As I sat down to write this issue of my ExcitingWriting Advisory, I turned off the "Planet Money" broadcast on Dallas' NPR radio station. The theme of today's show? The best inventions and innovations are accidents.
For a number of days I had been planning to write this Exciting Writing Advisory about how I discovered a narrative method for writing my novel Charging the Jaguar the same way, by accident.
Which narrative method? Third-person omniscient. There's nothing innovative about that. It was the preferred story-telling method of Charles Dickens, and most Nineteenth Century novelists.
An omniscient narrator can tell the reader what's going on inside the head of all principal protagonists in a scene for maximum impact and meaning (if the author so desires). Yet, as effective as this point of view can be, some readers think it's old-fashioned.
(Note: I'm using the terms "point of view" and "narrative method" interchangeably. I struggled with that concept for a number of years but now have accepted and understand that when discussing literature those two terms mean the same thing.)
Richard Russo, in his book of essays entitled The Destiny Thief: Essays on Writers, Writing and Life, in a chapter entitled "What frogs think: In Defense of Omniscience" argues that omniscience is the single most "inclusive and confident" point of view. (My review of Russo's book is below this essay.)
About a month ago during a dinner party at the home of Cynthia and Allen Mondell in Dallas I decided to use an omniscient narrator in my novel quite by accident. Because omniscience is so rarely used today, one could argue that I made an innovative artistic choice.
That night Cynthia and Allen seated me (quite by accident) next to Andy McCarthy, a friend of theirs. Andy asked me what I did for a living. I told him I write novels. He asked me, "What are you working on now?" I told him it's called Charging the Jaguar, and it takes place in Colombia, South America during the Vietnam War-era. "It's about a Peace Corps Volunteer by the name of Jake Lancer who becomes friendly with a violent, undercover FARC revolutionary soldier by the name of Jesus Ayuduarte. Jesus returns Jake's friendship both because he likes him and because his commander ordered him to. Indeed, Jesus's commander has ordered him to become friendly with the Peace Corps Volunteer to determine if the gringo is an undercover CIA agent, and to assassinate him if he concludes that he is. In the novel, Jesus is operating undercover, disguised as a local businessman."
"That sounds really exciting," said Andy, "because all the time Jake is becoming friends with Jesus, Jesus is deciding whether he's going to murder him. So the reader gets to see what's happening in Jesus' mind as he decides whether to assassinate him or not, while at the same time the reader gets to see what's happening in Jake's mind as he becomes friendly with this undercover FARC soldier who's pretending he's a regular businessman."
I was just a tad embarrassed. You see, it hadn't occurred to me to set up the story that way. It was clear to me that Andy saw more potential in my story in just a minute than I had seen after years of working on it. I had the impression that something very spiritual was was at work here.
"Well, thank you," I said, I went on to tell my tablemate, "I think your idea is way better than what I was thinking. Setting up the story your way we understand the mission Jesus is on from the very start. The story is filled with tension from beginning to end. Until the very last page the novel has a single through-question: Will Jesus execute the Peace Corps Volunteer?"
Then another scene came to me: Very early on in the story we see Jesus being tasked by his FARC revolutionary commander to seek out Jake Lancer, the Peace Corps Volunteer. His commander orders him to become friendly with Jake, and then "to assassinate him" if he decides he's a CIA agent. That scene is presented in chapter two of Charging. The fact that Andy's insights are reflected in such an early chapter indicates how important they will be in the overall novel once it is complete.
That night I made copious notes about how that chapter could be written. From the get-go I knew I wanted to write it in third-person omniscient voice.
I was glad that by then I had already read Russo's book of essays.
A key point Russo makes in his chapter on omniscience is that every form of narration except for that one must, by definition, leave one or more points of view out of the mix. His thesis is that third-person omniscient narration is the most inclusive and requires an author to be both "generous and confident."
He quotes from a novel entitled Grand Opening written in omniscient third-person by Jon Hassler. It was published about the same time as F. Scott Fitzgerald's Great Gatsby (which is written in first person). Russo says he doesn't wish to compare the quality of the two novels, but after quoting a passage from Grand Opening, he writes, "the first thing to note about Hassler's omniscience is it's immediate, effortless access to the story's information, as a result of which [a character] Dodger Hicks leaps to life." He adds, "Hassler's omniscience is truly a thing of beauty."
Russo notes that "Hassler," in his novel, "knows a lot about trains and train lore, and he's chosen a point of view that allows him to indulge an enthusiasm that predates his invention [of a character]."
"After all, 'omniscience' means 'all knowing' and it favors writers who know things, who are confident of their knowledge and generous enough to want to share it."
As I was reading this, I was thinking, I know a lot about Colombia. And what I don't know intellectually, I know in my heart. And what good is knowledge unless you share it?
Russo writes, "Where does such confidence and generosity comes from? Some writers like Dickens appear to be born with it. To others it comes over time, a side benefit for experience. One thing I'm pretty sure of is that the more confident and generous a writer becomes, the more he will be drawn to omniscience…"
And I'm thinking, Why not give away all your knowledge within the pages of your fiction? No one will be the wiser about what you're up to. And then everyone will be the wiser.
I was now feeling better about the artistic decisions that I had just made. But had I actually made any decisions, or had Andy simply presented an alternative vision, and had I, in a magnanimous gesture, accepted the gifts that he was offering me, gifts that obviously came from a very spiritual place.
So, this is my story: A brief remark made by a total stranger during a chance encounter improved my novel and changed my life (I believe time will tell) fundamentally. Thank you, Andy.
