"checkmate" by devi laskar

Narrative technique is sort of like playing tennis. As writers, you spend a lot of time thinking about where “the ball” is supposed to go, what the effect of that will be, if your readers will even understand it, and if the “game” you’re in – i.e., your book – will be read to the end.

Enter the sage advice of our “tennis coach” Elizabeth. In the Book Writing World, we have been discussing narrative technique, especially in non-fiction. There are several memoir writers (and even us fiction writers) who are grappling with the issues of distance and time.

Should you tell your story with your reader sitting over the shoulder or on the lap of the narrator? Should you tell your story, looking back into the past or just as the action unfolds?

Practice makes perfect, Elizabeth counsels.

Try different things. For example, write the same scene two different ways, third person vs. first person, or present tense vs. simple past. In writing, while there are NO rules about maintaining some distance between the reader and the narrator, really the true measure of a “win” is whether your readers enjoy the story you are telling and turn the page.

Devi Laskar is a founding member of the Book Writing World. She holds an MFA in creative writing from Columbia University, is a rabid Tar Heel basketball fan and has three poems coming out in the next issue of The Tule Review (February 2012).