The Narrator

I'm here! Sorry for being so late! I almost forgot that I had to be here. I do apologize. This must all be very confusing to you. I could say that you had some bad luck. You could have had any narrator and instead with me. I kind of feel sorry for you but it's not my fault I was appointed as the narrator.

I should also be honest here: I forgot everything. I can't remember the characters, the setting or even the basics of what happens in this story. I don't know anything. I don't even know why I'm a narrator. Or maybe I do know that. I can still hear my mother: 'You should become a narrator, sweetie! It's a good job that pays well too!' Mother forgot to mention that it's hard work as well. She never narrated a story in her life so she wouldn't know.

As a narrator it's my job to know all of the characters in the story as well as the setting and the basic premise. When I have to narrate a short story this isn't necessarily a problem. A short story is never more than two days of work since there aren't that many characters and there isn't that much plot. That was also the summary of my first few months as a narrator. I still enjoyed that. I got a new story every other day and highly enjoyed the wide variety of stories I got to tell. After six months I had to narrate a novella. It was more work than a short story but still quite alright. But after that I had to start doing novels and even series of novels which are considerably more work. You don't even want to know how much time just preparing to narrate a series of novels takes.

Narrating is more than simply learning a story in a similar way that you do when you read. We have to watch the story and describe what happens. That might sound easy but there are a lot of things we have to take into account while narrating. I'll also admit that stories surprise me from time to time because of certain turns of event. I'm merely the narrator: I don't make the stories!

Narrating is deemed complicated enough that you have to get a degree for it. You read that right. I went and studied for this. There's one of two things you must be thinking right now. You're either thinking that this makes it even more laughable that I'm so terrible at my job. Or you could be wondering what I had to learn to become a narrator.

First of all, there are things as simple as descriptions. You have to know what matters and what doesn't when you're describing things. It all has to matter. Readers don't often appreciate a two page detailed description of a character in which you learn of every freckle on their body. There are also more complex matters we deal with such as foreshadowing and how present we should be in the story. There are stories in which we actually have to chip in and even give an opinion. After all, a big part of every story is the way it is told.

Within all these components of our curriculum, there's often one in particular that people excel at. I notice that enough when I simply look around the office at my fellow narrators. On my floor sits everyone who graduated along with me. That's how things go here: you spend five years as a novice. After that, you get appointed to a certain genre which you'll then narrate for the rest of your career. Sometimes it's clear early on what genre they'll put you in; sometimes it's a big surprise.

Every year we switch offices in the novice building since we also get a new boss every year. That's fairly logical since you have to try a lot of things which differ depending on what year you're in. As I told you before: I only narrated short stories in the first six months I worked as a narrator. Everyone did and the woman who is the boss of the first year novices primarily works on helping us build up in the length of the stories we're working on. I recently began my fifth year so after this I'll be given my genre. I have no idea where they'll put me.

Some people really do excel at certain parts. Across from me sits Adelina who manages the most beautiful descriptions you could imagine. She really has a knack for the more poetical stories and it's clear that that's the genre she'll land in. Lately she hasn't been getting much else to work on either. Why would they give her other things though? Sure, Adelina has had to work on a lot of different stories like everyone else. But she has clearly proven herself to excel in this particular field so there's no point in giving her other stories. We still have to put out a good final product.