: Re: Is it possible to narrate a novel in a faux-historical style without alienating the reader? One thing that often annoys me in historical fiction or fantasy books is the dissonance between the

@Candy753

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Your best bet may be a first person narrator.

If your narrator is a character anyway, then the limited POV shouldn't be an issue.

With 3rd person narration, even if it's from the POV of one specific character, the narrator usually has a voice similar to that of the reader and it can be weird or off-putting to instead give the narrator the voice of the characters. That's not always the case, but you've pointed out cases where it is a problem.

Not all historical novels even have dialogue like the time period. But if yours does, a first person narrator would be expected to share it.

You might also consider the story within a story method.

If the narrator is telling one or more people about the events (which can be from that morning or last week or 20+ years ago), s/he would speak in the style of the times. This won't preclude the narrator being a character in real time. This is the sort of method that can be done poorly and stick out, but can also be done such that the story telling sounds like any other narrative book.

All that being said, be careful if you're recreating what you think is the way of speaking of "Biblical times." Not only was the language different (not just "not-English" but ancient versions of whatever language was used at the time) but we simply don't know the way of speaking. The narration is much later than the action and the style was not folksy or meant to be descriptive of the times.

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