However, narratorial voice, even with the third person omniscient narrator, encompasses more than just omniscience. It's not merely a 'fancy' way of talking about third or first person narration because there are shades of difference in narratorial voice in both of these.
So, for example, how do you talk about the narrator of the Lemony Snicket books? It would simply not be enough to say that these books are narrated in the first person, because Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket) has used his narrator as a third person omniscient narrator, despite the fact that this narrator speaks directly to the reader as an 'I' character. In this sense, his use of narratorial voice harks back to nineteenth century novels, where the third person narrator, while chronicling the events of the characters, was happy to intrude opinions and editorial comment and is, therefore, often regarded as the voice of the writer, as well as the story's narrator.
If you are interested in stories with happy endings, you would be better off reading some other book. In this book, not only is there no happy ending, there is no happy beginning and very few happy things in the middle. This is because not very many happy things happened in the lives of the three Baudelaire youngsters. Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire were intelligent children, and they were charming, and resourceful, and had pleasant facial features, but they were extremely unlucky, and most everything that happened to them was rife with misfortune, misery, and despair. I'm sorry to tell you this, but that is how the story goes.
Reading just this page, you'd be forgiven for thinking this was a first person story. The narrator says, 'I'm sorry to tell you this,' addressing you, the reader, directly. But, although the narrator does intrude in the story, it's fundamentally a third person omniscient narration. I hope you can see here, that if you were offering an analysis or a reflection on narratorial voice in The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket (pen name of Daniel Handler), you'd have to go beyond saying simply this books is told by a third person omniscient narrator. This captures none of the charm and cleverness of the narratorial voice Daniel Handler uses, nor does it do justice to the playfulness of this voice, the fact that the narrator digresses from the story, begs the reader to stop reading and is unreliable.
In a different way, The Great Gatsby equally defies a mere first person narrator as a description of how that book uses narratorial voice. Who is the central character of The Great Gatsby? Surely the title gives that question away - the central character is the elusive Jay Gatsby himself. But the book is narrated in the first person by Nick Carraway. We see the events that unfold through The Great Gatsby through his eyes. We're not privy to any other character's thoughts and feelings. (Quite different from the omniscient narrator in The Bad Beginning, who can tell you - and does tell you - exactly what all three Baudelaire orphans are thinking or feeling and the thoughts and feelings of the villains as well.)
So what narratorial voice does Fitzgerald use? He uses a first person narrator as a witness or observer of events that take place to the central characters of the book. Nick Carraway doesn't pretend to know what happens inside the other characters heads - he can only be told, by them, of their feelings. But he can - and does - observe them. Nick Carraway is a useful device for Fitzgerald because he can step into the different worlds of the main characters: Tom and Daisy Buchanan's home, Jay Gatsby's party, Tom and Myrtle's love nest and Wilson's garage. If, for example, Daisy was the first person narrator, how would we see Tom and Myrtle playing house together? This reflection of Carraway as a narrator goes beyond merely mentioning that The Great Gatsby is narrated in the first person. It's a reflection of narratorial voice.
A further reflection might add that the reader believes Carraway because he is outside the main action - we trust that he is a reliable witness as he has nothing invested in the story. Carraway himself tells you at the beginning of the book that, his 'interest in the abortive sorrows and shortwinded elations of men' was destroyed by the events he is about to relate. This further strengthens the power of the narratorial voice - Carraway is a witness and a witness who has been transformed by the events he has witnessed.
With both these examples, the narratorial voice is inevitably linked to the characters created by the writers - Lemony Snicket and Nick Carraway. What about the narratorial voice of the third person objective? Even this is coloured by the setting of the piece,and the characters being observed by the largely-invisible narrator. Hemmingway's cool, detached narratorial voice in 'Hills Like White Elephants' is undercut by the tight timeline of the story and the descriptions of the oppressive heat and the deserted station. The dialogue skirts around the conflict between the unnamed American and the woman, Jig. This is narrator as fly-on-the-wall taken about as far as it can go. Interestingly, this is the story that students often have problems with. Times have changed dramatically since Hemmingway wrote and abortion is no longer a taboo subject. In this sense, third person narratorial voice is inseparable to the view of the world it implies - in this case, the world of travelled and educated privilege.
A writer who chooses to create an unreliable narrator, is playing games with the narratorial voice and it's important to ask what the games are serving. In We Need to Talk About Kevin, a book which uses an epistolary narrative voice, Lionel Shriver has created, while not entirely an unreliable narrator, a narrator who reveals and confesses more and more of her story as she writes letters to her absent husband. You can't talk about the narratorial voice in Shriver's book without linking the slow revelatory nature of the letters to Shriver's unpredictable and skilful plotting.
In third person limited, which is close to first person, the narratorial voice is also tied up with the viewpoint character, that is, the character through whose eyes we are witnessing events and learning about the other characters. The narratorial voice of a novel written in the third person limited point of view which has it's central viewpoint character a visual artist, might be enriched with metaphors and motifs from the painterly world. A novel written from the point of view of an aerialist might use an narratorial voice which consistently reflects the bird's eye view of the performer.
If you're interested in writing metafiction - that is fiction that draws attention to the fact that it is, indeed, fiction - you'll choose a narratorial voice which is self-consciously pointing to the artificial construct of the narrator.
The second person point of view - a voice which seems to be either addressing an earlier self, another side of the self or placing the reader in the position of the 'you' addressed is very rarely successfully used. But it is still a choice of narratorial voice you should be aware of. If you want to try it, start with shorter, rather than longer, pieces of fiction. And try to have your narratorial voice clearly indicating either an earlier version of the 'I' behind the narrative, or another side of that 'I' because otherwise the reader will feel as though they are the 'you'.
Narratorial voice is a complex element of the story and writers need to know as much about their choices as possible. Of course, initially, you might just want to settle on a choice between first person or third person limited - and allow the narratorial voice to grow organically from this choice. Never be scared to re-write in a different point of view - this radical revision approach has saved manuscripts!
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