Narrative Omnipotence - a half-arsed and ill-informed 'study'

Howard fell asleep on the Northern Line. This, in itself, is not particularly out of the ordinary; people have fallen asleep on tube trains before and doubtless will again. His experience however was altogether different. Most people wake up in Morden or Edgware covered in embarrassment or sick or whatever. Howard woke up somewhere else.

The sky had been dark, like night – because it was night. The air had been thick and clammy not unlike that of summer – incidentally it was summer. It was a standard summer night. Howard boarded the last train to Morden. Having enjoyed himself a little too much earlier in the evening, Howard’s plans of disembarking at Tottenham Court Road were scuppered when sleep caught him unaware at Camden.

Howard woke up in hell. Remarkably, he noted, hell smells similar to tube trains. All around him were great pillars of jagged rock Rivers of molten lava flowed across the cracked and horrid ground. Howard took a few cautious steps and snapped a ribcage underfoot. A skull resting on the floor a few metres away fired a barrage of curses at him.

As he continued to take stock of his surroundings Howard noticed more and more figures around him. All of them were haggard with a thousand yard stare of inestimable torment lurking beneath the surface. One figure was shambling towards him more purposefully. As it hobbled closer Howard got a better glimpse of its face behind its matted hair.

“Mother!” He cried in terror.
“I knew you’d join me here one day, son!” His mother cackled witch-like and cold.

Howard turned and fled from his mother and burst right through the fourth wall, or ‘the over-page’ as I like to call it. He needed to be placed in a holding cell of sorts so I drew up for him a traumatic childhood even and marooned him there for a few paragraphs.

Howard is or was or will be a very special person. He is a character. He is my character and as such I have complete control over him. I can make him, live, die, live again, love, hate, lose or win provided I’ve a convincing enough story to get him there. Often – as in this case – I don’t even need that. Some of the best stories are the simply composed of watching a character cope in exceptional and wholly unexplained circumstances. How does the portrait come to bare the scars of Dorian’s soul? Who knows! Who cares, more to the point - it just does.

Unfortunately, one thing necessary for a compelling story is an expanded character, a believable character who inspires sympathy in the reader. Luckily to rectify this, the author can engage in further sadism which, to be honest, is probably what the author likes best!

So, what would make the reader sympathise with our Howard? Well, he’s locked in a spot of childhood torment and clearly has issues with his mother. We can happily expand upon this. Nothing wells up some juicy sympathy like cruel injustice!
Howard awoke at the back of the class in his primary school. Sitting in front of him were all of the children with whom he is to grow up. They don’t like him. He is quiet and shy – children never like this. This makes (or has made) Howard very unhappy. He has problems at home and doesn’t sleep very well. It shows, he is always falling asleep in lessons and is subject to much of the teacher’s bullying.

Half-way through a lesson, 7 year old Howard is whimpering at the back of the classroom when his mother bursts in. His mother is an angry alcoholic whose husband left her shortly after Howard’s birth – in her own way she is a victim, but a monstrous one.

“Howard, you’ve wet the bed again you little bastard. You’re coming straight home with me this instant!” Shrieked the awful, dishevelled woman.

Quiet and shy Howard is forced to trudge out of the classroom, his eyes begging the floor for a reprieve. None came and the jeers and taunts of his classmates seemed to never end.

Who could fail to sympathise with a shy, nervous child? I challenge you not to care. Furthermore, who could fail to feel better disposed to a shy, nervous child who has managed to scrape from the ashes of his poor upbringing a decent character or at least a charming one! Yes, to further the reader’s appreciation of dear Howard, it would surely be a good idea to demonstrate his strength of character. Of course as the singularly most important influence on Howard’s life I can make him as benevolent or as mean-spirited as I want. Right now, it suits my purposes for Howard to be a selfless saint. So that is what he is.

One morning whilst walking to a job Howard was already late for he passed a poor old tramp weeping in the gutter. The man was thin, worn and, had he been standing up, would have been on his last legs. Now this was no surprising sight in London, the homeless were distressingly commonplace. Howard, on this occasion, was touched. This man was not even begging but simply looking dejected. Howard was moved to rake his pockets for all of his remaining change that he had scraped together for the bus. He handed this proudly to the man and instructed to make himself comfortable with a cup of tea for a while. Then Howard sauntered on, exuding the light of human kindness. Unfortunately, the light of human kindness does little to help you keep your job and upon striding into work, beaming a whole hour and a half late, Howard was promptly sacked.

Are you not brimming with love for our Howard now? Of course not, this is shoddy prose and second hand emotion signifying nothing. But masters of the craft can conjure up powerful sentiments for a fiction. For example, I suspect you must be a cold, emotionless rock if you are not intensely concerned for Lyra Belacqua of ‘His Dark Materials’.

In many cases this sympathy effects even the author, and arguably it is a key part of any truly touching story for the author to love and cherish the characters he has birthed. However, there is a key risk, there is a danger that the author’s affection for his characters will lead to the character’s preservation at the expense of the narrative. I have chosen to call this ‘going native’, a term previously used by cleverer men for more worthy phenomena. An example of going native, albeit and over-simplified one, would read thus.

‘After many trials and tribulations at the hands of the mysterious author, Howard won out. He returned to his home, got another, better paid job and began wooing the woman he loved. He married and had three beautiful and disgustingly talented children. The end.’

Or perhaps:

‘And it was all a dream.’ – a favourite of many under-whelming primary school fiction exercises.

Both of these endings are lacking in emotion and are borne out of a reluctance to wreak further devastation on a character the author has grown to love.

However, the story would flow a lot better were our Howard to die a painful but heart-warming death as he makes peace with the world, whilst enriching our understanding of the world with an off-the-cuff and intensely powerful soliloquy. Wouldn’t that be a better way to end? Yes. Better than this at any rate.

To quote a much better author – ‘So it goes.’

I am now aware this piece bears some similarity to the Will Ferrell film 'Stranger than Fiction'