When students are introduced to narrative types in school, teachers usually start with explaining the difference between first and third-person perspective, or past and present tense.
Few understand second-person perspective, and nobody knows what a peripheral narrator is! So let’s take a step beyond the basics and get acquainted with the elusive:
What is a Peripheral Narrator?
A peripheral narrator is a type of first-person perspective in which the narrator is a bystander to the central story. They can engage in the action or events of the story, but they are not the main focus—they are not the actual main character.
A peripheral narrator is a character who passes the story on to you, the reader, as having seen it from the position of a witness.
A peripheral narrator in a book will have a more pointed, in-depth construction of events, but if you’re ever unsure whether a book is being told by one, ask yourself this: does it feel as though a friend is telling you about something they saw happen?
Identify that the recounting is not something that happened to them, so much as something that happened around them.
Peripheral narrators are uncommon, but not because they are bad or harder to write. They are a great way to deliver a story without taking the position of an omniscient god narrator.
If you prefer to write in first-person perspective, a peripheral narrator will allow you to do that in spite of any particularly difficult main characters with whom you can not properly get into their headspace—you’re just a witness too, after all.
What’s an example of a Peripheral Narrator?
The most famous example of a peripheral narrator is Nick Carraway from The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Nick is a neighbor to Jay Gatsby, the actual focus of the story—Nick’s obsession, some might say.
Nick recounts the drama between Gatsby, and his former lover Daisy, who ended up marrying Nick’s cousin, Tom, after the war ended instead. Gatsby gets killed in the end, leaving Nick as his only friend, and person left to tell his story.
Here’s the essence of an introduction by a peripheral narrator:
"I know a person. This is who they are. Something happened involving them. Everyone thinks events transpired like this, but I know the real story… etc."
Hopefully you discovered something new about peripheral narrators and give writing one a try someday! Another great literary starting point to consider is In Medias Res, which you can learn all about in this article here.