Where's That Voice Coming From?

Who's Telling This Story?

Looking for other ways to subvert a story? Try a narrator with opinions! Puncture the story, the world, the too-easy perception that all is well.

This time we're thinking about the VOICE OF GOD. Or, actually, just the narrator -- that disembodied voice that sometimes helps explain, or unexplain, the story.

Consider Jane the Virgin and how the telenovela narrator adds commentary. This voice has a perspective -- a personality -- that complicates our reaction to Jane and her family. For instance, it's a personality that va-va-vooms men as well as women. Now think about the way some TV doesn'tsurface that reaction. Maybe the camera just lingers on a woman's ass. That's the difference between a particular character finding a person attractive and the implication that the person is objectively and universally attractive -- that the viewer must find them so. (Not to mention the implication that the person being viewed is for the consumption of the ogler/viewer...) The surfacing of the perspective makes us notice a subjectivity that was always there, just hidden.

The voice-over narration in Veronica Mars does something similar. Like Jane's telenovela voice, it's stylized, in this case creating a sense of noir. More important, the personality of the voice (which is Veronica's voice) lets us know when Veronica is less than perfect -- it gives us permission to judge her.

(And what about Fleabag? Never mind, we've got a different prompt about Fleabag. Maybe we'll re-release that one later on.)

The Wonder Years and Sex and the City have stylized narrators, too. But we can't help but wonderif they merely summarize or moralize. Instead of subverting or complicating our take on the characters, these voices, fueled by nostalgia and offering easy answers, package the stories for us so we don't have to think about them critically.

TL;DR: Every story has a point of view. Sometimes it's obvious, sometimes it's not. Surfacing the perspective can make the reader/viewer notice what is being left out. As viewers, when we don'tsee the frame, we just might trust the erasure.

Prompt: We often think of a distinctive omniscient voice as old-fashioned, but it's a tool that can deepen and complicate the reader/viewer's relationship with the story and create meta-commentary. You can use it to flatten a story or to create dimension.

Take a TV show that doesn't have a narrator and retell it as narrated by a specific voice. It could be one of the characters, or it could be entirely external. But if it's external, make sure its personality, agenda, and bias come through. Alternate prompt: Take any story you have already written and write it from the perspective of an outside omniscient voice who has opinions.

Recommended viewing and reading: Never Have I Ever; The Princess Bride (both the film and the book by William Goldman); "The Husband Stitch" by Carmen Maria Machado; Wickett's Remedy by Myla Goldberg; Handmaid's Tale; Fleabag; Veronica Mars; Jane the Virgin; "The Story of the Mosquito" by Lily Hoang; "The Palm Tree Bandit" by Nnedi Okorafor; Emma by Jane Austen; Arrested Development; Dead Like Me; Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibson.

Talk to us on Twitter: Use #reprompts to tell us about the great voiceovers you find on TV and the opinionated omniscient narrators of the books you're reading. How do they poke at the story? How do they subvert?

Reflection: Many of our students have the idea that there is a "standard" narrative voice that somehow exists without prejudice, bias, or individual perspective. But every voice has an agenda, even if it's made invisible. Take some time to think hard about which stories intentionally sublimate the narrative voice/perspective. Then think about how that sublimation manipulates a reader's or viewer's understanding of the story, its political (or "non"-political) nature, and who or what is centered. Here's some further reading on how framing can be used to manipulate your understanding of a story.

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The Minneapolis Storytelling Workshop is a project of writers Erin Kate Ryan and Allison Wyss, who also have books coming out.

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Minneapolis Storytelling Workshop is a project of professional writers Allison Wyss and Erin Kate Ryan. All rights reserved.