Post by account_disabled on Dec 23, 2023 11:55:04 GMT 2
Writing in the first person has advantages and disadvantages. I talked about this when I wrote about who should narrate a story, whether it is better to use the first or third person . As I explained in that article, first person has limitations. First of all, there is no surprise effect, because the protagonist and narrator are the same person. And finally we risk falling into the black box problem . Here I will only say that the protagonist, if the first person is used, cannot die, otherwise how can he tell the reader about his death? In my previous article I mentioned that I had unknowingly fallen into the black box in one of my stories. In reality it wasn't intended to be a real black box , I simply explained the events badly.
This was the guilty passage: Then I walked over to the machine and connected the electrodes to my body and the cap to my head. Then with a syringe I injected myself into the veins of the air and lay down on the bed, waiting, putting an end to my existence [...]. In reality, what I wanted to show was the protagonist who writes a diary of Special Data what he has experienced and deliberately writes in the past an event, his death, which has yet to happen. All this to maintain a certain consistency in the verb tenses used. The problem, in this case, is the credibility of the protagonist's action . No one would ever write a future event in the past tense in their diary. It doesn't come naturally. This is why those who read the story immediately thought, rightly, of the black box . I changed the text like this: I will therefore connect the electrodes to my body and the cap to my head.
Then with a syringe I will inject air into my veins and lie down on the bed, waiting, putting an end to my existence [...]. and the black box is gone. How to avoid the black box? Is simple. In the meantime, read that article by Daniele Bonfanti, which will clarify all aspects of this problem. And then keep in mind that the dead can neither speak nor write , unless it is a horror story, where anything is possible. In a horror story, no one is surprised if they read about a ghost that talks, about a corpse that comes back to life - even if not in a zombie state - and performs some action. The protagonist himself may already be dead at the beginning of the story, but if he's a horror movie there's no problem. If in our story the protagonist wants to let readers know that he is about to die, we must make this announcement credible. The protagonist-narrator can also shoot himself in the head, the important thing is that it is credible when he tells it.
This was the guilty passage: Then I walked over to the machine and connected the electrodes to my body and the cap to my head. Then with a syringe I injected myself into the veins of the air and lay down on the bed, waiting, putting an end to my existence [...]. In reality, what I wanted to show was the protagonist who writes a diary of Special Data what he has experienced and deliberately writes in the past an event, his death, which has yet to happen. All this to maintain a certain consistency in the verb tenses used. The problem, in this case, is the credibility of the protagonist's action . No one would ever write a future event in the past tense in their diary. It doesn't come naturally. This is why those who read the story immediately thought, rightly, of the black box . I changed the text like this: I will therefore connect the electrodes to my body and the cap to my head.
Then with a syringe I will inject air into my veins and lie down on the bed, waiting, putting an end to my existence [...]. and the black box is gone. How to avoid the black box? Is simple. In the meantime, read that article by Daniele Bonfanti, which will clarify all aspects of this problem. And then keep in mind that the dead can neither speak nor write , unless it is a horror story, where anything is possible. In a horror story, no one is surprised if they read about a ghost that talks, about a corpse that comes back to life - even if not in a zombie state - and performs some action. The protagonist himself may already be dead at the beginning of the story, but if he's a horror movie there's no problem. If in our story the protagonist wants to let readers know that he is about to die, we must make this announcement credible. The protagonist-narrator can also shoot himself in the head, the important thing is that it is credible when he tells it.