Who’s Speaking: Defining Your Narrator

Hello, and welcome to Nadi Abdi talks Writing, Reading, and Politics. I’m Nadi Abdi, author of Power of the People: The Demon Cleaner book one.

Today, I want to talk about narrators. Not for audiobooks. But the tone and voice of your story.

An important decision you’ll have to make is who’s telling your story and what they sound like. This is beyond 1st, 2nd, or 3rd person. This determines the perspective you work with, the angles, and whips around to what the characters see and what the reader sees. 

Think about the tone, the vocabulary. Really, unless the narrator is one of the characters, you want to treat the narrator like a character, complete with their own persona. Let me explain. 

Third person

One of the earliest iterations of The Demon Cleaner was first person. I was inspired by Anne Rice who writes a lot of her work in first person. I’d just read Vampire Lestat in which she tells several stories from different characters all in first person. So, I’m thinking, cool. I can do that. I can write first person from the view of my main character, then veer off and do first person of other characters as I work with them. 

I got about 3 chapters in and realized that was not going to work. I have an ensemble cast. I have whole families that are led by people who have underlings that run off and do whatever. My main character isn’t everywhere all the time and not everything she does requires narration. We see the world around her by what’s happening to others. There are a lot of short stories in the novel that illustrate forthcoming issues she’ll have to deal with, much like cut scenes in a video game. 

Once I decided on 3rd person, I had to decide on the speech pattern of that person. Did I want the narrator to sound different from the other characters, was it another character (A Series of Unfortunate Events), was it just Lillas, but speaking as the narrator? I chose to have the narrator be amorphous. It speaks and vibes as the character whose perspective we’re viewing the scene from. 

So, one thing that I had to learn (and I’m still learning) is to keep a scene focused on one character at a time. A lot is going on in a scene. Everyone’s thinking a lot. I’m thinking a lot. And sometimes, I switch characters and don’t realize it. This becomes an issue because I use my narrator to speak for whatever character I’m following and often in that character’s vernacular. Lillas and her mother don’t speak the same. They don’t have the same worries. They have similar attitudes, but they use different vocabulary. Sometimes, that comes out in the narrator also. The way my 3rd person narrates for Marisai isn’t the same as the way my 3rd person narrates for Lillas. For one Lillas swears…a lot. Her mother doesn’t. Her mother goes to church. Lillas goes to church under duress. They do not speak the same. Their narration isn’t the same.

Be careful with character switching. Maybe you don’t have this problem. Maybe you do. I do. So, I’m telling you and myself. It can be confusing especially if you narrate to-character like I do. If you write 1st person, this may not be an issue. I don’t see how it would be. You’ll be with the same character all the same. I don’t typically write in 1st person. I have some short stories and a NaNo in first person, but otherwise, I write in 3rd person. Also, remembering who’s the star of a scene (it won’t always be the MC) is paramount.

Narrating 2nd person. 

I’ve done it once or twice. They were two short stories. One specifically is published. They are old. I haven’t done it recently. We mostly see this narration style used with choose-your-own adventure stories. I’d read somewhere years ago that trying to sustain a long-form work in 2nd person would be exhausting. I don’t know that that’s true because I’ve never done it. However, I’m not against trying it. A quick Google search pulled up a thread on Reddit where someone asked about novels in 2nd person. There are a bunch of suggestions for choose-your-own-adventure stories, but a few novels as well. 

If you’re interested in writing a story in 2nd person, I would definitely read more work in second person to see what techniques have been used. Because, as we all know, the secret to writing is reading. 

Narrating First person

I’m going to guess first person is used just as much as third person. Maybe more if you’re a romance reader and writer. I seem to be reading a lot of work in first person lately. It’s interesting because the way the authors are formatting is by naming the chapter after the person who is speaking, which is not a bad technique at all.  Tomi Adeymi uses it in her Legacy of Orisha series. Annait LJ uses it in her Ameslan series. And they work really well. 

I can’t think of any longer works I’ve used it for, yet. I have a NaNo that is in 1st person from multiple perspectives, but that’s about it. I tend to stick with short stories when using 1st person. 1st person is probably the easiest to use because you can’t get lost on who’s who and where’s where. It would be interesting to use to tell the same story from multiple character’s perspectives a la Clue. 

But again, gauge your story and see what works for the type and style that you’re using. It’s deeper than first, second, or third, but using first, second, or third, can change what you’re able to do with the story and how the story is told. Narration is a tool; it’s a drill. You have to use the right bit for the job. 

That’s it for today. Thanks for reading. Come back next week. We’ll discuss last year’s boycott of St Martin’s Press and the importance of Black and non-white authors to seek safety in publishing. I’m Nadi Abdi. See you then.

Read more by Nadi Abdi

The Demon Cleaner: Blog, Substack

Black Women in Fantasy: Blog, Substack

Nadi Abdi on Writing, Reading, and Politics: Blog, Substack