Okay, I'm not sure if the fic I'm writing right now is in omniscient POV or just from River's POV, but I suppose there isn't all that much difference, is there?
I don't believe in Serenity-as-miracle-cure, but in this story I'm writing River comparatively sane, at least in interior monologue. In dialogue she still's quite a bit short of lucid most of the time.
But I don't think she ever has really usable long-range precognitive skills--if she did, f'rex, in the movie she would have said, Mal, it's kind of pointless knocking off that payroll considering the amount of Reavers we're gonna have in our face--and of course she would have warned him to wave ahead to Haven and warn the others.
But how often do omniscient narrators demonstrate precognition either? I mean every once and a while one comes across a "But little did she know...." but in general it destroys tension just as much.
If the omniscient narrator is writing in the past tense, then naturally the narrator knows everything that happened. Many Victorian novels ended with a wrap-up of the future lives of the characters and their children, because the narrator "knows" that Roger is going to lose his life bravely fighting for the Empire, or that Georgetta will have three children.
Well, the narrator doesn't really "know" anything--it's an author's construct, nyet? If we envision the narrator as a character--and I'm not sure we inevitably do that with omniscient--then we'd probably envision her as existing after the events of the novel, like we do with a first-person narrator, so there'd be no precognition necessary.
After all, even if it is from River's point of view, there's still a narrator in some sense, as its told in third person, and the narrator "knows" what River is thinking, but it'd be odd to say the narrator is psychic.
I think there is a difference but I'm struggling to articulate what that might be, though I think the obvious point would be that an omniscient narrator's knowledge (can be) is organized according to some logic that's not neccessarily present with River's knowledge; I think there's also an aspect of forknowledge that (can be) is part of an omni-narrator's knowledge, but really I'm just struggling with digging in and really defining narration, which I've been puzzling over for a couple of days, since author != narrator != character (unless the narrator is a character), and both the author and the narrator impose story upon events in a way that most characters don't.
I also think omniscient third-person narrators usually become characters, themselves, because straight omniscience is just impossible to convey; there must be some order, bias, etc, and that bias becomes the seed of a new perspective that's just as blind in its way as limited-third.
Must clean room now. Ick. Happy Sunday, though! :)
Well, your omniscient narrators become characters, and wonderfully and bneautifully so, and I love that about your fics. But I'm not sure that it necessarily happens in any meaningful way--yes, the narrator in a Tom Clancy novel is imposing order/bias, but the mock-objectivity doesn't really draw attention to itself.
And I think that's really what is at stake at here--River's presence means I can't head-jump in the middle of a scene without drawing attention to the shift the way I would if I suddenly switched from being in Kaylee's head to being in Inara's. It's not really a question of constructing a coherent overall voice, although in another fic I could totally do that and it'd be cool.
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After all, even if it is from River's point of view, there's still a narrator in some sense, as its told in third person, and the narrator "knows" what River is thinking, but it'd be odd to say the narrator is psychic.
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I also think omniscient third-person narrators usually become characters, themselves, because straight omniscience is just impossible to convey; there must be some order, bias, etc, and that bias becomes the seed of a new perspective that's just as blind in its way as limited-third.
Must clean room now. Ick. Happy Sunday, though! :)
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And I think that's really what is at stake at here--River's presence means I can't head-jump in the middle of a scene without drawing attention to the shift the way I would if I suddenly switched from being in Kaylee's head to being in Inara's. It's not really a question of constructing a coherent overall voice, although in another fic I could totally do that and it'd be cool.