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Omniscient narrator's voice: Editor's Notes #301 November 27, 2019 |
| Hello, —Henry Ford In this issue: 1. Add to your omniscient narrator’s voice 2. Tickled my funny bone 3. Interesting Web site 4. Writing prompt 5. A Christmas/New Year offer for you 1. Add to your omniscient narrator’s voice Third person omniscient voice is an old and trusted way to tell a story. An omniscient narrator knows everything and can tell the reader anything at all. Often the omniscient narrator sounds like a text book. But who that narrator is makes a difference to your story. The narrator could simply be you as you are in your real life, telling a story you’ve made up. Or you can add to the narrator’s characteristics to give another dimension to your story. Here are some ideas to try. Give your narrator a dialect other than yours, but one that suits the story. Give your narrator opinions on characters or events or values or issues. Play with the gender of your omniscient narrator. Use the resources shared in issue #299 to refine this aspect of the narrator. See https://www.writershelper.com/Editors_Notes-299.html Make your narrator less than perfectly dependable. The unreliable narrator is usually a first-person account. But a narrator of history could differ from our understanding of the events of the past if the narrator is speaking in the past with that perspective. Your narrator is another character in your story. Let your imagination loose as you explore options. =========== 2.Tickled my funny bone Police were summoned to a daycare center where a three-year-old was resisting a rest. =========== 3. Interesting Web site This site was passed on by reader and writer Morgen Marshall. You may like it, too. https://www.advicetowriters.com/ =========== 4. Writing prompt Take a short piece of writing, yours of someone else’s, and change the voice of the narrator using any of the ideas above or any others you think of. Try no more than one chapter unless you are so sold on the idea that you rewrite your whole book. =========== 5. A Christmas/New Year offer for you When I invited all writers to think about how to use NaNoWriMo to motivate writing, I said I’d have something to help you shift gears. This is it. If you worked on a special November writing project, you are coming to a close and may be ready to have some input into what you’ve done. Normally, I offer a sample edit on 500 words for US$20. Starting now, and going until January 31, 2020, I will double the word count for the sample edit. So, for US$20, you can have an edit on 1000 words. This is not simply a check of grammar, spelling, and punctuation. I comment on everything I see. I also include a quote for the full range of my services, so if you’ve ever wondered what it would cost to have your book edited, you would know exactly what I would charge for the various types of work an editor does. This is not restricted to those who officially worked on a NaNoWriMo project. Anyone who sends me 1000 words instead of the usual 500 from now until January 31, 2020 gets a full edit on all 1000 words. Learn more and submit your work at https://www.writershelper.com/sample-edit.html/ =========== Join Writer's Helper Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/WritersHelperEditor Follow me on Twitter @AudreytheEditor Link on LinkedIn https://ca.linkedin.com/in/audreyowen (Email me first so I know how you know me.) =========== If you know a writer who would appreciate receiving Editor's Notes, forward this issue. If someone has passed this on to you, you can get your own free subscription by signing up at https://www.writershelper.com/newsletter.html |
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