![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
For my convenience, so I can find these posts to rasfc when I want to think about these things again:
Story past:
On Sat, 21 Aug 2004 16:54:09 GMT, mary_gentle@cix.co.uk (Mary Gentle) seems to have said:
>In article <1givy59.1kk73o31a5lpfhN%zeborah@gmail.com>, zeborah@gmail.com
>(Zeborah) wrote:
>
>> Mary Gentle <mary_gentle@cix.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>> > In article <1gitclu.4knvijv43yyN%zeborah@gmail.com>, zeborah@gmail.com
>> > (Zeborah) wrote:
>> [A gazillion classical authors who write in either omni or first person]
>> > > Any counter-examples? I'd like as broad a variety of authors as
>> > > possible. A dead non-anglophone female would be ideal, but
>> > > otherwise
>> > > anyone whose works qualify for Project Gutenberg would be fine.
>> >
>> > Ehh. I'm not sure how 'classical' he is, but Stanley Weyman's on
>> > Gutenberg, and he does tight third.
>>
>> Thanks!
>
>A much-underestimated writer, Mr Weyman...
>
>> >In fact, there's an essay in the
>> > collected edition where he specifically says he's experimenting with
>> > various techniques in various different books, and tight third is one
>> > of
>> > the things he mentions.
>>
>> Tight third. As an experiment.
>
>Heh. I grant you it sounds weird. To be fair, his major successes
>(including the one they made stage plays and films out of) were in first
>person. And he'd done omni, I'm almost sure. So, he says in his intro,
>he wanted to know what else he could do... and tight third was on his
>list.
>
>Weyman does do some /really/ good technical stuff with the pattern of the
>historical romance -- 19th century version, I should add: nothing _like_
>the current version. My favourite's the perfect 180 degree turn that
>swaps a main villain into the hero by the end of the book (and the hero
>into - well, not a villain. A wimp, really.) That's up there with
>Cabell's book of short stories where the villain of one story becomes the
>hero of the next, and so on; i.e. worth squirrelling away and stealing
>when the right plot occurs. :)
I have to go find this person.
>
>> One spends all this time just assuming that tight third is a really
>> basic point of view (unless one is Graydon, of course, who's probably
>> smirking right now) and then it turns out to be an experiment. A
>> temporary aberration in the history of literature.
>
>Graydon's allowed his smirk, I think - ISTM the basic story mindsets are
>first person ("this happened to me") and omni ("this happened to these
>people I know"). Autobiography and anecdote. Focussing omni down to the
>limitations of first person... really, it gets odder every time I think
>about it. Cue migraine headache again.
I think tight third is a marker too (see other post where I said I think that story past is just a marker of a story). It's what you use instead of first person when you don't want to engage in the level of artifice involved in presenting the voice of the character: when you don't want to express their emotions directly but you don't want to write a cold or alienated character necessarily (or maybe you do!): when you want to say some things the character couldn't say:when you don't want to say some things the character would say: when you don't want the story telling to be prominent: when you want the story telling to be more prominent -- I can think of lots of reasons.
>
>Although I can see the point of doing multiple tight third, if only for
>all the uses of irony that that allows, which it would be difficult to do
>the same way in omni. Not impossible with 'invisible omni', but still
>difficult.
I've used tight third for a story that _couldn't_ be told in first, because the character is somewhat inarticulate. Having started that way, and discovering the necessity of incorporating other points of view, the story became multiple tight third. And then, since the piece was at least partly about culture shock, and all of the points of view were suffering from it in different ways, it worked out okay.
I just recently gave up on an amateur serial in which the shift was from first person to omni, and irregularly and without warning and increasingly as the story progressed. The story had other problems, but this is the one that bugged me the most. Clearly, the only point of view that really interested the author was the one in first, and he only made the excursions into omni because he thought that the information was crucial to the story (it wasn't: the people were doing weird things, but they were all jealous teenagers, and the first person point of view was clueless anyway, so the things they did didn't need to be explained beforehand -- he was going to be mystified no matter what the reader knew, and the reader's foreknowledge of the motivations and preliminary actions of these creeps did not help one bit).
I've also recently read an otherwise wonderful amateur story told in first person which kept giving me problems because the story was told in first person with very sophisticated language -- and the point of view character was completely inarticulate and illiterate, seemed actually to be aphasic. I kept jolting on it. I understand in the case of this story why the author chose first person, but I think it would have been better in very tight third.
>
>I have a vague feeling that tight third relates precisely to camera-eye --
>or 'theatre-eye', in the days before films -- when you want to observe
>from the outside, but without the moral freight that omni tends to carry
>in its 'dear reader' model. Or maybe it's just fiction wanting to
>colonise the appearance of biography?
>
I think it became standard in the second half of the twentieth century because it's so handy for the existential world view, honestly.
Lucy Kemnitzer, still
http://www.baymoon.com/~ritaxis
http://www.livejournal.com/users/ritaxismom
tight third:
On Sat, 21 Aug 2004 12:04:37 -0400, oak@uniserve.com seems to have said:
>In <memo.20040821165438.2292i@roxanne.morgan.ntlworld.com>, Mary Gentle
><mary_gentle@cix.co.uk> onsendan:
>> In article <slrncieboe.hg1.oak@grithr.uniserve.com>, oak@uniserve.com
>> () wrote:
>>> In <1givy59.1kk73o31a5lpfhN%zeborah@gmail.com>, Zeborah
>>> <zeborah@gmail.com> onsendan:
>>> > One spends all this time just assuming that tight third is a really
>>> > basic point of view (unless one is Graydon, of course, who's
>>> > probably smirking right now) and then it turns out to be an
>>> > experiment. A temporary aberration in the history of literature.
>>>
>>> I think it's an ideal viewpoint for a particular kind of character
>>> who is deeply confused about the distinction between their opinions
>>> and the laws of the universe; it suits Miles Vorkosigan to a T.
>>>
>>> But as a general thing? I still don't get it.
>>
>> I'm wondering where you stand on biography (as opposed to
>> autobiography) - that particular focussed-in type that abandons
>> omni-comment on the subject?
>
>I don't think that's a good idea, really; biography is supposed to be
>history, and abandoning the attempt at defensibility of conclusion seems
>to me to be a bad thing.
>
>I have not, to be sure, read a lot of biography, so there may well be
>some splendid examples with which I am unfamiliar.
>
>Shall I get into the implausiblity of the story past, where events that
>have happened unto their ends and conclusions are supposed to generate
>tension about outcomes? That's a very strange mapping indeed, from the
>shifting then to the reader's supposed static now.
I don't think the story past is meant to convey pastness. I think in English anyway it's equivalent to the way we used to (and sometimes still use) a form that sounded like the past to indicate the subjenctive. (I don't mean it is the subjunctive: otherwise other languages sharing the same literary traditions would write their stories in the subjunctive and I have not seen that) It's a _marker_ and a _marker_ only, that a story is being told. For most stories. Otherwise, why would we use the past in stories about events supposedly taking place in our future?
When people use the present, what they do is mark the story _again_. They say: "you were expecting a story told in the usual way, but this story is different."
And the effect, I think, most often, is to make a timeless, but more distant, ambience. Which suits some stories and not others. And then, some writers somehow turn that into intimacy and immediacy, though I don't think that's the basic effect of using present tense.
The only reason that the story past usually makes a more simple and straightforward story is that its wide use makes it invisible to the reader. It has nothing to do with the real sensation of relative time passing. That has to be established by other means, because the tense is taken for granted (you can help by layering different past forms, but there's a limit to what that can do, at least in English).
Lucy Kemnitzer, still
http://www.baymoon.com/~ritaxis
http://www.livejournal.com/users/ritaxismom
Story past:
On Sat, 21 Aug 2004 16:54:09 GMT, mary_gentle@cix.co.uk (Mary Gentle) seems to have said:
>In article <1givy59.1kk73o31a5lpfhN%zeborah@gmail.com>, zeborah@gmail.com
>(Zeborah) wrote:
>
>> Mary Gentle <mary_gentle@cix.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>> > In article <1gitclu.4knvijv43yyN%zeborah@gmail.com>, zeborah@gmail.com
>> > (Zeborah) wrote:
>> [A gazillion classical authors who write in either omni or first person]
>> > > Any counter-examples? I'd like as broad a variety of authors as
>> > > possible. A dead non-anglophone female would be ideal, but
>> > > otherwise
>> > > anyone whose works qualify for Project Gutenberg would be fine.
>> >
>> > Ehh. I'm not sure how 'classical' he is, but Stanley Weyman's on
>> > Gutenberg, and he does tight third.
>>
>> Thanks!
>
>A much-underestimated writer, Mr Weyman...
>
>> >In fact, there's an essay in the
>> > collected edition where he specifically says he's experimenting with
>> > various techniques in various different books, and tight third is one
>> > of
>> > the things he mentions.
>>
>> Tight third. As an experiment.
>
>Heh. I grant you it sounds weird. To be fair, his major successes
>(including the one they made stage plays and films out of) were in first
>person. And he'd done omni, I'm almost sure. So, he says in his intro,
>he wanted to know what else he could do... and tight third was on his
>list.
>
>Weyman does do some /really/ good technical stuff with the pattern of the
>historical romance -- 19th century version, I should add: nothing _like_
>the current version. My favourite's the perfect 180 degree turn that
>swaps a main villain into the hero by the end of the book (and the hero
>into - well, not a villain. A wimp, really.) That's up there with
>Cabell's book of short stories where the villain of one story becomes the
>hero of the next, and so on; i.e. worth squirrelling away and stealing
>when the right plot occurs. :)
I have to go find this person.
>
>> One spends all this time just assuming that tight third is a really
>> basic point of view (unless one is Graydon, of course, who's probably
>> smirking right now) and then it turns out to be an experiment. A
>> temporary aberration in the history of literature.
>
>Graydon's allowed his smirk, I think - ISTM the basic story mindsets are
>first person ("this happened to me") and omni ("this happened to these
>people I know"). Autobiography and anecdote. Focussing omni down to the
>limitations of first person... really, it gets odder every time I think
>about it. Cue migraine headache again.
I think tight third is a marker too (see other post where I said I think that story past is just a marker of a story). It's what you use instead of first person when you don't want to engage in the level of artifice involved in presenting the voice of the character: when you don't want to express their emotions directly but you don't want to write a cold or alienated character necessarily (or maybe you do!): when you want to say some things the character couldn't say:when you don't want to say some things the character would say: when you don't want the story telling to be prominent: when you want the story telling to be more prominent -- I can think of lots of reasons.
>
>Although I can see the point of doing multiple tight third, if only for
>all the uses of irony that that allows, which it would be difficult to do
>the same way in omni. Not impossible with 'invisible omni', but still
>difficult.
I've used tight third for a story that _couldn't_ be told in first, because the character is somewhat inarticulate. Having started that way, and discovering the necessity of incorporating other points of view, the story became multiple tight third. And then, since the piece was at least partly about culture shock, and all of the points of view were suffering from it in different ways, it worked out okay.
I just recently gave up on an amateur serial in which the shift was from first person to omni, and irregularly and without warning and increasingly as the story progressed. The story had other problems, but this is the one that bugged me the most. Clearly, the only point of view that really interested the author was the one in first, and he only made the excursions into omni because he thought that the information was crucial to the story (it wasn't: the people were doing weird things, but they were all jealous teenagers, and the first person point of view was clueless anyway, so the things they did didn't need to be explained beforehand -- he was going to be mystified no matter what the reader knew, and the reader's foreknowledge of the motivations and preliminary actions of these creeps did not help one bit).
I've also recently read an otherwise wonderful amateur story told in first person which kept giving me problems because the story was told in first person with very sophisticated language -- and the point of view character was completely inarticulate and illiterate, seemed actually to be aphasic. I kept jolting on it. I understand in the case of this story why the author chose first person, but I think it would have been better in very tight third.
>
>I have a vague feeling that tight third relates precisely to camera-eye --
>or 'theatre-eye', in the days before films -- when you want to observe
>from the outside, but without the moral freight that omni tends to carry
>in its 'dear reader' model. Or maybe it's just fiction wanting to
>colonise the appearance of biography?
>
I think it became standard in the second half of the twentieth century because it's so handy for the existential world view, honestly.
Lucy Kemnitzer, still
http://www.baymoon.com/~ritaxis
http://www.livejournal.com/users/ritaxismom
tight third:
On Sat, 21 Aug 2004 12:04:37 -0400, oak@uniserve.com seems to have said:
>In <memo.20040821165438.2292i@roxanne.morgan.ntlworld.com>, Mary Gentle
><mary_gentle@cix.co.uk> onsendan:
>> In article <slrncieboe.hg1.oak@grithr.uniserve.com>, oak@uniserve.com
>> () wrote:
>>> In <1givy59.1kk73o31a5lpfhN%zeborah@gmail.com>, Zeborah
>>> <zeborah@gmail.com> onsendan:
>>> > One spends all this time just assuming that tight third is a really
>>> > basic point of view (unless one is Graydon, of course, who's
>>> > probably smirking right now) and then it turns out to be an
>>> > experiment. A temporary aberration in the history of literature.
>>>
>>> I think it's an ideal viewpoint for a particular kind of character
>>> who is deeply confused about the distinction between their opinions
>>> and the laws of the universe; it suits Miles Vorkosigan to a T.
>>>
>>> But as a general thing? I still don't get it.
>>
>> I'm wondering where you stand on biography (as opposed to
>> autobiography) - that particular focussed-in type that abandons
>> omni-comment on the subject?
>
>I don't think that's a good idea, really; biography is supposed to be
>history, and abandoning the attempt at defensibility of conclusion seems
>to me to be a bad thing.
>
>I have not, to be sure, read a lot of biography, so there may well be
>some splendid examples with which I am unfamiliar.
>
>Shall I get into the implausiblity of the story past, where events that
>have happened unto their ends and conclusions are supposed to generate
>tension about outcomes? That's a very strange mapping indeed, from the
>shifting then to the reader's supposed static now.
I don't think the story past is meant to convey pastness. I think in English anyway it's equivalent to the way we used to (and sometimes still use) a form that sounded like the past to indicate the subjenctive. (I don't mean it is the subjunctive: otherwise other languages sharing the same literary traditions would write their stories in the subjunctive and I have not seen that) It's a _marker_ and a _marker_ only, that a story is being told. For most stories. Otherwise, why would we use the past in stories about events supposedly taking place in our future?
When people use the present, what they do is mark the story _again_. They say: "you were expecting a story told in the usual way, but this story is different."
And the effect, I think, most often, is to make a timeless, but more distant, ambience. Which suits some stories and not others. And then, some writers somehow turn that into intimacy and immediacy, though I don't think that's the basic effect of using present tense.
The only reason that the story past usually makes a more simple and straightforward story is that its wide use makes it invisible to the reader. It has nothing to do with the real sensation of relative time passing. That has to be established by other means, because the tense is taken for granted (you can help by layering different past forms, but there's a limit to what that can do, at least in English).
Lucy Kemnitzer, still
http://www.baymoon.com/~ritaxis
http://www.livejournal.com/users/ritaxismom
Tags:
no subject