First-Person vs. Omniscient Narrator
There are many considerations to make in writing. One of the most important is the type of narration.
First-person narration is used when the novel will be from a single perspective. I call my women's fiction novels "fictional autobiographies" because I use first-person narration when I write them. They tell the story from the main character's point of view, like a autobiography would.
But there are disadvantages to using first-person narration. It means that the main character has to be "in the room" for everything that happens and/or she has to hear about what happened in rooms where she was not. Other characters can - and do - recount things that happen elsewhere, of course. But everything is filtered through that one lens.
My fictional autobiographies require the life of the protagonist to change, often significantly. Such transformations are more impactful, in my opinion, when written from that person's perspective.
I suppose it might be possible to write a fantasy in first-person narration. But more often, as I have, authors choose to use an omniscience narrator. The narrator knows everything about everyone and everything. Thus, you can switch perspectives from one character to another. You can present information that the reader should know, but the characters may not yet.
For my Dichotomies trilogy, I'm combining the two. The first and last chapter are written in first-person narration. This establishes the main character - the title character of each book - in their own "voice". And allows the climax and denouement to also be from his or her perspective, adding more interest to those parts.
But the main body of the novels will be using an omniscient narrator, because that's just easier when telling a story with lots of characters with lots of their own ideas, not to mention a prophecy.
I personally have never seen this done before in a novel. I think it will give the Dichotomies trilogy an interesting twist.
First-person narration is used when the novel will be from a single perspective. I call my women's fiction novels "fictional autobiographies" because I use first-person narration when I write them. They tell the story from the main character's point of view, like a autobiography would.
But there are disadvantages to using first-person narration. It means that the main character has to be "in the room" for everything that happens and/or she has to hear about what happened in rooms where she was not. Other characters can - and do - recount things that happen elsewhere, of course. But everything is filtered through that one lens.
My fictional autobiographies require the life of the protagonist to change, often significantly. Such transformations are more impactful, in my opinion, when written from that person's perspective.
I suppose it might be possible to write a fantasy in first-person narration. But more often, as I have, authors choose to use an omniscience narrator. The narrator knows everything about everyone and everything. Thus, you can switch perspectives from one character to another. You can present information that the reader should know, but the characters may not yet.
For my Dichotomies trilogy, I'm combining the two. The first and last chapter are written in first-person narration. This establishes the main character - the title character of each book - in their own "voice". And allows the climax and denouement to also be from his or her perspective, adding more interest to those parts.
But the main body of the novels will be using an omniscient narrator, because that's just easier when telling a story with lots of characters with lots of their own ideas, not to mention a prophecy.
I personally have never seen this done before in a novel. I think it will give the Dichotomies trilogy an interesting twist.
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