1st person addressing a narrator
I'm writing a story in first person, but with a third person narrator for the secondary character. I was wondering if there were any books or stories to research how the first person character could effectively address the narrator in a chapter with competing POVs without confusion?
Oversimplified:
I thought he was mad. Jason remained stoic, remembering the time things happened at school.
"Is everything alright," I said.
"Didn't the narrator tell you," said Jason thinking of home. "I'm not the sharing type."
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1 answer
I'm in agreement with Amadeus here. It's just not a technique that is going to work. I'm trying to think of an exception, and I can't.
Already you're messing with things by having the 1st person narration know what's in Jason's head. Since the main character is telling this part of the story, s/he shouldn't know what Jason is thinking of and it makes zero sense to include it.
Maybe first person isn't right for you. Maybe you really want a narrator that can zip in and out of various characters' heads. That is fine. But it's not what you're doing.
Focus on clarifying your narrative and your story will be a lot stronger.
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