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EXCUSES PLEASE, WE ARE BRITISH (ISSUE 1) - PERSPECTIVES
2002
About this column >> Intro >> Topic >> Challenge >> Three things to clarify >> The author
The reason for it, is the increasingly frustrating need to take apart my mouse bit-by-bit, because for no apparent or plausible reason, Harmione is 'going on vacation, like, with all her new found friends, who, like, just magically appeared out of no where.' Now then, isn't that immediately annoying? And admittedly not very realistic in many fanfiction cases, but it's the ones like this (maybe not as extreme) that irritate me.
The aim of this column is to hopefully make people aware of such errors concerning British characters, language and other such things alike. Hopefully it will highlight how annoying these errors are, and aid people in the generation of their characters and stories accordingly.
The majority of people who visit Fanfiction.net either enjoy reading, writing, both or were somehow teleported here by some unknown domain.
This column is going to focus on the writing part of fanfiction because the writer who displays their work, writes for readers to read.
Now then, readers are usually quite happy reading whatever junk all of us spew out; to a certain extent. One of the things that can keep a reader glued to your fanfic and review after every chapter, is a good story. If you are relatively slow in getting into the exciting and gripping part of the plot then the fact that Squall starts break dancing in the middle of Fisherman's Horizon can be amusing, which is fine if the fic is a comedy, however, if the character that you played as throughout the whole of Final Fantasy VIII is suddenly, for no apparent reason, as sociable and bouncy as Selphie it can be slightly off putting.
I wasn't the most diligent of students two years ago, I was the kind that relied on my teacher being late so I could frantically scrawl out an essay due in that lesson. Then I spent the rest of the lesson daydreaming and devising plots for stories. So I'm not sure if 'prose' is the right word to use, but the two things that come to my mind are perspective and time zone (the later I will focus on at another time).
This column's focus is Perspective. The basics are that perspective is the view you are telling the story in. These perspectives are first person, second person and (surprisingly) third person.
The majority of the time authors write in third person, according to various books and magazines I've read, though rarely a reason is given as to why. I'd guess that it's because you can make the reader notice what you want them to notice. In reality a character may not really notice that a flower has black petals (something I have never come across in real life).
So lets give you a little scenario. Heero (from Gundam Wing) is tracking a girl who he believes knows about his identity. Relatively simple; read on...
Cautiously Heero made his way through the arch. He stopped before the end of it to avoid loosing the cover from the black flowers growing up the frame. Alert, he listened for any sign of where the girl could have disappeared to and scanned the ground in front of him in search of some kind of trail. Yet to find anything he briefly glanced at the watch strapped to his wrist; thirty-two minuets and he'd have to be back at the safe-house to receive the details of his next mission.
Suddenly he heard the distinctive click of a gun's saftey being flicked off behind him and Heero span around ready for the offensive, his vision span and blurred and suddenly, feeling dizzy, he fell to the ground.
"Huh?" Relena muttered to herself, she hadn't meant to do that, not yet anyway. Gun still raised she went up to the unconsious body, with her sleeve covering her mouth and nose, "Idiot" and went about dragging it back to the infirmary.
Now there's quite some irrelevant junk in here that without a reason could be cut out, even if you're struggling to meet that 90,000-word target.
Lets say that in this story, Heero is in an alternate reality. In this case black flowers may be perfectly normal. However, in contrast, most of the black flowers in this reality may have been wiped out because of some deadly spore they released. The fact that Heero collapsed could now make sense. Of course this paragraph would be in a story more developed than me making up a paragraph for an example. Therefore, previously the idea that Heero was in a alternate reality and black flowers are leathal, would not only have been explained, (or about to be) but would have some believeability behind it as opposed to an excuse grabbed out of the air.
Third person prose is basically, 'they', 'he', 'she'; you are talking about an event as an outsider who has no impact on the story whatsoever, you are just writing the story as a narrator. This leaves little room to identify your character as British, you are limited to the way your characters speak, and if you include their thoughts, then you also need to consider the language they use when they are thinking.
The second most commonly used form of perspective is first person. More experienced writers use this method, according to my books. To be able to write in this persepective it is important to have the experience in writing and developing characters. To write in first person you really need a good understanding of a character. You need to know how a certain event will effect them and how they will react.
First person prose is like being the character, although you have to make sure that your own opinions (and fantasies) don't distort the original character without plausable cause and effect. The language focuses more on 'I', think about being selfish. If Michael (from Roswell High) is in one of his moods (sorry Michael fans), then he really isn't going to consider anyone elses' perspective, especially Max's. That's what you have to do in first person. Unless you are writing as more than one person at different intervals, you can only write the world from a certain character's perspective. See the example above, no thats not an example, there in a different font, like this; this is what it could look like in first person.
Cautiously, I made my way through the arch, stopping short of it's end so I wouldn't loose what cover I had. I listened carefully for any sign of where the girl was and scanned the ground looking for a tell-tale trail of her direction. Consious of having to pick up the objectives of my next mission I glanced at my watch. Thirty-two minuets. I don't have time to waste hunting down some girl. I heard the distinctive click of a gun's saftey being flicked off behind me and instantly started to turn. Everything span and blurred with the sensation of falling.
Events stop at the point that Heero becomes unconscious - that is if you picked up that that was meant to be Heero, I don't have too much practise as writing as him. In the next line, three weeks later after Heero has recovered and finally woken up, you may discover that Heero fainted due to the plant. The order of the words is slightly different too.
Note how much is cut out, no black flowers, no mention of Relena (he never actually saw her behind him, remember?), and less things are explained, Heero knows that he has to receive orders for his next mission and that his watch is on his wrist, he's not really going to think out every step of everthing. However in third person, you may not have highlighted these factors, maybe because you were looking at the events surrounding another character, therefore some explainations need to be given.
Again any thought or speech of a British based character would be different to that of an American one, however as you are also writing events from a character's perspecive, you need to be awear that a British character may not pick up on the importance of certain objects the way that an American person might. For example, the American flag. An American character could be waiting for someone with an American flag flying nearby and think about all that it stands for while they're waiting, where as a British character will see the flag, and may consider what it stands for, in their opinion, the American people.
The final and least used form of perspective is second person. This is kind of like a combination of the two above, what you can say is less limited, you can highlight areas you want to and you are narrating as if you are there, minus your thoughts and your actions. As it's sort of a combination you would think that it would be easier, but it really is incredibly hard.
This took a while but this is the same situation in second person...
Cautiously you made your way through the arch. You stopped before the end where you'd loose the cover from the black flowers growing up the frame. Alert, you listened for any sign of where the girl was and scanned the ground in front of you for a trail. You checked the watch on your wrist. You swayed a little, a click sounded from behind you and then you fainted.
"Huh?" The girl muttered. Gun still raised and sleeve covering her mouth she cautiously walked up to you. "Idiot."
Then started forward to pick your collapsed body up.
I guess it isn't much different from third person, you just use 'you' in place of the main character's name. However part of the skill required for writing a story, is the ability to draw the reader in, to make them want to know what happens next. This perspective is distanced from the character and so dosen't really draw in the reader. It also means that thoughts, which help the character-reader relationship develop aren't present, you are rather limited to 'you looked irritated' when someone is thinking 'when the hell will this column end?'
In this perspective again all you need to consider is speech, because of the lack of control you really have in expressing the character due to this perspective you needn't watch out for the words you use for a thinking character, but why you would use this method of writing I'd never know.
You can see how little things have to be changed to write in a certain perspective and what you have to be careful of. Other authors have written on this topic and you might find their columns more helpful, so go check them out. The Journey - Step 5 by Stephanie Watson: I quite like this one for starters...
Write me three paragraphs of a scenario, each in the different perspectives discussed.
Three things to clarify
1. England, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales are not States, neither is Britain, the British Isles, the UK, or whatever else you want to call it.
2. The majority of us don't spend our time going to the opera, theatre, reading Shakespeare, drinking tea and eating blueberry scones. The majority of us also don't speak 'Queen's English'. These points are reserved for the upper-class aristocrats i.e. the Duchess of York.
3. We are not run by the monarchy, we have a government and not a President, a Prime Minister.
4. Very, very, very few of us live in castles, as hard as it may be for you to believe. (Yes I know that's four, I'm waiting until I have the inspiration to write the next column so I can move this point to that column instead of having it in this one.)
N.B: I know this sounds patronising, but the way American based programs portray British characters and England is ridiculous e.g. The Little Vampire, sorry but not even in Scotland does everyone live in castle's and mansions. I'm sure most of you aren't so dense as to believe everything you see on television, it is the television that winds me up (petty, I know) but please don't take any offense.
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Website = More Than A World Away
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Perspective
Time-zone
Senses
Yeah, ignore those, they're potential topics for me to discuss in another column.
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