#and make it a central tenant of who she is xD

[thatscarletflycatcher]

I agree with all of this! Especially the part about how epistolary is essentially a way to tell a story through dialogue exclusively -it is part of the "deceptively hard" aspect that I forgot to develop in the original post- and how it frees one from difficulties related to scene-to-scene pacing (of course overarching pacing remains more or less the same than other styles), setting, and description. As a person who does struggle with narrative voice a lot this is all very convenient XD

But in my OP I was thinking mainly of the difficulties of the style. On the surface it seems like an economical and not particularly complicated variation on first person narrator, and yet, it isn't easy to find good epistolary novels. Even some masterful classics can have some trouble with it. For example, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall nails the contrast of voice, the soundness of structure and the layers of temporality, but the realism of the device breaks under even minimal inspection: the mental picture of Gilbert mailing a book's worth of letter pages plus his wife diary to his BIL is... something, and to some people it even colors the perception of Gilbert as possessive and callous about Helen's feelings, which is something I don't think was intended at all. So I was mostly motivated by the thought of how difficult it appears to be in the practice of published novels, and thinking what are the most common difficulties/problems (and TGLPPS, having been such a huge success seemed like a good point of reference).

And that's where the tension between what I think are good or very good examples of the format accomplished, and what I think are poor examples of the format.

So, for example, TGLPPS does include a whole lot of responses (which is part of what makes it confusing and a bit drag-y); DLL is written so that there not being responses is built into the ongoing situation the novel illustrates; by Dear Enemy Webster realized she did not need any such justification. Lesley Castle does include a lot of the responses, even if they are mitigated by strong character perspective; Lady Susan does away with them for the most part if not completely (I don't remember exactly).

DLL is very strict on the one-narrator/one person being told; Dear Enemy explores having a central relationship of this kind, while adding satellite connections; Lady Susan has two main relationships in parallel -Mrs. Vernon to Lady De Courcy and Lady Susan to Alicia Johnson- but manages unity because both are talking about the same scenario, with opposing views and goals. TGLPPS and Lesley Castle have several in several directions. This is where Dracula is a particularly interesting case -there are 5 narrators who are at first talking all of different things, but it works because A) the back and forth is minimal B) these seemingly independent subplots are converging into a single storyline (of course, problem is one the storylines merge the author has an overabundance of narrators that complicates his work).

I feel like epistolary is more sensitive to number of narrators for two reasons: 1) that one must remember not only who is talking, but who they are talking to 2) letters are shorter and so the perspective changes more often and more quickly. For all I have heard about GRRM's ASOIAF, there are several POV characters in the saga, but they get a sort of one-character-a-chapter pov, and while that might get tiresome at some point and by force some narrators will be more interesting than others, I don't imagine it can be as confusing as it is when the same thing happens in epistolary.

I also think it is more sensitive to the line between what's necessary for the story and what isn't. So, for example, the unrealistic back and forth of very short notes to arrange a meeting in TGLPPS; its inclusion is A ProblemTM, and in the end we don't really need to know that information for the story to work. In a normal narrative the pointlessness would be less felt because it would create less strain for the reader. On the other hand, because epistolary pushes towards economy, and because so much of it relies on the reader reading between the lines and building up what isn't said, it seems easier to fall into not saying something that, while not strictly necessary, would be good for the flow or resolution of the story. In Dear Enemy it is often the case that readers are surprised by the ending; if you are genre savvy the clues to Sandy being not exactly as Sallie describes him, and her feelings about him not being as negative as she presents them to Judy are there, and yet there's still a heavy impression of suddenness to everything that appears in the last letter (no such problem in DLL, now that I think of it, because the reveal of DLL's identity is built up for quite a bit). Maybe the problem here is less one of insufficient foreshadowing, and more one that the combination of style + romance development trope + addressee of the story is not a good one for the purpose; perhaps an enemies-to-lovers trope is better suited for an epistolary novel where then main characters are the correspondents (case in point, now that I think about it: You've Got Mail. Kinda).

Tumblr isn't letting me find again @fictionadventurer's and my own posts on epistolary novels, but I have been thinking about it again, because I fell down a Goodreads review rabbit hall and I have thoughts again.

So many people dislike the style, and honestly, I don't blame them, because it's so often done... not well. It is in some aspects, a deceptively easy one, and in others, deceptively hard. And because I'm trying to write a novel with this format myself, I have been thinking about what makes or breaks an epistolary novel.

I talked yesterday about TGLPPS, because it is an interesting case to analyze. I have thought many times about it, and cannot think of a single non-merely-aesthetic reason for it to be told in an epistolary style. A lot of it depends on -British- people who have survived some terrible war conditions willingly opening up to a stranger about their experiences, and that's made... even more difficult if the medium is letters? typically writers will appeal to tropes like making the reserved character drunk, or have them share an extreme experience in isolation with the stranger to create sudden intimacy. None of this is possible in writing; if anything, one is much more self-conscious about the things one writes than the things one says; verba volant, scripta manent.

It seems to me the story would have flowed much more naturally if Juliet had been stranded on Guernsey for some reason -like the first author herself!- suddenly Dawsey commenting that he got a book from her library makes so much more sense! Yes, certainly, if you met a stranger out there, and they introduce themselves and you realize you have a book that once belonged to them, you would tell them so! And it is in this way that the epistolary format does violence to a story that would otherwise sound much less contrived.

Another problem is the large cast of characters and multiple settings. For all I complain about Dracula, Stoker manages this pretty well (of course he has the model of The Woman in White, but TWiW has fewer povs), at least on the first half, because structurally the storylines of the characters are converging, and that does a lot to guide the reader in the understanding of the character's relationships. TGLPPS's relationship structure is more of a multidirectional flow chart, and that becomes confusing really fast.

Another novel I read reviews for recently is one set in WWI, composed of back and forth letters between two lovers torn apart by war, and one common complaint was... that the climactic scenes, the times they meet, etc all happen... off-camera. It is a fair complaint, but also one I cannot really blame the author for, because that's what usually happens with real life compilations of letters of that kind. Sure, usually the editor/compiler will fill in the blanks sometimes and add an epilogue of sorts explaining what happened afterwards, and that is possible if you are writing it fictionally too, but some may think it spoils the effect of immediacy and whatnot, which, fair too.

But it makes me think of how aware Jean Webster was of these difficulties, and how deftly she managed them in both Daddy Long-Legs and Dear Enemy. Both novels have aged badly in terms of content and message, but they are very interesting stylistically.

DLL is a bildungsroman with a dash of romance; through Judy's letters to daddy long-legs we can see how she grows as a person, gaining independence intellectually and economically, and as a writer, as her grammar and vocabulary change and grow. Between making Judy an orphan who hates the orphanage where she has lived her whole life, and one where she lived past the usual age of being thrown into the world, Webster does away with the need for letters between Judy and her friends and family: all her friends and family are her college roommates and her benefactor, who is the person she writes to. The benefactor scheme also makes it so that she doesn't have to write dll's replies, which in turns makes it much more natural and acceptable for the reader when Judy writes him the ending's love letter describing the feelings and impressions of their finally meeting in person and in truth; Judy has become a writer, and she is so used to write to him as another person all the time, that it just makes sense for her to write to him one more letter at the point where her benefactor and her lover become one and the same person. She has written a novel where the core is the correspondence between lovers AND managed to include as well all the moments of their meetings that we would otherwise miss.

Dear Enemy is a similar, but longer and more ambitious story. Instead of one relationship-connection (Judy and Daddy's), we have Sallie as a nod of connections: she's Judy's friend, Jarvis' "employee", the boss of several characters, has a tense colleague-boss relationship with the visiting doctor, a boyfriend of sorts in Washington, and a family we have met before. It is, in that way, a similar setup to TGLPPS: a urban girl of means becomes a fish out of water in a different setting till she ends up assimilating to it, and settling definitely through marriage. But Webster does a few things differently to make it click.

For starters, it is clear to her that this is the story of Sallie's maturation -I have sometimes talked of Dear Enemy as a novel where a Mary Crawford-like character undergoes a transformation arc. The happenings and stories she meets and tells Judy about along the way serve this arc, besides standing on their own as case studies to illustrate the problems, ideology and solutions proposed to the secondary themes of the story (education and social reform). I feel like TGLPPS is much more interested in Guernsey's survival through the war, in which case Juliet's story is already a frame, which, again, makes the epistolary format cumbersome rather than complementary.

Dear Enemy adds more correspondents, but it is very austere/economical with them, and narrows the letters we see to only those Sallie sends. YMMV regarding if it was too much cutting or not, but the undeniable effect is structural soundness; you are never confused by what is happening or who is writing to whom. We can guess the Honorable Cyrus Wykoff probably wrote some indignant letters to Jervis, and those would be funny to read, but... would they be worth the break in the flow of the narrative? I don't think so. To this effect, just having Sallie write a line to the effect of "I expect at this point you have at hand an irate letter from the Hon. Cyrus" is enough to paint a picture for the reader. Perhaps a letter or two from Dr. MacRae would have helped develop his character more -definitely a first read of the story obscures how much misdirection there is in Sallie's narration to Judy, which in turns tends to create an impression of suddenness to the closing letter that doesn't come across well to the reader.

The choice of Sallie mainly writing to Judy is, IMO, a really good one too. It not only establishes a connection with DLL, but it also allows for the intimacy that makes disclosure believable (something TGLPPS struggles with, as I mentioned above). When you add a few letters to the doctor and Gordon and Jervis, you also get a better perspective of Sallie's personality, how she deals not only with a friend, but with acquaintances, romantic partners and coworkers.

From all this it is pretty evident that for Webster the main function of epistolarity as format is aiding in showing psychological and moral development. But that's not the only thing the format can be really good for: perspective is another, and Austen uses it to great effect in both Lady Susan and Lesley Castle.

Both stories deal with mainly static characters, but who have very strong perspectives of the same situation, and it is this singularity of setting and story that anchors the narrative to avoid confusion, while the variety of perspective brings interest. In Lady Susan, we are dealing mainly with the marrying off of Frederica and seduction of Mrs. Vernon's brother, Reginald. There where Lady Susan paints Frederica as an undisciplined, irrational and ungrateful daughter, her sister in law, Mrs. Vernon, paints her as a sweet girl and a victim of her mother's ruthlessness and lack of love. Both agree that Reginald is being seduced, but, of course, with opposite goals: Lady Susan wants him to succumb, Mrs. Vernon, to escape, and this is a delicious struggle for the reader to follow!*

Lesley Castle being an earlier effort, and unfinished, does show some of the defects I have mentioned before (mainly, the relative confusion of having several correspondents in separate storylines), but illustrates well this same perspective effect: Margaret writes to Charlotte about the new Lady Lesley, and the new Lady Lesley writes to Charlotte about about Margaret and her sister... and in these contrasts lies the main interest of the narrative.

Some conclusions to these musings, then:

Not every story is suited to the epistolary format.

The epistolary format seems to work the best when it is used for either A) showcase psychological and moral development B) to play with perspective on people and/or events.

One of the main difficulties of the format is finding a narrative element to anchor and structure the letters around.

It must have a core couple of correspondents, or at most, two. More than that will make it confusing (unless, perhaps, the story is very short and about a single event or two).

A delicate balance must be found so that the secondary correspondence doesn't cut the flow of the main one, and if possible it must feed into it.

*It is interesting how Love and Friendship, being such a delightful -and I sustain one of the best ever- Austen adaptation, is by force of the perspective switch towards a more impersonal third person, more about a love story between Frederica and Reginald than a struggle between Lady Susan and Mrs. Vernon. Which isn't dissimilar to how adaptations of DLL end up being more about the romance between the leads than Judy's coming of age in college; tropes aside, I feel like if the epistolary format is well embedded in the story, it's going to be nearly impossible to reproduce the effect in adaptation.

[queen-scribbles]

That’s why it’s so hard to pick; I’m excited about all of them xD It’s really a dead heat between Trinne and the Rogue rn. (I’m really scared of messing up Sosiel’s quest again) 

lol, yeah, if Trinne TOUCHES Azata I will not be getting her away from it, between the Best Dragon Friend and singing. I’d have to, like, skip Starward Gaze or something so she’s locked out(start her Angel and change later?), or play somebody else as Legend. 😅

Okay, Oread’s probably gonna be a Druid, then. It’s so hard for me to stay Lawful. Some flavor of Neutral I can do.

[oldearthcartography]

Okay, tell me about Arryn Mountainfall. mixtape, conspiracy theory, compass, parachute

Arryn Aman Kihf Mountainfall

mixtape: 5 songs that describe your OC(s) or songs they themselves would like.

Only 5? How about a 3hr long playlist? XD

Moments in the Mountains - Madison Olds

Eyes on the Prize - Arkells 

Armor - Sara Bareilles 

Rise - Katy Perry

Some Kind of Hero - Felix Hagan & the Family

conspiracy theory: what are your OC's beliefs? are they skeptics or do they believe easily? who acts on blind faith? who needs to see to believe?

Oh she’s definitely not a skeptic. I mean even aside from living in a world where magic is every day and very strange things happen all the time, she’s pretty willing to believe unless shown reasons not to.

After all she left home after a dream that she decided was a message from her god (Doramond the Forge King) telling her it was time for her to go out in the world. He didn’t even make an appearance in said dream it was just her, but she woke up with a feeling so she followed it.

I don’t know if her faith can be considered blind in that she is literally a paladin and literally has been granted divine powers but she is filled with a fierce conviction that would be pretty hard to shake and she doesn’t expect more proof or guidance than she’s already got.

compass: who's the moral compass? in general: what are your OCs' morality like? do they have high morals, or not? are their morals self imposed, or do they base their morals on religion/family/influence of others?

Arryn’s morals are steady as a mountain. She believes first and foremost that the innocent and helpless should be protected. She also believes that those with the means to help others should do so and standing by while others get hurt/ suffer when you could do something isn’t much better than causing harm yourself. She believes that hard work, doing your best, and always striving to do better is important.

She definitely believes strongly in the tenants and oaths of the Earthwardens (homebrew paladin order/subclass that can be found here) and while some of her beliefs may be reinforced by her time training to be one of them I think that, among other reasons, she was so fiercely determined to become one of the Earthwardens (despite it being a predominantly dwarven order and the training being more suited to the larger stronger dwarves than the tiny halfling girl among them) because their tenants already resonated strongly with her. 

I think her parents would probably have held similar beliefs too. And there is an Earthwarden that profoundly influenced her at a young age, too. That whole nature vs. nurture thing is always difficult to sort out.

If you want where she struggles morality-wise that would be pride, she doesn’t like anything that pricks it and she’s been known to be a little rash and quick to anger (not that she was ready to fight that guard who made the “What? You think you’re tough?” comment at her or anything). And this also shows in how easily she’ll fall into competitiveness and avoids admitting when she isn’t good at something or can’t do something she said she would.

She also wants other people’s approval and respect more than is maybe healthy and can be goaded into doing something she’s not hundred percent sure is the right action (but doesn’t conflict with her central beliefs) if she thinks someone would respect her less/ like her less/ feel hurt if she didn’t... especially if it’s someone she wants to like her and isn’t certain what the right course is.

parachute: who does your OC(s) trust the most? who makes them feel safe? who would they do absolutely anything for?

Her adoptive father (Alin) and brother (Kunain). Alin had been a very good friend of her parents and took her in without hesitation after her parent’s death and she found a steady, safe and loving home with them. She would very literally do almost anything for them or to protect them.

Anytime she is uncertain or they’ve run into bad situations or she’s doubted her decisions she’s wished Alin was there for a hug and some calm advice/reassurance. 

And during the more awkward moments travelling with this party just trying she’s wished more than once for the easy banter that she got used to with Kunain. She’s glad Puff is around to lighten things but she still feels like she’s walking on eggshells where Siggrit is concerned and she doesn’t like it. Especially because she feels like she’s the only one holding the party together and has to be more serious and professional so that they’ll take her seriously.