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Q&A Autobiography vs Perspective

You can claim it is anything you want; you are writing a fantasy about an inanimate object that can cogitate, observe its surroundings, etc. I would consider it no different than a first-person ta...

posted 5y ago by Amadeus‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Answer
#4: Attribution notice removed by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-19T22:13:53Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/47563
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T12:48:05Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/47563
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by (deleted user) · 2019-12-08T12:48:05Z (almost 5 years ago)
You can claim it is anything you want; you are writing a fantasy about an inanimate object that can cogitate, observe its surroundings, etc.

I would consider it no different than a first-person tale of a ghost that cannot have any effect on the material world; let's say it can only think logically, feel emotions, discover new knowledge; and relate it's mental state in words on the page, but it cannot do a thing _about_ any of that, it cannot take any action.

So, like the typical **third-** person narrator of a book, the ghost can relate the story of things going on around it, but can take no action to affect the course of any action. (putting aside telekinetic ghosts).

In effect you are granting intelligence and emotions to a brick, or a teapot, or a wedding ring passed down through generations, and it (in **first-** person) relates the stories of the people it has seen, from its own perspective. It is like an invisible spy camera, a receiver only.

I could see how that could be an effective story, an object (like a teapot) has a finite life that can be much longer than a human's, and it is also an interesting **restriction** to place on the narrator, the teapot may be moved about but always must be within "earshot" of the events it relates.

It would make sense to call such a story an autobiography of the object. It doesn't explain how the autobiography was ever told, but it is also never explained in millions of books how a third-person narrator knows everything that happened in a book! So it doesn't have to make any literal sense. Call it an autobiography.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2019-08-26T11:00:15Z (about 5 years ago)
Original score: 2