[Writingworkshop] narrative voice

[Adam Holland]

Calvino, huh?

I'll check it out.

On Thu, Oct 23, 2008 at 6:44 PM, Neale Morison <neale at nealemorison.com>wrote:

>  I joined an online community called echo, (http://www.echonyc.com) based
> in New York. A lot of the members are involved in writing or publishing or
> teaching. Two of them published a book a few months ago:
>
> How Not to Write a Novel
> Howard Mittelmark, Sandra Newman
>
> http://www.hownottowriteanovel.com/
>
> The site has some samples and a worthwhile bookfomercial.
>
> I got a copy online and it's just great. Very funny. The authors are
> editors as well as writers, and across their desks has passed some very bad
> stuff, which they gleefully parody.
>
> Particularly relevant is the discussion of narrative stance. There's a
> section  headed "Persona Non Grata":
> Certain late twentieth-century novelists used the second person singular
> successfully - notably Italo Calvino in If on a Winter's Night a Traveller
> and Jay McInerney in Bright Lights, Big City. But there it ended...very
> occasionally an editor sees past the contrivance and buys such a book - on
> the condition that the author revise it completely into a traditional
> third-person narrative.
>
> Adam Holland wrote:
>
> OK, so my 15th college reunion is coming up, and there's the usual "submit
> a brief description of what you are up to for the class bulletin"
> I usualyl eschew these, bu since the 5 year intervlas actually result in a
> published volume, I submit something then, but try to have some fun with it.
>
> For example, at my 10th, I rewrote the intro to one of the Conan
> collections so that it was about me.
> "At this stage in Holland's wanderings, he is in his early thirties, and at
> the height of his powers... etc."
>
> So I'm trying to decide what would be funny for this one, because If I'm
> just going to do the boiler plate crap, what's the point?
>
> One idea I had was to somehow write it in the 2nd person.  But, I'd like to
> see some models if possible.
> Are there any available examples of this being done even reasonably well?
>
> Adam
>
> * From the discomfort of truth there is only one refuge, and that is
> ignorance.
> I do not need to be comfortable, and I will not take refuge.
> I demand to know.*
>
>
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> Neale Morisonneale at nealemorison.comhttp://www.nealemorison.com
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