iceinyourmusic | (no subject)

(no subject)

So I was in Sweden for a bit and met all the marvelous girls there you know who you are dah-lings. still hiating, but for this:

[Poll #547515]

Please to speak of any whys and wherefores you wish in the comment section (also is it really obvious what I'm really trying to find out here).

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A tight POV (1st, 2nd or 3rd) should reflect the voice of the character. Otherwise it just sounds bizarre.

Yes, this is true. Though, we do (don't we? I don't know, I have no hard statistics here, I'm just making it all up as I go) sometimes, fairly often maybe, have narrators who aren't omniscient and still say things that don't really read as 1:1 reproductions of the character's voice, and that's not all that much of an obstacle - so why does the language variant division feel so much like one? Because it kind of does, etc.

(And how does an American quoting a Brit spell colo(u)r, anyway? hmmm.)

narrators who aren't omniscient and still say things that don't really read as 1:1 reproductions of the character's voice, and that's not all that much of an obstacle

I'm not sure I know exactly what you're getting at here, but I would say that I would hesitate ot argue that the character's voice can and can not be faithfully reproduced. In the same way that I would not advocate the idea of a canonical representation of a character. I *would* suggest you want your character to be credible to your readership and that would involve producing a voice that is acceptable within these parameters.

So - a Britishism in the narrative POV of a US character is perhaps something that would clash with the credibility of the piece. Spelling of the word makes less of a difference because while we assume the character/ narrator is a *voice* we don't assume the character/ narrator is a writer (I wouldn't say this is always the case - and I have been told that my Australian spelling makes the reader thinking of the piece being said in an Australian accent - but I don't find the obverse to be true so I'm suspecting the jury is hung on that one).

Writing is incredibly formal. I think there's a tendencey to see it as an art form when it's quite a regimented process with all it's little codes and conventions that must be adhered to.

And how does an American quoting a Brit spell colo(u)r, anyway?

I've noticed no changes in HP fandom. Or Giles POV. I don't change my spelling for my American characters either. Although I like the idea of "colo(u)r"...

is acceptable within these parameters.

Uh - that didn't come out right. It should say that it is "acceptable within parameters"... I think...

I'm not sure I know exactly what you're getting at here, but I would say that I would hesitate ot argue that the character's voice can and can not be faithfully reproduced.

Yeah, yes, that's not what I was trying to get at, though I'll admit that the failure in communication was quite fully my own fault. What I meant was more along the lines of there being a continuum from "tight" 3rd person POV to "omniscient" - and what falls in between - that in many stories with a primary character-focalizer we nevertheless have words/sentences/paragraphs/what have you that are, more or less clearly, in the voice of the narrator rather than in the voice of the character per se (without, I think, the reader considering it a "lapse" or anything - just a matter of distances and such, and stylistic issues, of course). I'm still explaining that badly, though, so I don't know if it makes any sense at all. :P

Which, of course, is not to say that you don't have a very good point there, as well. you know.

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