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Narration/Inner thoughts in visual novels.


thehunterhunted

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Hi guys,

I'm reading the visual novel "Higurashi" it's my first visual novel in first person and I like it. I just have a little question why the narrator ( protagonist ) uses "second conditional*" when he's narrating about something that has already passed like here (See the screenshot to understand what I'm talking abouthttp://imgur.com/a/nRfiW ?  as a non-native English speaker I was taught to use "SC*" to talk hypothetically about the present or the future not the past so even if I understand what it means it seems weird to me, maybe those lines are his inner thoughts at the time so he doesn't change them when narrating ?.^_^ 

I don't know if this's the appropriate section of the forum to talk about these kind of questions (I'm new here) if not a moderator can just move it elsewhere. 

Thank you.

Edited by thehunterhunted
Clarity purposes.
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I think it's used correctly. The 2nd line indicates about something that is happening right now, in this case "You're leaving already?" and after that there is the Zero conditional which uses present tense in both parts of the sentence. Zero conditional is only used to say that something follows after (or is the result of) the condition. 

So, he is leaving at the exact moment and that is the condition. The result of that is no lunch. But since he hasn't left the room yet, it technically hasn't happened yet, so the result of that is still in the future, not past. And in the next lines, he was speculating about the future, about what would happen if he waited for her, but still has not left

I'm not a native speaker aswell, so i could be wrong. But i hope i was at least a bit helpful

Edited by Zidan209
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11 minutes ago, Darklord Rooke said:

Sorry, but it's incorrect. The past perfect form is used in past "if conditional" statements. In short, the sentence is missing a "had". Most people would write it like this:
"If I had waited for her to"

I prefer this:
"Had I waited for her to"

In any case thehunterhunted is correct here :) 

That's what I'm talking about If I had waited  for her to make , If I had done that it would have raised the chances. those are what I'd use to narrate.  but well since the the translator is using second conditional  I'll just understand it as his thoughts at the past and he's saying them as they were. because he use second conditional a lot even if he's talking about things that had already happened.

Edited by thehunterhunted
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Just now, Darklord Rooke said:

Actually Zidan is right. It's hard to judge on a screenshot without context. He hasn't left yet, so Mangagamer's prose is fine as is.

I don't think so we narrate about things that have already happened . Look at the last line '' from today onwards, I was going to go to school alone '' it is ''I was'' not ''I'm going to go''.  

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4 minutes ago, thehunterhunted said:

That's what I'm talking about If I had waited  for her to make , If I had done that it would have raised the chances. those are what I'd use to narrate.  but well since the the translator is using second conditional  I'll just understand it as his thoughts at the past and he's quoting them as they were. because he use second conditional a lot even if he's talking about things that had already happened.

The way I understand it, I think he's still in the process of making the decision. If he's walking  through the decision and talking about a hypothetical event in the future then MG's prose should be fine. If he's already made the decision and has left, then you're correct. But it's really hard to tell on a screenshot like that xD.

2 minutes ago, thehunterhunted said:

I don't think so we narrate about things that have already happened . Look at the last line '' from today onwards, I was going to go to school alone '' it is ''I was'' not ''I'm going to go''.  

That could just be an inelegant bit of prose. They might have meant "Yes. From now on I would go to school alone." You never know with these sorts of translations :P 

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Oh, okay I just noticed something (it's still early over here and I need some caffeine xD)

If it’s a past tense novel, in first person narration, thoughts tend to also be in past tense. Basically because everything narrated is also the protagonists thoughts, there doesn’t need to be any differentiation between the tenses. If the main protagonist narrated everything in the past, why would his thoughts suddenly be narrated in the present? So it would never really be “I am going to go”. Check this excerpt out:

[...]at least I had the balm of this simple, ordinary life to console me. I could look forward to years of Christmases with this girl in my arms, the privilege of growing old in this unfamiliar skin of mine. I knew that. I had everything.

Notice how everything is in the past tense in this section of inner monologue despite her talking about the future and the present? Some literature writers could switch between past and present for inner thoughts in first person past tense, but it tends to call attention to the writing and most of the time genre fiction likes a smooth experience.

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2 minutes ago, Darklord Rooke said:

Oh, okay I just noticed something (it's still early over here and I need some caffeine xD)

If it’s a past tense novel, in first person narration, thoughts tend to also be in past tense. Basically because everything narrated is also the protagonists thoughts, there doesn’t need to be any differentiation between the tenses. If the main protagonist narrated everything in the past, why would his thoughts suddenly be narrated in the present? So it would never really be “I am going to go”. Check this excerpt out:

[...]at least I had the balm of this simple, ordinary life to console me. I could look forward to years of Christmases with this girl in my arms, the privilege of growing old in this unfamiliar skin of mine. I knew that. I had everything.

Notice how everything is in the past tense in this section of inner monologue despite her talking about the future and the present? Some literature writers could switch between past and present for inner thoughts in first person past tense, but it tends to call attention to the writing and most of the time genre fiction likes a smooth experience.

Yes it is in past tense. And the excerpt if fine to me, and I was going confirms it is in past, they're all the thoughts of the protagonist ( narrator ) but there's difference between narration and inner thoughts like  ( ...I was walking home and I ran into some guy he insulted my , '' Why did you insult me ? ''  The guy : '' I wanted to  '' , This's just a fool I'll just ignore him   or so I thought  but that's not how it passed...) you see the italic sentence that's a inner thought from when the event was occurring the rest is the narration is the current thought of the author since he's narrating.. but in higurashi there's nor italic they all are in bold one sometime cannot know if they're the thoughts of the protagonist at the time like the dialogues basically or they're narration  to me it's wrong to use second conditional to narrate about the past unless it's an inner thought from past and that's what I want to know. :nico:

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24 minutes ago, thehunterhunted said:

Yes it is in past tense. And the excerpt if fine to me, and I was going confirms it is in past, they're all the thoughts of the protagonist ( narrator ) but there's difference between narration and inner thoughts like  ( ...I was walking home and I ran into some guy he insulted my , '' Why did you insult me ? ''  The guy : '' I wanted to  '' , This's just a fool I'll just ignore him   or so I thought  but that's not how it passed...) you see the italic sentence that's a inner thought from when the event was occurring the rest is the narration is the current thought of the author since he's narrating.. but in higurashi there's nor italic they all are in bold one sometime cannot know if they're the thoughts of the protagonist at the time like the dialogues basically or they're narration  to me it's wrong to use second conditional to narrate about the past unless it's an inner thought from past and that's what I want to know. :nico:

Italics to denote direct thoughts are really only used for third person fiction. With omnipresent you use a tag as well, whereas with limited (or close) no tag is needed. The italics and/or tags (tags as in "Roberto thought") are used to just indicate to the reader that those are direct thoughts of a certain person.

Generally speaking narration in a first person novel are all the thoughts of the protagonist. You could also call these inner thoughts. Because these are both inner thoughts it’s sometimes thought to be inconsistent to narrate what are essentially the protagonists thoughts in the past then suddenly switch to the present for inner dialogue. There are people that do it, but the advice often given to writers is “don’t” xD. For example:

Quote

I tipped my head to get a clearer view of the hoyden behind Giselle. They looked nothing alike, these two women posing as Margaret’s sisters. I waved them away. And they certainly didn’t favor my sweet Margaret.

Quote

Montrose tilted his head to get a clearer view of the hoyden behind Giselle. They look nothing alike. He dismissed the two of them with the flick of a wrist. And neither looks like my Margaret.

For first-person POV, there are not often instances when you’d even need to use a thought tag to identify a character’s thoughts, much less use italics for those thoughts. Still, most often the thoughts of a first-person narrator will blend seamlessly into the surrounding text [...] Note that without the italics, I kept the verbs in the past tense to match the rest of the narration. This is a deliberate choice. It maintains consistency for the reader, keeps her from wondering why the writer changed from past to present tense. 

I just grabbed this piece from the internet from freelance editor Beth Hill, but it tends to match up. Unlike 3rd person, the writer doesn't need to clearly identify what are and are not the protagonists inner dialogues/inner monologues/inner thoughts because the reader will know that they are all the protagonist thoughts. Because of this, all those methods of distinguishing them (italics, tags, and change of tense) are really not needed :) 

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4 minutes ago, Darklord Rooke said:

Italics to denote direct thoughts are really only used for third person fiction. With omnipresent you use a tag as well, whereas with limited (or close) no tag is needed. The italics and/or tags (tags as in "Roberto thought") are used to just indicate to the reader that those are direct thoughts of a certain person.

Generally speaking narration in a first person novel are all the thoughts of the protagonist. You could also call these inner thoughts. Because these are both inner thoughts it’s sometimes thought to be inconsistent to narrate what are essentially the protagonists thoughts in the past then suddenly switch to the present for inner dialogue. There are people that do it, but the advice often given to writers is “don’t” xD. For example:

For first-person POV, there are not often instances when you’d even need to use a thought tag to identify a character’s thoughts, much less use italics for those thoughts. Still, most often the thoughts of a first-person narrator will blend seamlessly into the surrounding text [...] Note that without the italics, I kept the verbs in the past tense to match the rest of the narration. This is a deliberate choice. It maintains consistency for the reader, keeps her from wondering why the writer changed from past to present tense. 

I just grabbed this piece from the internet from freelance editor Beth Hill, but it tends to match up. Unlike 3rd person, the writer doesn't need to clearly identify what are and are not the protagonists inner dialogues/inner monologues/inner thoughts because the reader will know that they are all the protagonist thoughts. Because of this, all those methods of distinguishing them (italics, tags, and change of tense) are really not needed :) 

must be good to be a native speaker huuh  you don't think about the rules unlike us everything is about rules if there's only one thing that are wrong or vague it makes us think 'what whatttt's this why's this like thiiiiis ' :notlikemiya: , Thanks for taking the time to answer me  :D.

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2 minutes ago, thehunterhunted said:

must be good to be a native speaker huuh  you don't think about the rules unlike us everything is about rules if there's only one thing that are wrong or vague it makes us think 'what whatttt's this why's this like thiiiiis ' :notlikemiya: , Thanks for taking the time to answer me  :D.

You're welcome :) 

Native speakers may or may not know. I've been concentrating on writing for about 10 years now so I've picked up a couple of things :P It's pretty much involved me down at the library reading through tons of books going "how do they do that! Why can't I make words dance like that! What secret potion are they drinking and how many animals did they sacrifice to before they got this good!!!!!" That was in the past though. Can't do that anymore ... I got kicked out when I tried to sacrifice the local librarian to an obscure Pagan God xD

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Just now, Darklord Rooke said:

You're welcome :) 

Native speakers may or may not know. I've been concentrating on writing for about 10 years now so I've picked up a couple of things :P It's pretty much involved me down at the library reading through tons of books going "how do they do that! Why can't I make words dance like that! What secret potion are they drinking and how many animals did they sacrifice to before they got this good!!!!!" That was in the past though. Can't do that anymore ... I got kicked out when I tried to sacrifice the local librarian to an obscure Pagan God xD

:gasp: 

Spoiler

:wahaha:

 

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One thing you see in VNs from time to time is narration being written in a neutral voice in past tense, and inner thoughts written in character voice in present tense. I don't really like that too much unless the two are clearly denoted in some manner. One common VN technique for that is placing the inner voice in parentheses. A translated VN I know that does this is Duel Savior. 

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21 minutes ago, Decay said:

One common VN technique for that is placing the inner voice in parentheses. A translated VN I know that does this is Duel Savior. 

IIRC (and I'm sick so my memory is worse than usual) Nocturne Illusion did that. I'm removing the parentheses in my edit. I honestly just don't see the point of them xD

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Just now, Darklord Rooke said:

IIRC (and I'm sick so my memory is worse than usual) Nocturne Illusion did that. I'm removing the parentheses in my edit. I honestly just don't see the point of them xD

The point is to make it less confusing and inconsistent. It reads poorly when things like honorific usage and verb tense changes from line to line with no real explanation. You just have to infer from those things which is narration, which is inner thought. Parentheses makes this clear so you spend less time worrying about that crap and more time just reading.

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2 minutes ago, Decay said:

The point is to make it less confusing and inconsistent. It reads poorly when things like honorific usage and verb tense changes from line to line with no real explanation. You just have to infer from those things which is narration, which is inner thought. Parentheses makes this clear so you spend less time worrying about that crap and more time just reading.

That's right, that should be a rule that if one violated it  one's name should be written in the death note. 

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