Building Voice

Creative Writing
 The Narrator
All creative writing features at least one
character. Fiction is fueled by heroes and villains,
protagonists and antagonists.
Non-fiction tells stories of human endeavor and
diversity (biography or memoir).
Even a poem that focuses on a pebble and
nothing else has a pivotal central character the
narrator.
The narrator is the liaison between reader and
writer.
 The Narrator
A narrator is a consciousness, constructed
on the page, who mediates the subject of
the piece.
The narrator is the teller of the tale.
But a narrator is not just the authors
voice. A creative author constructs a
purpose-built narrator for each project he
or she takes on.
 A Narrator Can Be
a character involved in the story
a voice on the page
 Narrators Role
In popular publishing, fiction or otherwise,
the narrator is either right up on the page
or firmly in the background; the same is
true of both literary fiction and non-fiction.
 Types of Narrator
The narrator defines and controls how a reader
experiences a creative piece.
Sometimes the narrator is an actual character
in the story, sometimes theyre the authorial
consciousness we feel in a poem or description.
In biography and life writing, as in much non-
fiction, the narrator may never step forward on
the page, and make a statement or advance an
opinion but they exist throughout the text as
an entity whose diction, worldview and other
authorial choices direct how we apprehend their
subject.
 Authorial Choices
What the narrator includes, and what they
leave out
What they foreground, and what they
eradicate
What they give page space to and how
When they reveal important information
 Background Narrator
An effaced narrator stays in the background,
but is present throughout the piece as an
organizing consciousness who presents and
mediates the material.

Effaced narrators are especially useful in

poetry, where the author wants to let the
subject speak for itself without putting a
figure in the landscape to observe it.

In storytelling, effaced narrators are used to

give the illusion of detached access, as if one
wall of a room has been peeled away so a
reader can see the people inside hear what
theyre saying, watch what theyre doing,
 Fourth-Wall Realism
Standard narrative mode in creative writing.
This technique lets the reader experience the
piece as closely as possible while maintaining
enough distance to see the big picture.
Fourth-wall realism isnt a matter of letting
the reader sit back and watch things unfold,
as if they are watching a movie. It can
combine different narrative positions to
achieve different effects.
 Background vs.
Foreground
A foregrounded, first-person narrator tells
the story of his or her life.
Fiction often uses an effaced, third-person
narrator so that theres nothing in the
way of the story for a reader.
However, when an author wants to achieve
powerful effects, a background narrator
can be moved dramatically to the
foreground.
 Practice 1
Foregrounding A Narrator
Think of someone you really dont like.
Someone who really gets on your nerves
under your skin. It could be someone at
school, it could be a celebrity, or a relative:
someone who simply annoys you.
Now write two paragraphs that are a
neutral presentation of this individual.
Dont include information of which you
have special knowledge, such as the
reason you dont like this person; use only
the facts which are commonly known.
Write it in third person, with the narrator in
 Practice 2
Keep the same facts, but foreground the
narrator. Remember not to use I. Keep it
in third person. If you get stuck, go back
and change your initial choices to ones
that have more of a negative spin now.
 First-Person Narrators
A first-person narrator is right up there on the
page.
In poetry, they signal their presence with the
initial pronoun choices.
Examples:
Thats my last Duchess painted on the wall
Robert Browning My Last Duchess
Whose woods these are I think I know
Robert Frost Stopping by Woods on a
Snowy Evening
First-Person Narrators
In fiction, the narrator steps forward and
introduces themselves at the start of a
piece.
A first-person narrator can hit the ground
running, inducting us quickly into a story
with a compelling authorial voice. It
neednt be a confident first-person voice,
but the perspectives and possibilities of the
first person permit a creative author to get
straight into the telling.