Narrative Distance In Writing

rightscomet (64)in Writing & Reviews • 5 years ago (edited)

"A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people." --Thomas Mann, Essays of Three Decades

Taneli Lahtinen

I forgot something for two days. Couldn't recall its name. Until today. Narrative distance, yep, also called emotional distance or psychic distance, a more advanced form of POV. If you forget about narrative distance, you can find it in John Gardner's book, The Art of Fiction.

Through narrative distancing, we can control the point of view for ease of reading: in the same way the movie can zoom in and out of a point of focus without upsetting the ease of viewing. Imagine how jarring it could be if a movie transitions from a wide-angle view of a city to, all of a sudden, the retina of a person's eye. Ouch!

In our case, or rather in writing, what will happen if we refer to a character as Tom in one sentence and then use the pronoun he in the next sentence? That will not be a problem. But if we start referring to Tom as he in one sentence and the mailman in the next sentence, then that could be jarring: the art of ameliorating that jarring effect is what is known by narrative distance, I'm told.

I tried to debunk the usefulness of the concept but I ended up admiring it. Of course, to the extent of thinking "Aha, I might come across as a knowledgeable expert, to others, if I wrote a blog post about it. Yep.

Wink once, if you liked it. Wink three times, if you reaaaally liked it. Awesome!