Fiction's fictions

The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated…


Here’s the thing about fiction: it’s fake. Profound, I know, but true nonetheless.

This is one of the things I have been struggling with over the past few years, and why I think my output has been, well, slim. I love reading fiction. I prefer it to nonfiction by quite a bit. But I have a problem with developing a strategy to write it.

The central reason for this is I can’t fully embrace any of the points of view one can choose from to tell a story. The three most popular are first person, third person omniscient, and third person limited. I have been out of school for almost ten years, so I apologize if this discussion comes across as amateurish, but I need to get this out.

First person is odd for me. I don’t think I’ve ever written anything in first person. I have inserted myself in stories, but that is not really the “I” of first person. The “I” of first person is not really the author, but rather a character the author is playing. I know this gives the author the opportunity to tell a story from a narrow point of view and with a unique voice, but I question what makes an author want to do this. Perhaps it is a vehicle for the author to imagine themselves as another person, some sort of fantasy. Or perhaps it is so the author can say things they would not usually say. Either way, it doesn’t sit quite right with me.

Third person omniscient is an artifice. There is nothing like it that exists outside of literature. This could be why it is so popular - it gives the author the chance to act as the supreme puppet master, and gives him/her greater control over the direction of the story. It is, of course, an essential construct for literary pursuits, and one that for the most part exists only in fiction. It is useful for storytellers for the narrator to know what all the characters’ thoughts and motivations are. There are non-fiction instances when an author, through outside research, has been able to glean what interested parties were thinking in particular settings, and recount all of them in one scene, but it is always after-the-fact. A person of normal means cannot walk into a room and know what everyone is thinking.

Third person limited makes for the most interesting stories, but is maybe the least real for fiction. I love stories where the reader doesn’t necessarily know what is going on in any of the characters’ heads. Or maybe they know about just a couple. I am particularly fond of unreliable narrators. But there it is, right? While the narrator may be unreliable, the author is not. The unreliability of the narrator is itself a construct of the author. This is why I find it the least real in a fictional setting. The author knows the motivations of all the characters even if the narrator does not. This is why the narrator must always be considered a character in the story,

I have this huge idea in my head I have been thinking about for a couple years that takes the idea of a narrator to its absurd end. I have no idea how to execute it yet, but I can’t shake it.

I have some ideas about tense as well, but that’s for another post. I feel I am overthinking all of these things, and I just need to put my thing down. All encouragement is welcome.