A Prophet Narrator?

BreMiche · Jul 21, 2014

I don't propose this as a 'can it be done', rather I'm asking 'has something similar been done successfully'?

Currently in my series the one narrating the story is a Prophet, so in a way he is an omniscient narrator but restricts the telling of the story to members of his family. He's telling the story to his great niece who is trying to understand her mother's side of the family and why her mother isn't with her (as she's been raised by her father and his people up until this point).

So as you might imagine, this is a fun but at times daunting experiment. I'm looking for advice on how to make this work effectively without confusing the reader. Other things to note about the narrator:

He's a major character in the story himself.
He voices his opinions about different characters.

P.S. If anyone feels that this might need to change entirely, I'm open to that as well. I just felt this was an interesting way to tell the story, and I'm not in anyway frustrated by the idea.

Dennis E. Taylor · Jul 21, 2014

It's not really clear to me what being a prophet has to do with it. Since he's telling a story with the benefit of hindsight, he can reasonably be expected to have more information than he would have had at the time, so you don't need omniscience (if that's what you're doing). Is the prophet-ness a necessary part of the plot?

johnhallow · Jul 21, 2014

Try Fated by Benedict Jacka. He does the I-can-see-the-future thing quite well, though he's included some uncertainty to stop the hero being all-knowing. You might want to consider that!

The first line: "It was a slow day, so I was reading a book at my desk and seeing into the future."

blacbird · Jul 21, 2014

What would really be fun is if he were a very bad prophet. But here you would invade Terrypratchettland.

caw

BreMiche · Jul 21, 2014

The main reason for him being a Prophet is more for what happens later in the story than the actual telling of it. For right now it's because he's being asked to tell in detail events and actions that he wasn't a witness to but is able to know via the minds of people who share is blood. Besides knowing the future, he can recall the past as well even if he didn't experience it.

I guess it's more of the fact that its a character (who isn't the main character), telling the main character of events to help her better understand herself. And I was wondering if that would bother people in anyway, that more attention would be going to the past rather than her now.

BreMiche · Jul 21, 2014

johnhallow said:
Try Fated by Benedict Jacka. He does the I-can-see-the-future thing quite well, though he's included some uncertainty to stop the hero being all-knowing. You might want to consider that!

The first line: "It was a slow day, so I was reading a book at my desk and seeing into the future."

I'll look into that one. Thanks!

Bufty · Jul 22, 2014

What you're doing seems to me First person POV.

The reader just needs to know the narrator has more than the normal range of senses.

Once! · Jul 22, 2014

If you are telling a story in the first person and in the past tense, one of the first decisions you will need to take is how far into the future your narrator can see.

Let's say that your narrator is now an old man and he is telling a story about what happened in his youth. He will know how the story ends because he lived all the way through it. So if he meets, say, a person who later turns out to be an imposter he will know at the time he is telling the story that they cannot be trusted. He will know how it all ended.

On the other hand, if your narrator is writing a story on a day by day basis, say keeping a diary, he will not know how the story ends. He will only know what has happened up to the end of each day when he sits down to write his diary.

This is quite noticeable in something like Bram Stoker's Dracula where some of the story is told in the form of letters. We get things like: "My gosh! What an eerie adventure I have just had. Earlier this evening, I ..."

So if your narrator knows the story from a perspective after the story has finished, it does not really matter whether he is omniscient or not. For the purposes of the story most first person narrators have a lot more information than the other characters because they have lived through at least some of the future.

However, being omniscient does affect how the character acts. They will know when something is dangerous and what happens next. I am writing a main character at the moment who has some degree of future sight - one of the main issues I am having to grapple with is that it doesn't become too boring. If she knows that situation X is dangerous she can avoid it. There is a lot less tension if she knows that she is going to survive a difficult situation.

BreMiche · Jul 22, 2014

Bufty said:
What you're doing seems to me First person POV.

The reader just needs to know the narrator has more than the normal range of senses.

I guess it is, since I do use the word 'I' in there when he makes comments. I was just confused on what exactly to call it.

BreMiche · Jul 22, 2014

Once! said:
So if your narrator knows the story from a perspective after the story has finished, it does not really matter whether he is omniscient or not. For the purposes of the story most first person narrators have a lot more information than the other characters because they have lived through at least some of the future.

However, being omniscient does affect how the character acts. They will know when something is dangerous and what happens next. I am writing a main character at the moment who has some degree of future sight - one of the main issues I am having to grapple with is that it doesn't become too boring. If she knows that situation X is dangerous she can avoid it. There is a lot less tension if she knows that she is going to survive a difficult situation.

That's what I needed to hear. I wanted to make sure that him being a Prophet doesn't derail the story or cause confusion for the reader. And since he does know everything that happened and the characters on a personal level it does effect how he tells the story, such as certain parts of the past makes him feel guilty and he shies away from the subject.

Reziac · Jul 23, 2014

Bufty said:
What you're doing seems to me First person POV.

I had the same thought. And I think it's a very workable idea.

A Prophet Narrator?

BreMiche

Dennis E. Taylor

Get it off! It burns!

johnhallow

Hello? Eat my tarts?

blacbird

BreMiche

BreMiche

Bufty

Where have the last ten years gone?

Once!

Still confused by shoelaces

BreMiche

BreMiche

Reziac

Resident Alien