has to be the case, but I've never used internal monologue since.

Oh man. That sucks for me...if I ever find an agent and editor. I have the character's thoughts in italics, but I think it adds a lot to the voice of the character and gives the reader a good insight to her personality.

But I'm unpublished, so what do I know?

windyrdg · Jan 16, 2008

A lot of italics detracts from the general ppearance of the text, especially when it runs on and on.
The only place I use italics for internal thoughts is the sudden realization or internal command such as Duck! or Run! or Oh yeah?...usually a one or two word internal sentence that is a reaction to some previous action. Everything else is normal font with an absolute minimum of "he thoughts." Try to structure the internal dialog in such a way that the he thought, she thought is understood by the reader. Constant he thoughts, she knew, he wondered, etc. become authorial intrusions that disrupt the flow of the story.

herdon · Jan 16, 2008

mrittman said:
I recently watched "Lucky Number Slevin." Obviously third person omniscient wouldn't work revealing Slevin's thoughts. The same can be said of revealing the boy's point of view in "The Sixth Sense." Both these films keep much hidden in order to wow the viewer at the end. Would the same tricks used in these films work in a novel or romance? Any good examples of this?

I'd suggest reading Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card.

mrittman · Jan 17, 2008

Thanks for recommending Ender's Game. I'm reading it now. It is mostly limited third from Ender's point of view. A few sentences seem to break the rules:
1) "Ender didn't know about the censorship, but he did know that running to the cameras would be wrong."
2) "Dap had a room full of friends, Frightened children are so easy to win."

It's interesting how some authors are very strict with a chosen POV and some aren't.

blacbird · Jan 17, 2008

mrittman said:
Thanks for recommending Ender's Game. I'm reading it now. It is mostly limited third from Ender's point of view. A few sentences seem to break the rules:
1) "Ender didn't know about the censorship, but he did know that running to the cameras would be wrong."
2) "Dap had a room full of friends, Frightened children are so easy to win."

It's interesting how some authors are very strict with a chosen POV and some aren't.

Actually, this kind of "drop-out" of a consistent POV in Ender's Game irritated me, whenever I noticed Card doing it. It seems unnecessary and sloppy to me. But maybe that's just me.

caw

shelboselby · Jan 18, 2008

It's all about the PoV. You can keep tons of things secret, so long as they're secret from the person whose eyes we're sharing. For instance, in the Sixth Sense (and bear in mind I've never seen this movie, but I get the gist), the key in the novel would be to have the PoV perhaps from the shrink (but allow the shrink to not know he's dead). Follow him as he treats the boy, as he tries to interact with that woman in the movie. From his point of view, we'd only understand that this woman isn't interested in talking to him, and it would eventually lead up to an emotional climax where he would realize he was dead and, in turn, so would we.

So really, it's all down to the PoV. You can't delibrately lie to the reader...the reader likes to be able to, after the twist was revealed, go "oh yeah! I can see where that came from!" They want to know there was buildup for it. You have to pick a POV that doesn't have all the answers, that is able to wrongly interpret all this clues to the reader (but in a way that is justifiable to his or her mind), so that when the truth is revealed, you can see how the character made the wrong assumptions.

chroniclemaster1 · Mar 7, 2008

blacbird said:
Actually, this kind of "drop-out" of a consistent POV in Ender's Game irritated me, whenever I noticed Card doing it. It seems unnecessary and sloppy to me. But maybe that's just me.

caw

Maybe, but it still had me spellbound throughout the book.

wayndom · Mar 8, 2008

Thomas Tryon's THE OTHER conceals a secret from the reader, in much the same way as THE SIXTH SENSE. As I recall, it's third omniscient, and works fine, but you might want to check it out yourself, to see how Tryon did it.

wayndom · Mar 8, 2008

Straka said:
In terms of internal narrative I had one book where I had the character's thoughts in italics. My GF read it and bluntly said they didn't add anything to the story. So I cut them out and honestly I think it made a stronger story because those thoughts were telling and not showing. They gave too much away.

In Andre Jute's Writing the Thriller, he recounts how two of the characters in his first novel had a romantic history, which he included. An editor told him their backstory didn't add anything to the story, so he cut it out, and discovered that without it, the characters' dialog (which revealed that there was something between these two at some point), now crackled with energy.

I've almost never encountered an iffy passage that wasn't completely remedied by simply cutting it out, without making any other changes. And the cool part is, I can see my writing become more "professional" before my eyes as the offending passage disappears...

Jake Barnes · Mar 8, 2008

You could tell a story like Sixth Sense from the Bruce Willis's character's POV while being a hundred percent in his head. You could drop clues along the way, showing he's dead, like in the movie, and still have the surprise ending.

DWSTXS · Mar 8, 2008

In my novel, I have 3 POV's from the MC and his love interest, and the antagonist. I also have a POV from a character that commits several crimes, and I never reveal the identity of that character until near the end of the story. The identity of this character is guessed at by several characters during the story, and I hope it will be guessed at by the reader also.

I also have a 2 paragraph POV from a bear.

Does it work in a novel?

mrittman

Sage

Our Lady of Parentheticals

IReidandWrite

chroniclemaster1

Seeking Undercover Angel

Danger Jane

Shweta

gone

SageFury

Overcoming the Darkness

Shweta

gone

Straka

Bored Fanatic

loiterer

ACEnders

Self-Banned

windyrdg

New kid, be gentle!

herdon

What's up?

mrittman

blacbird

shelboselby

One Girl Mediocrity Machine

chroniclemaster1

Seeking Undercover Angel

wayndom

wayndom

Jake Barnes

DWSTXS

Mr Mojo Risin...