Where the Narrator Stands in Time—and Why it Matters (with Examples)
When writing a book, the writer has to make all kinds of decisions: one or more timelines, one or more points of view, tense usage, and many more—on top of the story-related questions, such as character arcs and the main story question.
One of the most important parameters of the story is—where the narrator stands in time, but it’s an issue that’s rarely talked about. In this article, I will explain what this device is, how it differs from story timeline and tense usage, and also, how you can use it to create specific effects that best serve your story.
The Narrator vs. the Protagonist
Before understanding where the narrator stands in time, we first have to differentiate the protagonist from the narrator. The protagonist is the person to whom the story happens. They ALWAYS stand in story in real time. They stand in the story present, experiencing the events as they unfold (and this has nothing to do with tenses—more on that later on). In other words—the protagonist doesn’t know what’s going to happen on the next page any more than the reader does.
The narrator, on the other hand, is the person telling the story. This can be:
The protagonist—a person telling their own story. A person can tell their own story whether it’s told from the 1st person perspective (“I looked up and climbed the stairs) or the 3rd person perspective (He looked up and climbed the stairs.”)
Other POV character—in (rare) occasion the narrator won’t be telling their own story, but a story of another character (this will usually be delivered in the 3rd person narrative): in Great Gatsby, Nick Carraway is telling Jay Gatsby’s story. Gatsby is the protagonist, but Carraway is the narrator.
The omniscient narrator—sometimes, the narrator won’t be tied to any particular POV person in the story, and won’t be limited to what any of the characters know in the story present. The narrator will be the third, objective party standing outside the story, conveying the story as if they were conveying what they’re seeing in a movie.
But even when the protagonist and the narrator are one and the same person, they don’t necessarily stand in time in the same place. For instance, in The Light We Lost by Jill Santopolo, the protagonist is the woman named Lucy. She stands in the story in real time—as the events are unfolding, but she also narrates the story from after the story happened.
Here’s how it shows on the page:
”I rolled over so we were facing each other and gave you a soft kiss. “Of course I understand,” I whispered, before sleep pulled me under. (—> Lucy talking as protagonist, standing in the story in the real time.)
But I didn’t really get what you meant and how far it would take you. That it would bring you here, to this moment. (—> Lucy talking as the narrator, conveying information she knows because she knows how the story ends).
Where Can the Narrator Stand in Time?
The narrator can stand in time in any place in the story, or after the story has ended. None of these options are right or wrong, but each comes with its own set of advantages and disadvantages. Knowing the options can help the writer decide which one works the best for their story, especially if they want to achieve very specific goals.
When the narrator stands in story in real time:
When the narrator stands in story in real time (whether the narrator is simultaneously the protagonist or another POV character) they don’t know what’s going to happen on the next page any more than the protagonist does.
Since they don’t know what will happen, the writer can draw on their sense of anticipation or dread. This can be a wonderful way of building tension and suspense. Can you imagine reading the Lord of the Rings, if the story started with: “Frodo destroyed the ring and beat Sauron?” You probably wouldn’t be tempted to read on, because the only reason WHY you’re reading on is to find out who won the war.
When the narrator stands in the story in real time, we don’t know what will happen or how it will happen, and both these questions build suspense and create narrative drive (a sense of concern and curiosity that makes you turn the page). We don’t know if the protagonist will achieve their goal or not, and that makes us sweat and fret alongside the protagonist.
When the narrator stands in story in real time (whether the narrator is simultaneously the protagonist, a POV character) they don’t know what’s going to happen on the next page any more than the protagonist does. The narrator experiences the story alongside protagonist and the reader.
This is the golden standard in writing, and vast majority of books are written this way. Some examples include:
Jojo Moyes’ Me Before You — the narrator (Lou, but also at points Will’s mother and Lou’s sister as POV characters) doesn’t know if Will will go through with the suicide, and the whole tension in the book comes from the question Is Lou’s love enough to make Will change his mind?
Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin—the narrator (Rachel) has no idea how things will pan out with Dexter and Darcy.
2. When the Narrator stands after the story:
The narrator doesn’t have to stand side-by-side with the protagonist as the story unfolds, even when the narrator is the same person as the protagonist.
This is something we do everyday when we come home from work and tell our spouse/mother/friend: “You won’t believe the day I’ve just had. First, I got stuck in traffic. Then the barista served me the wrong kind of coffee…” You are both the protagonist in this story and its narrator. As the protagonist, you’re going through the story AS it happens. As the narrator, you’re telling the story after it happened (when you’re back home)—i.e. you’re standing in time AFTER the story has already happened.
What about the advantages and disadvantages of this approach?
Things differ slightly if the protagonist is the same person as the narrator or not.
When the protagonist is the same person as the narrator:
When you’re telling your spouse/mom/friend about your day, they already KNOW that the end result is that you’re alive and well—after all, you’re standing right in front of them telling them the story. That means that you don’t have that edge of not knowing the outcome—at least in that life-and-death sense of the word. They might still fret about you passing the exam, or getting the job you interviewed for, but as dramatic as your retelling is, your face, body language and tone will clue them in on how your day really went.
However, you can increase their sense of dread throwing in comments like “but wait, that’s just the beginning;” “it gets worse, much worse;” or “you haven’t heard anything yet!”. These comments will serve as a tool to keep your listener engaged even though they already know you walked out of your experience unscathed.
In other words, knowing how the story unfolded can help you foreshadow what’s yet to come as you retell it— and this foreshadowing, when used strategically, will help you build suspense as you tell your story.
When can this approach come in handy in novel-writing?
Well, it can help you spice things up when you need a long exposition to get to the juicy part of your novel. Throwing bits and pieces of foreshadowing of something dreadful/marvelous/unexpected to come, can help you create narrative drive in a story that has yet to fully develop.
In her book, The Light We Lost, Jill Santopolo uses this device to create a sense of dread and concern, despite fairly uneventful circumstances at the beginning of the novel (your average story of a couple falling in love).
For instance, she finishes one chapter with the following paragraph: “You seemed so happy in that moment, so content, that I put down my computer and quietly picked up your camera. It’s the only photograph I ever took of you. I wonder if you still have it.” The last sentence inevitably opens a myriad of questions for the reader. Why doesn’t she know if he still has it? Did they split up? But why? They were so happy and in love! I need to read on to find out what happened.
That need to read on to find out what happens and how—that’s narrative drive. If Santopolo hadn’t ended the chapter on this note, making reader pose this question, the reader might think, Sure, okay, so they’re together and happy. End of story? Why would I read on?
It’s the knowledge that Lucy as the narrator has about how the story will unfold—since she’s standing at its very end—that makes you want to read forward.
In Jill Santopolo’s The Light We Lost, Lucy is both the narrator and the protagonist.
Lucy the protagonist experiences the story as it unfolds, but Lucy the narrator already knows EVERYTHING that happened in the story, and keeps throwing bits and pieces of info for the reader that make the reader worry about what will happen to Lucy the protagonist.
When the protagonist and the narrator aren’t the same person:
Like I mentioned before, the narrator can be a person different from the protagonist (another POV character in the book or the omniscient narrator).
If this is the case, even if these narrators stand at the end of the story, the author can oftentimes still draw on the feeling of suspense of what will become of the protagonist.
For instance, if you’ve come home and telling your spouse not about your day, but about what happened to your friend Julia, then you are the narrator, but Julia is the protagonist. Since your spouse can’t tell if Julia is dead or alive, happy and healthy or lying somewhere in a gutter, you as the narrator can create the same sense of suspense as if you were standing in the story in real time.
Unlike another-POV-character-as-a-narrator who might or might not know how the story unfolds, the omniscient narrator by definition knows everything that happens in the story—even before it happens on the page. But they have the godlike ability to share only what they want and what they want you to see.
A good example of the omniscient narrator is in Celeste Ng’s novel, Everything I Never Told You, which starts with a blood-freezing sentence “Lydia is dead, but they don’t know it yet.” Ng proceeds to the opening scene with Lydia’s family going about their usual morning—something so very mundane and uneventful that it’s ONLY knowing that Lydia is dead that’s pressing you to read forward.
In other words, Celeste Ng used the device of the omniscient narrator (who by definition stands after the story, because they know everything, including how the story ended) to make what would otherwise be a pretty uneventful opening chapter, more interesting.
Intentionally revealing that one piece of information—that Lydia is dead—is exactly what glues the reader’s eyes to the page, and makes them NEED to find out what happened next. They’re not reading to find out if Lydia is dead or not, but to learn how and why she died in the first place, and what it will mean for her family.
3. When the Narrator stands in the middle of the story:
Narrator standing in time as the story happens and after the story happens are the two most common choices, but there’s the third one—narrator standing in the middle of the story.
In Taylor Jenkins Reid’s One True Loves, the opening sentence of the book is: “I am finishing up dinner with my family and my fiancé, when my husband calls.” How’s that for creating narrative drive? You’re immediately burning to know why in the world this protagonist (who is also the narrator) simultaneously has a fiancé and a husband, right?
In this particular book, the protagonist stands in the middle of the book, telling us the first half of the book knowing what happened up to the moment in story where she stands (which is that dinner with her fiancé when her husband calls). From this first sentence, she goes back in time to explain how she ended up having both a husband and fiancé. What would have been a pretty long and uneventful exposition of her dating her husband and his getting lost at sea, and then getting together with this other guy, is made interesting through the lens of the dilemma she will come to face—as we know from the first sentence.
Knowing this fact—that she ended up being engaged/married to two different guys, will keep us turning the page, i.e. it creates narrative drive.
But in the middle of the book, when her husband finally arrives back home, and she has to choose between him and the other guy, she as the narrator starts moving through the story in real time, alongside herself as the protagonist; meaning, she doesn’t know which guy she’ll choose any more than we do.
If she stood at the very end of the story, knowing which guy she chose, it would suck all that delicious tension, suspense, and narrative drive out of the second part of the story.
The narrator can stand in time in the middle of the story; they know everything that happened up to the place where they stand in the story, but from then on, they have no idea how the story will unfold any more than the protagonist does.
Tenses and Narration
I mentioned that where the narrator stands in time has nothing to do with tenses.
Any story can be told in past tense (“He woke up and got out of bed.”) or present tense (“He wakes up and gets out of bed.”).
Even if the story is told in past tense, it doesn’t mean the protagonist knows what will happen on the next page. In majority of stories told in past tense, the narrator doesn’t know what happens on the next page any more than the reader does.
However, if the narrator knows how the story ends—it would be pretty hard to write the story-present in present tense. For instance, in Jill Santopolo’s quote before, because the narrator knows what happens at the very end of the book, it pretty much dictates that the author had to write the story-present (story as it unfolds) in the past tense.
In other words, choosing where the narrator will stand in the story might affect your choice of the tense in which you will write the story present.
Final thoughts:
Choosing where the narrator stands in time has to be a strategic choice. Most books are written with the narrator standing in the story present, right alongside the protagonist. There’s a reason why this is so—it’s the easiest way to create narrative drive (concern and curiosity about what will happen to the protagonist that will make the reader keep turning the pages).
However, there are particular situations that require that narrator stands in the story in some other place (end of the story, or in a very specific place during the story). This especially goes for those stories that are slow in the beginning, and need some foreshadowing of future events to keep the reader interested.
As with many writing rules and conventions, breaking away from this convention (narrator standing in story in real time—which is the golden standard) is only advisable if it serves a story-specific purpose, and if you have the knowledge and skill to pull it off. Otherwise, you’re running at risk of annoying your reader and pulling them out of the story for no apparent reason.
Until next time, keep safe and write on!
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