Using Journal Entries as Narrative

AnneMarble · Sep 13, 2005

I wrote a novel that interspersed one character's third person narration with another character's first person journal entries. Some people who read the journal entries weren't crazy about the idea because the entries were written like regular first person POV text -- they included dialogue, action, etc. They thought I should remove the dialogue and make them look like "real" journal entries. I thought if I did that, my readers were start to snore.
:sleepy:

So did they have a point? I've read plenty of novels that had journal or diary entries or letters, yet they still managed to be interesting. Or is that now considered "old-fashioned" or something? Should I just stop calling that character's text "journal entries" and treat it as regular first person?

I was considering the idea of writing a future novel in the form of a character's blog, so I know this issue will raise its ugly head again.

pconsidine · Sep 13, 2005

One question - were your readers only complaining about the fact that they didn't read like journal entries? Or were they unimpressed by the conceit as a whole? That may direct you to an answer.

AnneMarble · Sep 13, 2005

pconsidine said:
One question - were your readers only complaining about the fact that they didn't read like journal entries? Or were they unimpressed by the conceit as a whole? That may direct you to an answer.

They may have been annoyed because in the version I gave them, the journal entries were interspersed throughout the third person narrative (although set apart by text that said "From the journal of..."). They found the effect jarring, and I realized they were right about that and fixed it.

They didn't get a chance to read an edited version as the group sort of fell apart after one person moved, others were too busy to attend, etc.

But I do remember one member saying that they didn't read like real journal entries. For example, there is a brief scene where the journal writer is applying a salve to a black eye, and another character startles him, causing the journal writer to jab himself in the eye. They didn't think he would write about that in a journal. (I thought the character realized I needed comic relief at that moment.

)

Mistook · Sep 13, 2005

I kept a handwritten journal for about ten years. I found it was almost impossible to write about events with actual quotes and play by play narrative. Even writing about a day that just happened, the mind doesn't remember all those details.

Also, it was very time consuming. The more eventful my life was, the less I wrote in the journal, because there wasn't as much time to write, and there was much more to write about. I'd usually wait until things died down and summarize a week's worth of life in a few notebook pages.

On the other hand, when I was bored, that's when I'd write pages and pages of random thoughts, speculations about the future, and other boring stuff. I'd say about 70% of those journals are nothing but me whining about wanting to find true love, or bemoaning my rotten luck.

Most of the important events in my life from that period were either not written about, or not seen for what they were at the time. It was anything but an objective narrative.

victoriastrauss · Sep 13, 2005

AnneMarble said:
I wrote a novel that interspersed one character's third person narration with another character's first person journal entries. Some people who read the journal entries weren't crazy about the idea because the entries were written like regular first person POV text -- they included dialogue, action, etc. They thought I should remove the dialogue and make them look like "real" journal entries.

My forthcoming book does pretty much exactly this, Anne (two third person POVs interspersed with one first-person POV through journal entries). There is a specific reason for the diary to be so detailed, with dialogue etc.; still, I worried about exactly the reaction you cite. So far, no one who has read the book in its various drafts has voiced this criticism. One person did say that she found the journal entries less compelling than the rest--but I am pretty sure that was personal taste, and she just didn't like the changes in voice.

I think if you're going to do something like this--especially in genre fiction, where many readers seem to be less open to any sort of stylistic experimentation--you have to accept that not everyone will be thrilled. I thought long and hard about whether I should write the book this way, but the story wanted it, so I did.

Holly Lisle's new book, Talyn, intersperses first and third (haven't read it yet, so I don't know whether the first is journal entries), and she has taken some reviewerly heat for it. Makes me a little nervous.

- Victoria

AnneMarble · Sep 13, 2005

victoriastrauss said:
My forthcoming book does pretty much exactly this, Anne (two third person POVs interspersed with one first-person POV through journal entries). There is a specific reason for the diary to be so detailed, with dialogue etc.; still, I worried about exactly the reaction you cite.

I might have to come up with a reason he is writing such detailed entries. Because he's a mage, someone suggested he could be writing these entries in his grimoire. But I didn't realize grimoires included soap operas and sex scenes.

Maybe he's writing his memoires years later... Yeah, that's the ticket. Another idea I had was to start out each of his first person segments with a brief journal entry in italics, something short and witty. Then I realized I'd have to think of something short and witty.

victoriastrauss said:
I think if you're going to do something like this--especially in genre fiction, where many readers seem to be less open to any sort of stylistic experimentation--you have to accept that not everyone will be thrilled. I thought long and hard about whether I should write the book this way, but the story wanted it, so I did.

Some characters can't be shut up. I may have created a monster.

victoriastrauss said:
Holly Lisle's new book, Talyn, intersperses first and third (haven't read it yet, so I don't know whether the first is journal entries), and she has taken some reviewerly heat for it. Makes me a little nervous.

Heck, some reviewers are nutz, and I say that even though I have written reviews myself. Luckily, people generally know when to ignore a review and when to listen to it. Just look at the fresh vs. rotten percentages of the top grossing movies at rottentomatoes.com. It's common to see movies with 50% and below (way way below) in the top five.

PattiTheWicked · Sep 14, 2005

Is the journaling key to the story line? If you read Possession by AS Byatt, a good portion of the book is told in the form of letters between two characters who lived a century ago. However, it HAS to be told that way, because two other characters (who live in the present) are trying to unravel the mystery of the connection between the two letter-writers.

It's possible that your readers just didn't like the style of the journal entries. Let's face it, a lot of people who journal don't do it in complete narrative paragraphs. A lot of journal entries consist of simple one-line thoughts.

"Friday: Still on this creepy island. The old dude is off hunting boar again and the cute Iraqi guy built a radio out of paper clips. Plan to catch fish today and trade it to the hottie on the beach for a tube of Nair."

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