: Re: Can your narrator talk to the reader of the novel? This is an excerpt from a novel I have started writing. Penry laughed. His face changed instantly. His disbelief changed into happiness,

@Mendez196

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You are writing a first-person novel; as a character in the story standing next to Penry and relating what happened at certain times.

So you are speaking directly to the reader at all times. However, to say, "Don't worry; it's not a dream!" seems to jump your timeline forward to the present, and I think that is jarring.

As a reader this line seems confusing and takes me out of the flow of the story.

Here is my second concern: From the story fragment given, I guess I don't understand why the narrator might consider the reader "worried" that this scene is a dream, or why you as the author feel compelled to write it.

I suspect your scene is describing some implausible miracle solution to the plot problems and you are trying to convey something equivalent to "This really really happened, I swear." If that is the case, then the line "Don't worry, it's not a dream," is not likely to repair the reader's broken suspension of disbelief; and may exacerbate it. Plot issues should not be resolved by some obviously enormously lucky break.

If my suspicion is correct, you'd be better off leaving it out, or putting the astonishment where it belongs, on the MC, in the current timeline: "I couldn't believe it, but there it was, the way out."

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