If you’ve ever attended a creative writing course of any kind, whether a short workshop or a degree programme, the chances are you’ve encountered a particular idea about ‘good’ writing. Obsession is probably too strong a description of this idea, but it’s not far off. It’s the idea that good writing must have a narrator with consistent viewpoint, and the viewpoint must be very closely associated with the consciousness of a character in the world of the novel – at least for a sizable section of the story.

Sound like gobbledygook? Let me illustrate this commonly taught notion with examples. In 19th-century novels, it was deemed acceptable for the narrator to float above the world of the novel like a god. So, for example, A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens famously begins with the following sentence.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the season of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

Three things strike one immediately about this.

1) The narrator is located in a specific period, but not the period of the novel’s events.
2) The narrator is very closely aligned with the author. He refers to ‘now’ – presumably the time of the novel’s writing.
3) The narrator adopts a sweeping overview of an entire epoch and an air of magisterial authority.

This kind of writing was all well and good in the Victorian period, say many creative writing teachers – a strongly hierarchical world in which people were willing to accept all sorts of authority figures – but not today.

Now my second example. It’s the first sentence of Kazuo Ishiguro’s 1989 novel The Remains of the Day.

It seems increasingly likely that I really will undertake the expedition that has been preoccupying my imagination now for some days.

Again, three things stand out.
1) The narrator is a character in the novel talking about events that may form part of the story to follow.
2) The narrator is not authoritative. He is speculating that something will probably happen.
3) We are immediately immersed in the character’s consciousness through his distinctive vocabulary and phrasing. It comes across as long-winded and a little pompous.

This, we are told, is the modern conception of ‘good’ writing – writing that is suitable for a period in human history when authorities of all kinds have been thoroughly debunked.

This kind of thinking is so general that you can scarcely find a voice to question it among creative writing teachers – especially in universities. However, outside of the lecture room, authors of popular fiction have been busily getting on with narrating stories in a variety of different styles, selecting the tool that’s most suitable to their particular need.

A third example will illustrate my point – this time it’s the first sentence of It by Stephen King.

The terror, which would not end for another twenty-eight years – if it ever did end – began, so far as I know and can tell, with a boat made from a sheet of newspaper floating down a gutter swollen with rain.

Here are my three observations about this third example of an opening sentence.
1) As with Charles Dickens’ narrator, Stephen King’s narrator is located in a specific period beyond the novel’s events, and looks back in order to give a sweeping overview. But, unlike Dickens’ narrator, he or she seems to have lived through the novel’s events.
2) It’s not clear from this sentence, but the narrator of It, like the narrator in A Tale of Two Cities, is not a character in the story. However, he or she is clearly not the author, given point 1 above.
3) Stephen King’s narrator, like Ishiguro’s, is not authoritative. He or she cannot be sure about the truth of the events.

So, what do we take from all this? Firstly, it’s clear that Stephen King is aware of the off-putting nature of authoritative voices for modern readers. He deliberately avoids giving the impression of an all-knowing, god-like persona. This is achieved by making the narrator part of the fiction, and giving them a specific viewpoint that imposes limits on their knowledge. However, in some ways, King’s narrator is highly reminiscent of the one in A Tale of Two Cities and other 19th-century novels. He or she is not in any way involved in the fictional action, and provides a sweeping overview.

Stephen King is clearly giving his narrator precisely the characteristics that best serve his storytelling. He is not afraid of breaking the taboo against narrators with a panoramic overview of the story. Furthermore, he is not afraid to change the narrator’s characteristics as the novel proceeds, if it serves the storytelling. For example, he allows the viewpoint to drift in and out of the characters’ heads (so to speak) with incredible rapidity.

This pragmatism is really only possible in popular fiction, away from the judgmental eyes of creative writing purists. And Stephen King pushes the range of narrative possibilities wider than practically any other author. That is why I have chosen to make It the next novel I’ll be discussing in the Popular Fiction Masterclass series.