Ep40: The Sin of "I" - A Conversation with Erwin Warkentin

"I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together", today we have a conversation about narrator voice when writing a story with Dr. Erwin Warkentin.

John Lennon wrote the line, “I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together” in I Am the Walrus to intentionally confuse. I know I am treading on well-worn ground by starting off this with that line to explore narrative voice—and especially the sin of “I”—but bear with me.

Here is a really short story:

“I stood on the side of the river. A duck flapped its wings and looked at me as if asking. I patted my pockets and turned up my palms; maybe the duck understood I got nothing today. Nothing. I can barely keep it all together. She left me this morning. A letter on the bathroom mirror. Her handwriting happier than I’ve ever seen it. The bird was still there. Can’t it see she was the one with the food? She was the one who brought me here?”

Now, let me retell the story:

“He was standing by the river. The duck flapped its wings as it cut through the water, driving a sharp line towards him. A common sight along these banks through the winter. The man sighed, patted his pants, and turned his palms up. Exasperation matched to pleading eyes. He reached out to his wife and almost fell when he realized she was not there. Today, he was alone. A crumpled figure, shuffling through the snow by the banks.”

Every story can be told from an infinite number of perspectives. I could tell the story above from the point of view of the duck: hungry, watching the world go by from the banks of the river. I could add some magic realism and have the river narrate its journey past the banks and this man. I could be a leaf, a blade of grass, or even a lamp post. Each perspective adds something to the story.

There is a story I have written some half-dozen times over the years. It’s been written from any number of perspectives, and yet I still don’t feel it’s remotely correct—or even conveying what I want.

For me, “I” is possibly the hardest perspective to take. In that narrative voice, I need to live the trials and tribulations of my protagonists. I might even cry as I write; I can feel the sadness; I can feel the hurt of the words that go down on paper. Even worse, we rarely write from pure imagination. Every story has the hallmarks of some pain that I have gone through. Reliving those moments can be as painful as the first time, struggling to put words to paper.

The omniscient narrator, on the other hand, allows a freedom to step outside, to stand back, to handle emotions from the sidelines.

There is so much to explore when it comes to narrative voice that we could be here for hours. Dr. Erwin Warkentin sent me a rough first draft of a story to review. He was kind enough to have me critique it on air. This is one of the hardest things a writer can do: have your work be examined in front of you. For me, it’s exhilarating. I get to see what landed and what did not.

Purposefully, the story has not been provided. The idea of the story—the framework of the story—is more important than the story itself. One day, after many rewrites, I am sure you will hear or read the full story in its final form, whatever narrative voice Erwin eventually chooses.

So let’s get down to it. Listen to my conversation with Dr. Erwin Warkentin on the sin of “I”.