The best way to write something interesting is to have a narrative voice that is interesting because everything in a story is an expression of that voice. The characters, the plot, the style, these are all elements that come from voice. And the best voice is found when you realize that your narrator is a character. Perhaps the most important character in your story.
This is obvious if you’re writing in first person, where you are using the perspective of one particular character to color the narration. A big part of the appeal of this approach is the simulation of intimacy and point of view that comes from using first person narration.
Yes, I said simulation of intimacy. Storytelling is always a simulation attempting to evoke something in the audience, but that’s a topic for another day.
But even in third person, there’s a narrator.… Read the rest “The Narrator’s Opinion”