Sure plot, setting and characters are crucial elements of any book, but here at Teenreads, we think that narrators are the unsung heroes of novels. A first-person narrator can really take you inside the head of a character, and allow you to truly feel their joy, fear, love of cocoa puffs…what-have-you. A third person omniscient narrator lets you understand the whole world, and feel the suspense as the protagonist is making a decision that youknow --- as a reader with more information ---is the wrong one. But as Jodi Lynn Anderson, author of THE VANISHING SEASON, writes in this blog post, some of the most interesting narrators are the peripheral ones --- characters on the fringes of a story, looking in. Below, she tells us why.
The ticket in my hand says I’m number 1, and being number 1 has its perks. I’m sitting in a doctor’s waiting room, and as the first patient to arrive for the morning, I’ve been able to watch the room fill up for awhile now. I know I should be writing this blog post but here’s what I can’t stop doing instead: watching people, wondering why they’re here. A lab tech just called the receptionist “honey” and I wonder if she minds. A woman just marched in with purpose and signed in like an old pro, and I wonder how many times she’s been here and for what. I know that doctor’s offices are dramatic places, even if all the drama’s under the surface. I want to know more. I’m nosy.
Sometimes I think the perfect existence would be to blend into the walls, like Shadowcat from X-men or Harry Potter in his Cloak of Invisibility, and just get to see other people’s lives and dramas unfold. I guess this is reason number one I’ve been writing peripheral narrators recently: I like to give my characters the kind of power I wish I had (even though, in the two books where I’ve done this, it’s also been a kind of powerlessness.)
There’s something special about getting wrapped up in a story that’s not your own. It’s pretty easy to feel invested in our own narratives, but it takes curiosity and kindness, I think, to get wrapped up in someone else’s --- and that’s the kind of person I’d like to be and one kind of person I love to write about. My favorite character in THE GREAT GATSBY, maybe everybody’s favorite character for all I know --- isn’t Gatsby or Daisy, but their friend and observer, Nick. His interest in the others --- his lack of self-interest --- makes him interesting to me. Let’s not even talk about Death in THE BOOK THIEF, who --- in my heart --- gives Rudy Steiner a run for his money (though Rudy of course, channeling Jesse Owens, wins!)
Then there’s the closeness. Writing these kinds of narrators --- the ones in the nosebleed seats --- lets me hang out in the background, where I wouldn’t be allowed to be otherwise. The scene and the setting and the characters are all laid out on the stage, and there I am sitting up at the back left corner on a cardboard crescent moon… narrating, weighing in. Sure I’m disguised as Tinkerbell in TIGER LILY or a ghost that lives in the house on Water Street in my newest novel, THE VANISHING SEASON, but through these disguises I get to say a bit about who these people are below me and why I think they’re worth caring about. I get to be upfront about what matters to me in the story. It’s a luxury I’ve gotten a little addicted to.
I think we’re all a little bit observers by nature. Each of us is a little outside, even if there are times we forget it. There’s so much to see that has nothing to do with us, and we can’t help but notice and want to know more. And as long as these narrators keep popping up to remind me of that, I’ll keep reading them, and probably, from time to time, want to keep writing them.
Jodi Lynn Anderson is the New York Times bestselling author of PEACHES, THE SECRETS OF PEACHES, LOVE AND PEACHES, TIGER LILY and the popular May Bird trilogy. She lives in Washington, D.C., with her husband and an endless parade of stray pets.
