Elizabeth Strout, Narrative Voice, Character Creation: Narrative voices are the private views of authors, since most authors have multiple personality.

The following quotes are from today’s New York Times article by Sarah Lyall about Elizabeth Strout, her new novel, “My Name is Lucy Barton,” and how she lets her narrator and characters be themselves: 

“It’s not my job,” Sarah [a character who is a novelist] says sharply, “to make readers know what’s a narrative voice and not the private view of the author.”

“In an interview last week, Ms. Strout said…her characters…come to life…through some mysterious process that even she finds difficult to explain…”

“I’m sure my issues, or whatever they are, get worked out in my writing, but that just doesn’t interest me,” Ms. Strout said.

Comment

Narrative voice, character voice, and author’s regular voice are all equally genuine voices of one and the same person, who does not mechanically construct any of them.

They all come to life, mysteriously, from the mind of the same person—a person who may not be very self-analytical, because in multiple personality, most personalities tend to mind their own business.