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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/33715
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/33715
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Of course the narrator can talk to the reader. That is their job. It is what narrator means.

I suspect what you are really asking is, can the narrator comment on the action? Again, the answer is that of course they can. This was pretty much the way every novelist wrote until very recently, and the way many novelists still write today.

There is a style popular today which seeks to suppress the narrative voice, to use the words of the novel simply to paint a picture in the reader's mind, as if they were watching a movie rather than being told a story. Often this is done by writers who would rather be writing a movie, and often such books are read by readers who spend more time watching TV than reading.

This is not to say that it cannot also be a legitimate literary technique, but it is certainly not a requirement and not the norm.

You can, of course, choose to write in this style if you want to. But it is the exception, not the rule.

If you do decide that you want your narrator to comment on the action, though, make sure that you are not doing it because you are having a hard time figuring out how to dramatize the action. On the other hand, there are parts of the action of many novels that it would be tedious to dramatize in full, parts that set the stage of the dramatic moments but do not themselves contain much drama. It is far better simply to tell the reader these things so you can get on to the dramatic moments.

It is also perfectly legitimate to comment on the story in other ways. The narrator's personality and voice is an important part of storytelling. Like anything else, though, you have to do it well. If you do it badly, people may tell you to "show don't tell". Sometimes they will be right, and sometimes what they really should be saying is "tell better" or "comment more originally or insightfully".

Original score: 7