October 5, 2012

Psychic Distance and the Novel

I've been spending a fair amount of time working through the "psychic distance" of my narrator in my novel this past month. Not a topic I've specifically considered in the past, but now that it's on my radar it's difficult to read someone else's work without noting its value in a narrative.

Disclaimer: psychic distance is not about Dionne Warwick or The Amazing Kreskin. It is about the placement of your narrator in a story, where they stand in relation to a character, what information they are privy to. It links to who the narrator is and from when they are speaking from. More importantly it identifies a line of sight for the reader.