Bittercon: Risky Narrative Strategies

[kate_nepveu]

Bittercon panel number two. Yes, my personal biases are showing; what of it?

Risky Narrative Strategies

Sarah Monette's Mélusine sends one of its two first-person narrators into a tailspin on his third page and drives him crazy before the chapter's over. It certainly doesn't play safe, but it's also risky because it gives the reader very little baseline for the character—particularly since the POV is so tight and he doesn't cross paths with the other narrator for a while. What other narrative strategies are risky, and how? Is information flow the principal kind of risk? In what books do risky strategies work, and in what don't they—but in interesting ways?

Presume that there will be spoilers for Mélusine and The Virtu within; for any other works, ROT13 spoilers or put them between <span style="color: #999999; background-color: #999999"> </span>.

Comments

[avocadovpx.livejournal.com]

Probably so, because I could probably read a book about a part of history I didn't know, and still enjoy the book. I could even go read up on the history, come back to reread the book, and enjoy it more the second time.

But hearing a joke that requires me to know a piece of information that I don't know -- that joke won't be funny when I hear it before I know the information, and it won't be funny after I've heard it and learned the information too late. The author needs to know that I know it, or the author needs to provide it in a way that I don't find obtrusive or annoying.

It also won't be funny if I know that information but don't recall it fast enough. It's almost as if the comedian needs to make sure that that piece of information has been moved into my immediate grasp before the joke can be told.