I had to look over my books to answer this question! My first impression was that I write mostly in the third person omniscient and this is true of my novels—The Twentieth Wife, The Feast of Roses, Shadow Princess and The Splendor of Silence. But in going through my collection of short stories set in contemporary India, In the Convent of Little Flowers, I see that five out of the nine stories are in the first person.
In just having gone through this exercise (of not really being aware exactly, ahead of time of what POVs I use in my storytelling), I realize that it is not a conscious decision to write in one or the other POV. It’s what works in that particular story, that particular telling of the story.
I’d originally begun The Splendor of Silence in the first person and wrote about 150 pages before I realized that it wasn’t really working, so I rewrote this novel in the third person omniscient and it went much easier.
Do you use present tense or past tense most in your fiction, or do you often switch tense for different stories, and why?
I’ve used both past and present tenses in my work. There’s an immediacy in the present tense, a sort of looking-over-the-author’s-shoulder result that can be very effective if you want to pull the reader into the story at the first word. In my novel-length fiction, the past tense has worked better, because it’s helpful in creating a sense of distance (in time and in space), and the reader is pulled more slowly into the world I’m creating and has time to absorb all the details that might not be immediately familiar to him or her.
Pick one of your published stories. What combination of point of view and tense did you use for this story, and why?
The Splendor of Silence is set in India during four days in May of 1942, and is the story of an American soldier, Sam Hawthorne, who finds his way to a tiny, desert kingdom in northwestern India called Rudrakot during those four days. Sam’s in Rudrakot to find his missing brother Mike, AWOL from one of Rudrakot’s regiments, and he has just returned from Burma, where he infiltrated behind Japanese lines to escort and bring to safety an American missionary.
While at Rudrakot, Sam falls in love with an Indian woman, Mila, daughter of the local Political Agent, who is betrothed to the prince of Rudrakot, Jai. Splendor opens twenty-one years later, with Sam’s and Mila’s daughter, Olivia, who opens a trunk of treasures in Seattle for her birthday, and begins to read a letter from an unknown narrator telling her of those four days in May of 1942, of her parents’ love story, and of the times as they were then—during World War II, five years before India’s independence from British rule.
So, the timeline in Splendor flits around three time frames—opening and ending in 1963 in Seattle, USA; the main narrative taking place in May 1942 in Rudrakot, India; and a third narrative in about 9 scenes set in Burma in April 1942. The Seattle narrative is of a few pages only and bookends the novel.
I have section markers for each narrative—as in “28th May, 1942, The Kingdom of Rudrakot, Somewhere in Northwestern India,” or “April 1942, A Month Earlier; Somewhere in Burma” to make it clear to the reader where the story is going.
The two main storylines run somewhat parallel to each other and are detailed and intense in their own right—as an author, if you are to ask so much dedication from the reader, to follow you along in different time frames and different storylines, and different geographical places at the same time, then you must resolve all these storylines into one comprehensive whole. And this, of course, is what happens by the end of The Splendor of Silence—you’ll see why these simultaneous journeys began, how they connect with each other, and how they come to a resolution.
To further differentiate the stories in Splendor, I set the main, Rudrakot, May 1942, narrative in the past tense, and the Seattle, 1963, and the Burma, April 1942, narratives in the present tense. The change in tense was important because it distinguished the jump from one time frame/narrative to another.
To what extent is the vocabulary and manner of speech of the narration in this story different from your own everyday expression, and what does this contribute to the story?
This is important in a historical novel—the tone, the rhythm of the language, the vocabulary even, has to fit the context of the story, else the reader is unlikely to believe in the authenticity of the tale.
Did you tell this story with one narrator or multiple narrators, and why?
Splendor is ‘narrated,’ loosely by the letter writer, the person who tells Sam’s and Mila’s daughter, Olivia, the story. So you’ll see a first person narrative in the beginning, in the voice of the storyteller, and you don’t know, as indeed Olivia doesn’t, who’s telling the story. And, yet, it’s a distinct voice and the clues to the narrator’s identity are present in the very first page of the letter.
The narrative then shifts, for the Rudrakot and Burma scenes (hence the main body of the novel), into an omniscient viewpoint, with the understanding that this is still the story being told in the letter. The letter writer comes back a couple of times in his/her unique voice, in first person, to fill in a few gaps in between, and then the story lapses back into omniscient narrative.
I employed this method for a couple of reasons: one, to fill in the background and context of the novel (India, both political and social at this very critical time in her history before independence) I needed an omniscient narrator; two, the letter-writer is also an important character in the novel, as the reader and Olivia discover by the end.
Did you make the narrator of this story a character involved in the main action of the story, or did you make the narrator one which is not a charcater in your fictional storyworld, and why?
Please see last paragraph of answer to the previous question. Short answer here—yes, the letter (and the novel) is ‘written’ by an important and essential character in the novel.
What is one of your favourite fictional stories, in which you think is narration is written well, and how would you describe what makes the narration work so well for you as a reader?
I have many favorites, both in contemporary authors and those who are no longer alive. A recent, relatively unknown-today book I read comes to mind here, The Massingham Affair by Edward Grierson, published in 1962. It’s a crime/mystery novel, based on an actual attempted robbery in 1891 at a lonely rectory in Northumberland and the story of a young lawyer, who some forty years later attempts to bring justice to the two poachers convicted for the crime.
I read this book not just for the mystery/crime factor, but also because Grierson sets the stage, the world in which the characters live, so well and with so much authority. The book has a leisurely narrative, and Grierson takes his time in introducing the characters and building the world around them in a manner which is realistic and drew me in as a reader.
Do you usually provide direct access to the thoughts of characters in your stories? If so, do you usually provide access to the thoughts of one character or multiple characters in a single story or point of view, and why?
Yes, it’s important to let the reader know, or see, what the characters are thinking to a certain extent, for their actions then follow their thoughts. In an omniscient narrative, as in most of my fiction, this is easy to do—the action follows many characters around, and while with them, the reader is privy to their thoughts.
To what extent does the narrative style of novels you read have an impact on why you read them, and why?
I believe good storytelling (and hence good narration) is key to a well-told story. This means exposition on the world in which the story is set, which includes the place, the setting, the weather, the political climate, and even, the characters’ experiences and their thoughts.
Author website: www.indusundaresan.com
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