How to Write a Novel: Chapter 3

Ask any author the most difficult part of writing a novel and they tell you in unison, its choosing the narrative voice. Choosing the right voice is the most important decision you should make, after you’ve made the decision to write a novel. But like I said earlier, it’s going to take some trial-and-error methods and some playing around. When you’ve found the right narrative voice, you will amazed at the wonders it could do, telling the story, in the right style and pace, arousing tensions and determining the mood of that situation and that of the novel.

I suggest you try out every voice before you settle upon one. It’s your obsession to choose, it’s your novel. But you will find some helpful tips and exercises describing the various narrative voices as you scroll down.

The four main voices used are as follows:

• First Person
• Second Person
• Third Person
• The God

First Person

If you haven’t written a novel before then I suggest you start off with this one, the first person voice is every beginners companion because it’s easy to write, as the radius-of-view is limited to a single person (the protagonist), and the reader takes the place of the protagonist here.

Here the reader is forced to make his own interpretations and conclusions as the story is not unfurled until the protagonist takes his way down there and reveals it step by step and in the most direct way as possible.

Here’s an example from the novel I’m writing: “The Puzzles of Life”.

I walked down the lanes of memory and found the name they used to call her way back in high-school, “Dazzler”, the best cheerleader the school ever had, who always had the shortest of mini-skirts and the whole baseball team drooling around her, nobody could resist that look in their eyes, that smile; she was a Dazzler for sure. It occurred to me that I had a crush on her, but I had fought hard that feeling and drowned it down a stream along with those love notes set ablaze.

But now I see her trying her best to impress the passerby and have them take her with them to spend the night under a roof but with guilt and pain. I saw that face; that look in her eye, it could stay in my memory forever.

The tram pulled to a stop and I got in, but I took a last gaze back to see her staring towards the tram, there were tears!

Another good example I could point out is Anne Frank’s Diary.

The First Person voice in novels can sound rather uninteresting, because of its limited radius-of-view making it difficult to convey the real expressions and information to the reader. It takes a toll on the real emotions if you give emphasis on the details and the vice versa. But readers find it acceptable when the novel is a diary or a diary or a confession of the protagonist.

I Recommend: The True History of Kelly Gang (by Peter Carey). Its book worth reading for its innovational frame-work of both first-person and third-person embedded with a sequence of heavy drama and nerve-staking action.

Exercise:

Take a stroll around and write down the incidents along the way, all that you see, smell, taste. Those thoughts that come into your mind, the weird conversation the passerby had on the phone. EVERYTHING! Now put your protagonist’s place instead of ‘I’.

*             *

Second Person

It is rarely chosen by authors as it is more difficult and extremely confusing when it comes to the writing part and isn’t of much appreciation from the readers either.

But it can be found within a novel that uses first person voice or the third person voice to describe certain short passages that puts the protagonist’s conscience taking to him.

Here’s an example from the novel I’m writing: “The Puzzles of Life”

I stopped and pondered over this for a minute, “Why me? Why now?”… … but my voice trailed off… … … “For the past three years, you’ve been dreaming of a way to bring this life a “meaning”… Now you’ve found it”.

 The protagonist here is talking to herself; I’ve used a small ingredient of Second Person voice to describe it and this giving it some significance. There are not many examples to show you this form of voice as it is rarely used. I’ve goggled it, but the results were not worth much.

*             *

Third Person:

In the Third Person voice, the reader takes the place of anyone who is associated with the protagonist. This could be a neighbor, a lover, a friend or the child he meets on the street. The reader here is given answers to all that there is for him to know. He knows all that is happening around the protagonist but not his emotions and feeling.

Its uses this restricted access to grow strengthen the plots and arouse curiosity in the reader. He formulates his own conclusions and interpretations, but unlike the First Person this form of voice provides more intensity.

The main advantage of Third Person is the ability to shift the places of the reader from character to character. It’s upon the author to decide whether the emphasis still lies on the protagonist, or the characters can have their own tale to tell. The reader can take the place of the lover, the neighbor, a friend as the story progresses. Shifting characters is an innovative way to make the story more interesting. The reader would appreciate it, but you ought to make it as perfect as possible.

Here’s an example from Rabbit Run (by John Updike):

The protagonist of this story is Rabbit Angstrom, but as we progress reading we find sections in the book where the point of view differs. The shift is to his wife, and then his mistress and a handful of minor characters that’ve got their own tales to tell that are associated with the life of Rabbit Angstrom making the book worth reading.

Exercise:

Visit a not-so-good friend of yours, or maybe a distant relative and notice their movements and dialogues. Ask a good friend of yours or your mom to tell something about them. Ask details, collect different points of view. Keep your eyes open and your ears wide.

Then assign those ideas into your protagonist’s life. Shift the view to that of a burglar and describe how your protagonist had love with his lover etc.

*             *

The God

“The God” as I call it is any established author’s weapon to instant success. Thou complicated, this is the most popularly used and widely appreciated narrative voices, both by the reader and the writer.

The God voice does not use a character to emphasis a point of view, but its just a figure noticing the incidents from its own angle of view and making its own conclusions and interpretations. Unlike the Third Person, the God voice has the ability to dwell into any of the characters, their emotions, intensions, and occasionally passing judgment. The Godly figure is thus the Mr. Know All who witnesses everything, that’s why I named his God.

Here’s an example:

In the movie ‘Alexander’, the story of Alexander the Great is told by an old man. And in the movie ‘300’ the story of that brave king is told by his soldier.

The most fundamental preparation to write a novel is to read read and read. Read with a critic’s eye and understand the various themes, plots and structures used how the characters are created and revealed, the change in viewing angles, the voices, the language and how they have developed their work so perfectly. This is most important exercise that you need to get going from page one to the very end. The more you read, the more you’ll understand and the more knowledge you’ll have to invent tools that will help you in the long run.

*             *

Hope this helped. I will be publishing more useful tips and exercises in my next article on how to write a novel: chapter four: creating characters. So don’t forget to read it.

How to Write a Novel: Chapter One

How to Write a NOvel: Chapter Two