Young Writers Society

The subject might be unclear, so I'll explain further. The narrator is actually a character. He is a Baird who tells a story from inside a tavern. The problem I'm having is how do I write about the environment and the actions the Baird is doing, when he is the story teller? I'm thinking maybe write in italics?

The setting will mostly be the story he is telling, but it will, from time to time, go to the tavern where he is telling the story.

I'm trying to skip out on describing things in the tavern, but I don't think I can do that completely. Here is what I have so far.

“La dee da dee. Drinky drinky, smokey, smokey. Let's find a girl that I can po-.”

Oh, hello there. I wasn't aware I had company.

Why are you staring at me like that? Oh, my apologies. Where are my manners. I haven't yet introduced myself; have I? My name is Tugurls Von Cuppe, Baird extraordinaire. Now, I'm assuming that the misconstrued scowl on your face tells me that you're a tad indifferent of my presence. Seeing that you're the one who recklessly sat along side myself, in this fine drinking establishment; you are in no mood for conversation. Well then, luck may be on your side. You don't have to say a word. You can sit there quietly, drinking all the ale you can handle, as I will do all the talking.

I've yet to tell this tale, and as a Baird, storytelling is my craft and I have to hone it to perfection. As we all know, practice makes perfect; so this is, shall we say, a practice run. So tune your ears and open your gullet. Prepare yourself for some ale and a tale, as we begin our journey with three young warriors on their epic quest to... Hold on a moment.

As you can see, the "singing" part is in quotation marks at the beginning. Also, at the end there will be an action. *spoiler* he is going to take a bong rip. So I can either use a descriptive action, or try to use an onomatopoeia and have him verbally explain what he is doing.

Your thoughts will help me out quite a bit.

I think you mean Bard.

I *love* narratives so much.

However you have to ask the question of why you have a bard as a narrator, and what part he plays in the story. It's so difficult to write in that style, so you need to have a good idea to why you're choosing this method in order to know how it's best written.

Have you put much thought into what role the bard plays?

I thought it was bard too. It "corrected" me and said it was spelled baird. Thanks for that.

Yes, I know what the role he plays, and I know why I'm writing it this way. The question was "how" rather than "why".

There are a few ways to go about it. I just thought I'd get an outside view on it.

The How depends on the Why, because then you know how much flexibility you need.

Personally I'd say rethink the way the story is being told. There are different narrative styles and each one has its own restrictions. You seem to be fluctuating between the Storyteller and the Reminiscent.

The Reminiscent is the one who tells it all as if they were speaking, like the grandparent telling bedtime stories, or the criminal explaining the crime. The problem with this is that you can't really describe the surroundings or what's going on without breaking the flow and style of it, in which case you'd have to leave out the tavern details.

The Storyteller is the person who finds themselves in a situation and sits telling the story of how they got there (or how something came to be.) With some thought you can splice this one into two stories- the now and the then- by switching tenses, but it's really difficult to do. It would be awkward to have a direct audience for this.

If you're insistent, then with The Reminiscent you could have it told from a third person perspective of someone who is watching or listening to the bard. The real time stuff could be in a different font, and then the talking would be in normal font.

I don't know what role the bard plays so I can't really give any more specific advice than that. I hope it helps!

I have seen the narrator recounts a story mode work once. This could be because I've only read one such story (that is rather incredibly complicated in style), but this singular story works.

As Ten said, you really have to tell us why this is happening so we can help you. Whys give us all the nitty-gritty core details of the story that help us understand actions.

I will tell you how this style was done in the story I've read, in hopes it will help.

What happened was the narrator was in first person (with its own story outside of the narrative the storyteller was telling) and the story itself was in third person. This provided a break between the narrator and the story itself.

Also, the storyteller was telling the tale to a group of characters, not the reader. This let the storyteller transition far more easily between the first and third segments.

Another thing to note is the storyteller never described his surroundings at all. The third person had descriptions, but the first person didn't. First person relies on the character deeming details important, and the storyteller didn't deem where he was important. Therefore, no details. The story worked fine.

If you really want to have a person retelling the story, I'd suggest having his asides be in first person and the actual story be in third. Establish there'll be a pattern of asides (the example I gave there used nightly storytimes as the breaks, so each segment of the story was sandwiched between gathering up kids and sending them to bed) and go from there.

There's a book called The Name of the Wind that uses a similar format. It tells the hero's tale in the first person, with a beginning and interludes set at an inn and using third person.

Instead of just being breaks in the main story, the interludes reveal things about the characters and show how the village is threatened by strange forces. Maybe it's worth trying to do the same in your novel.

I think I figured it out. For the "actions" I just used italics. To transition in and out I did like a line break with ***. Here's the (semi) final outcome. I still have to revisit, fix, and rewrite it though.

Quest Unable Chapter One (Rough Draft)

yes! @Stori, finally found someone who knows about the book!