A Stranger in a Narrative Land

Despite my Minor in Literature, a couple dozen publications under my belt and a general OCD-initiative toward anything literary, issues of narrative remain as foreign to me as Mongolian.

Discussions of first person, second person, third person, or alternating person point of views leave me nauseous.

Conversations of stream of consciousness, character, epistolary, third person subjective, third person objective, third person omniscient narrative voices threaten my already flimsy hold on rationality.

My advice to young writers out there who are not in an esteemed Creative Writing Program or who are not already well-familiar with the schizophrenic nature of narrators is to ignore them altogether. Concentrate on storyline, character development, dialogue, pace. Adjusting the narrator to whatever the publishing house prefers is a relatively easy fix once you’ve got the rest of your story dazzling with “Buy Me!” potential.

As always, this is only my opinion. Take it as you will.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe