fpb | A small discovery

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criticism

A small discovery

I suppose that what I am about to say will come as no surprise to anyone else, but to me it was.

Let me start from the fact that, as a writer, I am almost wholly self-taught. I have never been to a single creative writing class, and all I know about writing comes from criticism from friends and other readers, and from my fondness for the great literary critics of the past - Longinus, Dr.Johnson, Matthew Arnold, Benedetto Croce, A.C.Bradley, G.K.Chesterton, C.S.Lewis, Walther Benjamin, to name a few. What is more, my experience begins with comics, a medium which shares with cinema the presumption of an objective or largely objective camera eye.

I have, therefore, been both annoyed and bewildered by the frequent critical squelches I received from betas and other readers, to do with Point Of View. I could not understand why a narrative or description that seemed to me to cover points clearly and in the necessary detail should be condemned because of (the details of the fault not even explained) POV. And not only was it strange to me, but nobody even bothered to explain it. POV was called in to condemn whole items on the assumption that failures in it should be as obvious as mistakes in elementary grammar.

As so often in cases of this kind, what was needed was to understand a whole set of different categories. This came to me all of a sudden, going over the notes of a (this needs to be said) particularly intelligent and careful beta. It occurred to me that this person regarded the so-called omniscient narrator as suspect from the word go, and took it for granted that any narrative must be done from a particular point of view, that is, that any narrative must be - understand, not may be, must be - subjective, slanted, and unreliable.

This was where I simply did not think the same way. To me, once I realized what the beta was assuming, it immediately sounded as nonsense. And that is not to criticize that beta, who, as I said, is a highly intelligent person, most of whose suggestions were very useful. No, it is a criticism of the whole culture. Not only did it conflict with the way I wanted to write, which is largely from an impersonal if not omniscient position, it also condemned the vast majority of the literature of mankind. Most cultures and most of our own history have assumed that a story should be told from an impersonal point of view. Indeed, it condemns whole genres such as epic and theatre to utter impotence. A theatre writer has only his characters and the stage to deal with: while any character may be shown with his or her foibles and slants clearly visible, unless the writer him/herself assumes an impersonal position with respect to his/her narrative, you could have no narrative at all. How does anyone stage a Hamlet that implies the unreliability, not of this or that character, but of the whole narrative structure? Perhaps here we have the root of so many indigestible and irrelevant modern stagings of classics. And as for the epic, imagine what a damned nuisance it would be to have to spend twelve or twenty-four books of narrative verse trying to determine whose POV is being taken and how that is slanted and unreliable. I think that anyone who starts reading Homer or the Mahabharata assumes an impersonal narrator as a matter of course; if they didn't, I very much doubt whether they could read more than a few verses. And above all, they would miss the point of everything they read.

Narrative with a personal accent, narrative built from a definite POV, is a highly useful device, and I hope I can handle it no worse than most; but POV raised to a fundamental and inevitable constructive principle of the whole art of narration, seems to me no more than a piece of intellectual dictatorship - of that "dictatorship of relativism" that the Pope, himself no mean artist with words, warned against. Far from enlarging the range and depth of literary art, it narrows it. It demands an extra layer of attention from writer and reader all the time, and that for no good reason.

Worst of all, it seems to me an intrusion of an omniscient-narrator of a peculiarly poisonous and arrogant stripe. If I, like Trollope or even Tolstoy, simply start out by saying, "it was this way, and this way, and then this happened," I think that the stupidest reader will not forget that this is, after all, my narrative, and the way I see things. But if my narrative - which never ceases to be my narrative - starts from the presumption that I can, as narrator, catch the different accents, mentalities and views of all my characters, and write from their point of view rather than mine, then I am exercising the most appaling presumption and tyranny over both my characters and my readers. I am assuming that I am impartial enough to hear each of their voices exactly as they are, and to transmit them to the readers without the interference of myself as "omniscient narrator." In other words, I claim to be omniscient enough to be twenty, forty, a hundred narrators. The truth, of course, is that I never once cease to be myself.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

A very interesting essay, particularly to other writers such as myself.

Not only did it conflict with the way I wanted to write, which is largely from an impersonal if not omniscient position, it also condemned the vast majority of the literature of mankind. Most cultures and most of our own history have assumed that a story should be told from an impersonal point of view. Indeed, it condemns whole genres such as epic and theatre to utter impotence.

Mmmm. Well, I see what you're getting at, but I think you're condemning the standards of POV with too broad a brush. There's a place for all types of POV, including, as you point out, the omniscient narrator of epics, theatre, and fairy tales or myth.

There is also a place for the more intimate and closed use of POV, particularly (at least in my writing) for the purpose of getting the story itself, the experience, inside the reader's head and heart. I can imagine writing some of my orignial fiction from a mostly-omniscient POV (I don't think I'd want to, as I am far more interested in the experience of truth and love and life than the bare-bones explanations of them)...but most of my fic needs a tight POV to help define the story.

Actually, when I'm not tightening the POV to define the reader's experience, I'm usually using it as a structural basis. One of my writerly tools.

It demands an extra layer of attention from writer and reader all the time, and that for no good reason.

I object to this. Tight POV is closer to human experience (not always, but sometimes), and done well pulls the reader along. I think most people today have a harder time with omniscient narration, because it requires a stronger use of imagination to reach the suspension of disbelief. True mythological stories have the power to command such attention, but that kind of power is rare, and I myself (to my knowledge) have not been able to unearth it.

And "for no good reason"? See my comments above for the uses of a more focused POV.

In other words, I claim to be omniscient enough to be twenty, forty, a hundred narrators. The truth, of course, is that I never once cease to be myself.

Hopefully, any writer worth their metaphorial salt has reached some similiar conclusion. But if we follow your conclusion here to its end, surely we only reach a condemnation of experiential POV as devestating as the condemnation you perceive of omniscient?

Of course we truly write only as ourselves. But by turning to different portions of ourselves, we can create different voices. Just as a man need not write the same story every time, and it need not reflect his real life in any detail. (Have you, by chance, read CS Lewis' novel Till We Have Faces? That's an interesting exercise in tight POV, if you like.)

Way-ullllllllllllllllllll,

nothing's wrong with the ol' omniscient POV, but, like all POVs, it has to be established right away. And like all POVs, it needs to be chosen for a reason. Even the omniscient has limitations, usually. No matter when an author lived, and no matter what POV he's chosen, he can't have a moon in a pre-industrial fantasy setting being compared to a streetlight.

I'm tempted to read your fanfic, but in general I don't read fan fiction.

I was surprised, when I began falling into writing circles in LJ, at how many rules people apply to their writing that I had not even thought of--for instance, that a novel must start with a bang and keep up at a very fast pace. Many of my LJ friends and acquaintances (those are people whose comments I like to read in other people's journals but whom I haven't friended yet...) who write seem to spend a lot of time trying to make their writing faster and more action packed.

I think you can disregard advice about point of view; you're writing with different assumptions. Some readers may not like an omniscient narrator, but then again, if they read on, they may get drawn in. And if they don't, that's fine; there's plenty of fiction with non-omniscient narrators out there for them to enjoy.

I like limited points of view sometimes. In War and Peace, when Natasha is seeing an opera for the first time, her naive point of view is hilarious. I also like it when the (omniscient or otherwise) narrator turns to talk to you sometimes, like, for instance, in Terry Pratchett novels. Oh, there are lots of ways to tell a good story...

Hear hear. For a totally shameless display, read the opening pages of Trollope's Doctor Thorne - a dozen or more pages of continuous narrative in Trollope's own voice, including addresses to his readers!

for instance, that a novel must start with a bang and keep up at a very fast pace.

It's a semi-abitrary rule. Publishers know that slow-paced, slow-start novels don't sell well. I think the idea is that many book readers pick up a volume and decide whether they want to read it or not based on the first few pages. Many good novels are slow starts, but they'd be difficult to sell in the modern market.

It is perhaps worth noticing that both Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone and The Fellowship of the Ring start quite quietly.

Not my favorite part of either book. I also prefer Jane Austen's snappy beginning to Pride and Prejudice (as opposed to, say, Mansfield Park). You said you were influenced by comic books; I was influenced by film. The James Bondesque opening sequence is sort of stuck in my mind, even though it doesn't really work for books.

All I was saying is that if we talk commercial success, here are the two most successful books since the Sherlock Holmes stories (many of which also start slowly, funnily or quirkily) starting without any of the conventional devices. And nobody would accuse Professor Tolkien and Mrs.Rowling of producing unsaleable work.

Well, in a world where most books are not successes, most authors would rather compromise a little and produce something that they know will sell rather than risk not getting published at all. I think it's a valid choice - and I do wish that more publishers would take risks.

There are some slow books I like. Les Miserables, for instance. The rambling is half the point!

Sure, I understand the publishing exegencies (even if I can't spell that word w/out a dictionary and am too lazy to reach over and get a dictionary...). If you want to become a commercial success, it makes sense to try--insofar as you can without making yourself miserable--to write what people want to publish (and what people want to read, of course). The thing is, even if you do write exactly the sort of thing that people want to publish, there are SOOOO many would-be writers out there that you just may not be lucky enough to be picked to be published. So you shouldn't bother changing the way you write **too** much--certainly not to the degree that you feel like a sellout--all with the aim of getting published, since it may not happen anyway.

You remind me of another author who doesn't like "those cardboard-cut-out-characters" where the good guys are admirable and the bad guys are not as cuddly. OK - I concede real life has complicated people. If I wanted to read real life, with epic, spawling, all-knowing characters "as big as all outdoors," I'd read blogs exclusively. But I know about structure and symbols and layers of complexity and motifs and emotion. I like playing that game. So do a lot of readers.
I have a set of expectations for fiction, just as I do for amusement park rides. Mysteries give me a funhouse of perception with the reader two steps behind. Suspense gives me a rollercoaster with the reader two steps in front. I expect certain POV to drag me along or push me ahead.
If you're writing Menelaus's marital problems, third person won't do the job. Big stories can have more remote narrators and bigger action. Smaller, tighter focus for smaller characters and less heroic stories. You're setting yourself up for a fall if you try to write fanfic like Homer. (He's had a few centuries of beta's to help him and make sure his teens aren't annoying.)
You read lots of essays. You write excellent essays. But you don't need a reader's sympathy in essays - you catch them with 'honeyd logic.' Fanfic readers are there for the characters - that's the ride they bought tickets for. They need the ride to fullfill an expectation. JKR writes in Harry's POV (up until the last book exclusively in unreliable limited third). Her readers expect a certain intimacy with the characters. (Maybe Illiad fanfic is more a style you like?.)
If I sip a lemonade and get a coffee taste, my expectations are not satisfied, no matter how much I love coffee. Write a Romance with a female lead, who cheats on her husband and ends the story divorced and alone, and my expectations are not met. It's not high art - it's fanfic. Genres have a certain structure, just like epics. If you write your story with your prefered style, it sounds like a half-serious lecture. I don't think that's a style you want to mimic - it's more a parody of yourself than the truth. *rfachir*

It's not high art - it's fanfic. Genres have a certain structure, just like epics.

I'm not trying to play devil's advocate, exactly, here...but one thing I love about fanfic is the proliferation and variety of genres. I am a "gen" reader and writer, so the romance is not something I seek out. Action/adveture, mystery, myth or fairy tale, pseduohistory, narrative poetry (or really amazing filks--someone wrote a Harry Potter version/parody of T.S. Eliot's "Wasteland" and it's completely brilliant), pretty much whatever you write.

And it needn't match the genre of the source, either.

Approach it from a different genre and reveal new things about the source, or take a new tack with it.

I guess what I'm saying is that fic isn't exactly a genre, in the typical sense of the word. It's more like a form--and it's broader even than those catagories.

There is an exception to every rule, but I still stand by the idea that there is an appropriate POV for a story, and intimate POV's work better for more intimate scenes. Having an omnicient character in a small, imperfect world doesn't fit. It's like that law in physics - the act of observation changes the thing observed. Large actions - great battles, epic struggles - deserve a larger POV, but two characters bickering can't - omnicient POV smothers the dynamics of the two. It turns into a dull lecture instead of a small heated battle.

There is an exception to every rule, but I still stand by the idea that there is an appropriate POV for a story, and intimate POV's work better for more intimate scenes.

Well, I never said that wasn't true. It's just that I have occasionally seen fic done from an outsider's or an omniscient pov, when the source itself uses a tight pov, and the fic has worked both as a storytelling and as an addition to the source.

I agree, two characters bickering is hardly the subject of epic (unless they are gods, and the bickering involves sending their human pawns against each other in open war--then you have the Illiad). Nor is a narrow pov entirely appropriate to epic (though I would say it's very appropriate to scenes within the epic--Tolkien tells his battles magnificently, but it's from right inside Samwise the hobbit's head that we see the destruction of the Ring, that final struggle).

Two characters bickering is hardly a subject for an epic? So the Iliad is not an epic? It all starts with Achilles and Agamemnon quarrelling, remember.

You did *read* my comment, didn't you? I actually mentioned the Illiad. Perhaps this comment was meant for the person I replied to?

[btw, indeed, the Illiad begins with a quarrel, but it grows into something on a much grander scale. I would say that only rarely (which means it does happen) is a simple quarrel worthy of epic treatment; what happens as a consequence of said quarrel, though, is what most epics are made of.]

Fanfic is not a genre. If it was, it would not need the dozen or more of genre descriptions to be found in FA and elsewhere. And I said before that I will personally have a punch-up with anyone who does not accept that

kennahijja at least is an artist of genius. In the case of her best work, it fucking well is high art.

I had this nonsense in comics: people running around with stupid inferiority complexes, talking about "comics" as opposed to "real life". To which I told them, real life is TV and tabloid readers. You are following some of the greatest artists who will ever live - beginning with the two giants, Kirby and Miyazaki - so stop being apologetic and start treating ignorant outsiders as ignorant outsiders. Great writing comes from any kind of side, from private letters (Madame de Sevigne'), from hackwork done for cash down (Poe), from the forgotten work of a poetic hobbyist (Emily Dickinson), from a lecherous adventurer sitting down to recall a dissolute life (Casanova de Seingalt), from odious political propaganda for a corrupt leadership (Burke), from journalistic piecework (Orwell, Mencken, Chesterton), from a bankrupt adventurer having to pay his debts (Cervantes), from amateur publications exactly like modern fanzines (Lovecraft), from antrhopological research (the Brothers Grimm) and so on and so forth and so following... Not only is there no reason why fanfics should not be "high art" any more than any of these things certainly were, but there is evidence, which only a closed mind will not accept, that certain fanfics certainly are "high art".

Mysteries give me a funhouse of perception with the reader two steps behind.

Not always. Think Columbo.

It's not "who done it?" it's "how did they cover up who done it?" - same as any other mystery. Columbo is the Superman with the answers - if you figured out the mystery before he did, the mystery is a bust. There would be no entertainment. The reader must not figure it out before Columbo does. Remember the one with Donald Pleasance as the wine dealer? The zinger was not when the killer was captured, its when he realized he'd ruined all his wine to kill his brother. An omnicient POV would have known that. A limited POV was more entertaining by witholding that info until the end.

True dat.

You seem to be forgetting one small matter - I had told you that I intended to write a huge continuity featuring no less than three chaptered fics running alongside each other, and with more than half a dozen fics as preludes. My model for this was Jack Kirby's Fourth World quadrilogy - again, a comic-book model - and that both was and was intended as a modern epic to match the great ancient poems. And practically everything else that influenced me, from Thomas Mann to Virgil, has been epic in scale and conception. So yes, I was intending to write an epic. Like JKR, like Philip Pullman (whether or not I detest him), like the vast majority of fantasy writers going back to Tolkien and Eddison.

Then you can't let an omnicient chorus in on the action. You have to lose the bickering and make him God - an Obi Wan or Gandalf might fill the role, but not the amoral character you wrote. The chorus is there to fill in the holes, not to give their opinion of the relative goodness or stupidity of the characters or the action.
You created a chorus character, and you made him by virtue of POV into a lead. That is boring. The character who knows everything, has super-powers, and whose opinion can't be argued with drains tension from the story. I can't invest myself in a story where I don't trust an all-knowing narrator. A smaller POV I might try, but if I'm looking at it as a reader, it's too sad to have an amoral chorus acting like a jerk. The higher the POV goes, the more removed from the sweeping action the story gets, the less chance a narrator has to talk. Editorial comments are nescessarily a limited POV.

My advice, as a published writer, a living legend in my own mind, is that once you have learned the basics of hook, plot, character, description, theme, punchline, to take no further advice. Everything beyond the basics is opinion; it is fashion; it is faddishness.

Read the works you adore. Analyze what you see in them that makes you like them. If you need help with the analysis, that is a fine question to ask for advice: if you cannot put your finger on what made Nausicaä in the ODYESSEY so appealing or NAUSICAA IN THE VALLEY OF THE WIND so epic, it helps to consult others. Aside from that, regard criticism from family or friends or members of a writers group with great suspicion.

My wife is told not to use adverbs. Other says do not start a tale with dialogue. This is all rank nonsense: a waste of time to hear. Slow beginnings or fast beginnings simply do not matter that much—provided the slow beginning hooks the reader's interest. Much more important is getting yourself to work on the damn thing when you don't want to, and make sure it has an end. The only one you really need to listen to is your editor, maybe your agent, since they have a practical knowledge of the market, what will and what will not sell.

Don't worry. That is exactly what I do. I was trying to understand the meaning of criticisms that had left me not only annoyed but baffled.

Maybe the cause of that is Original Sin.

This may be presumptuous, but I would really welcome reviews of my work from you.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

A small discovery

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You're writing epic poetry?

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Don't listen to me

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