LESSON WRITING Is your narrative voice too casual?

unanun

Child is born, with a heart of gold
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  1. Adaptable
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I'm wary of magic with lots of rules.
Sometimes I'll come across a passage where the voice doesn't match the gravity of the scene. The narrative voice has fragments such as:

of course [...]
the fact was [...]
that is [...]
[...] for sure
that being said, [...]
admittedly [...]
though [...]
obviously [...]
after all [...]
it was a given [...]

with the extra detail that these casual conversational words are outside of quotation marks. The narrator is narrating dialogue of the characters, but also seems to be in a conversation with the reader. You might sound like a grandparent spinning yarn over a campfire with a cup of coffee in hand - in fact, it sounds like you're roleplaying the narrator! This casual tone can undercut some scenes that are supposed to be serious, somber, frantic, or something else. To change the tone of your narration, imagine the narrator not as a person, but as a tape recorder or a robotic announcer that lists events, thoughts, and facts as they happen. Don't add the narrator's personal thoughts on top of the flow.
 
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