Forum: Author Hangout

The context isn't clear, but it seems like David would normally get his answer from his Ma.

Sorry, key context missing. "Ma" is the name used by another character (the other character refers to his wife as "Ma", so he's relating that she's discovered some disconcerting news, and David is assuming that, whatever it is, it implies "Ma" won't be coming home "today"/"that day in time" (depending on whether it's David describing events, or the 3rd person narrator).

So the question is, should we always assume a person's thoughts (when stated by the narrator) are the character's, or use the narrator's perspective (i.e. David's 'today' was actually twenty years ago).

The situation is further complicated, as they're describing the early stages of a plague, so when David thinks "Ma's not coming home today", there's a VERY strong possible that translates as "she may never come home again"!

The narrator is a third person reporting David's thoughts indirectly so everything has to be reported in the appropriate frame of reference. The narrator is looking into the past whereas 'today' would indicate the narrator's present. That has to be wrong because David has no idea when the narrator's 'today' is.

AJ

Thank you - that says it better than I did.

reporting David's thoughts indirectly so everything has to be reported in the appropriate frame of reference.

I agree. However, that one sentence does not tell us that the narrator is looking into the past - that is your assumption. If the narrator is reporting David's spoken words and as you indicated his thoughts, then the narrator is providing an explanation of why David feels he needs to ask the question.

The first thing to decide is who is making the assumption. The narrator is reporting David's thoughts. If David normally gets his answers from Ma and wants an answer immediately, the giving David's assumption explains why he is asking the question. Today implies David cannot ask Ma now. He may be able to ask her in the future, but not at that point on David's timescale.

I agree. However, that one sentence does not tell us that the narrator is looking into the past - that is your assumption. If the narrator is reporting David's spoken words and as you indicated his thoughts, then the narrator is providing an explanation of why David feels he needs to ask the question.

The first thing to decide is who is making the assumption.

Actually, Ross clarified the issue. It's neither David's thoughts nor David's spoken dialogue which is the issue, it's the clause 'assuming Ma wouldn't be coming home' which is causing the conflict. We all agree that "today" fits better, but none of us could pinpoint why it was the proper choice. :(

That has to be wrong because David has no idea when the narrator's 'today' is.

Alas, David never says "today", while his reflection is entirely the narrator's addition to his spoken dialogue. As usual, my love of complexity is haunting me. If I wrote simple sentences, it wouldn't be an issue as I'd separate the spoken dialogue and the narrator's reflection into separate sentences. Although my readers appreciate peering into such a complex world, it makes living and working in one Much more difficult. 'D

@Blacnight beat me too it, and I wish I'd included his(?) examples as clarification.

AJ

I think I do have a grammatical answer to that one.

This has nothing to do with thoughts. The action of any gerund phrase/clause is performed by the subject of the main sentence it is dependent upon.

You could change your gerund phrase/clause to 'licking a stamp and sticking it to an envelope'. There would be no ambiguity that David was the one doing the 'licking' and 'sticking'.

Thanks, Ross, as you put a definitive justification for the decision I'd already reached. While I agreed with tendertouch's sentiments, Awnlee's explanation made me more nervous about it. Knowing I simply need to focus on the modifying clause helps me from focusing strictly on the character/narrator subjects.

You could change your gerund phrase/clause

No.

A gerund phrase/clause acts as a noun. You can't replace the written text by a noun. 'assuming' is a participle.

AJ

Changed the passage:

"Anyway, I just finished describing it to Ma, and she called an immediate conference between the hospital's administrators and physicians. We've been discussing it since."

"And what did they decide?" David asked, assuming Ma wouldn't be coming home today.

"They decided to isolate and quarantine the patients in question, since they have no idea whether it's contagious, even though the symptoms aren't severe yet. So far they're concerning, but haven't been tied to any tissue or structural damage to their bodies, so it's probably nothing."

I'm assuming keeping the dialogue in simple present tense will help eliminate confusion, as now David's spoken dialogue is all present tense, while the narrator's reflections are all past tense (before David's use of "what have they decided?" was an awkward mixed bag of present and past tense verbs.

I'm not sure why this reply is aimed at me. As I said, IMO you can't use 'today' unless David is expressing it directly.

AJ

I'm not sure why this reply is aimed at me. As I said, IMO you can't use 'today' unless David is expressing it directly.

Sorry, misattribution. Three of you all said similar things (though, as you point out, you were disagreeing with me, which which all nicely dovetailed together, so I kinda linked the thoughts together as they all fit neatly together. My mistake.

I actually meant it as an update to my original post, not as a reply, but hit the wrong damn button!

Hard to make a good call on any of what you said without full context. As written, I would interpret the assumption to be David's.

Hard to make a good call on any of what you said without full context. As written, I would interpret the assumption to be David's.

In the bigger story, the context is largely assumed (based on the previous ten chapters, rather than the previous paragraphs). All the character's know people are getting sick, but without power, no one has been able to identify a specific pathogen (which is what the person David is speaking too was about to relate to explain why "Ma" was going to be busy).

She was an older version of the Elena whom Steele had known sixteen years earlier.

Except "ago" is used all the time by the narrator in traditionally published novels. I believe it's okay to do so. It seems to be the norm.

Except "ago" is used all the time by the narrator in traditionally published novels. I believe it's okay to do so. It seems to be the norm.

It is, but from BlackKnight's post, he's thinking of "sixteen years ago" in terms of the narrator's perspective, not the characters. In this one context, the rules become fuzzy, so the 'standard convention' argument falls apart. Luckily Ross identified the source of the conflict, so hopefully we can all avoid these situations in the future!

That is:
Ma's not coming home today, David thought.

but:
David assumed Ma wouldn't be coming home that day.

That's what I thought I was doing with the attribution. It separates David's spoken words from the narrator's description of his response (with an additional explanation added by the narrator).

In this end, this is what happens when you start seriously thinking of the narrator as another character. If you never think of a 3rd Omni narrator as an individual, you simply never question how they'd respond, but once you do (and this was written early in my writing), you start questioning how they'd phrase things differently than the person they're describing would.

Sometimes, ignorance is a blessing! 'D

I'm not a fan in general, far preferring 'that day' since a 3rd person omniscient narrator isn't locked to the same timestream as the character. It's not a huge issue but feels somewhat jarring to me.

Which is why I decided to shitcan my original version, but it still leaves the 'how would a 3rd person narrator describe something happening on a single day, twenty+ years in the past?' question. If you assume the narrator is a storyteller, it's easier, as the story teller 'adopts a similar voice', but in this series, the narrator is actually an unknown historian, detailing what transpired in 'Year 1' of the newest age.

But I'm glad you spoke up, as it reinforced my disquiet in using it. The fact is, fewer readers will be bothered by the narrator's perspective (which they are unlikely to even consider), while many will be thrown by the stray "that day" associated with David's spoken dialogue.

Stories are told about events that happened in the past. It is a common practice to tell a story in the present tense. Your narrator may be telling the story from 20 years in the story's future, but he needs to narrate the story as if he exists in the story's present.

Stories are told about events that happened in the past. It is a common practice to tell a story in the present tense. Your narrator may be telling the story from 20 years in the story's future, but he needs to narrate the story as if he exists in the story's present.

Yeah, we can both agree with that. Thus the narrator isn't 'talking about' the distant past, but about the events of 'that day', otherwise known as "today" to everyone involved.

Both your and Ross's explanations provide a definitive resolution to this and any future narrator/character issues.

I think the 'would' in your sentence is being used as the past tense of 'will'. To be consistent, you need either 'Ma wouldn't be coming home that day' or 'Ma won't be coming home today'.

Good point, but I'd originally chosen "wouldn't" to insinuate "maybe", rather than simply the past tense of WILL come home. I chose the word because he's not confident of anything, but is afraid of yet more bad news.

As I said, this is largely a problem because of my love of complex sentences (which places the narrator's interjection near David's spoken dialogue). If I stuck to simple sentences like so many others do, it wouldn't be an issue (note the use of "wouldn't" to denote 'not as likely to', rather than the simple past tense of 'WILL not'). That said, the sentence still works better as a combined whole, as the narrator's interjection explains David's hesitency, and the entire things is added as an attribution, rather than making it the central element of a stand-alone sentence.

This single sentence comes amid a long-simmering tension over the course of the book, and provides a key clue in figuring how to proceed (which Billy is about to relate in describing WHY Ma isn't coming home today).