I've heard this phrase used around these forums. Could someone explain what it is and give me/point-me-in-the-direction-of an example of it working?

I had to look it up, and the oft quoted example is the character Nick Carroway from the Great Gatsby, by Scott Fitzgerald:

In today society, many people like to follow the current. They want to catch the wave. Which mean, it does not matter if things were good or bad, right or wrong, they just follow and do them without any thinking. Therefore, there are not too many people would like to be a normal, thoughtful nor neutral person. However, in the novel, The Great Gatsby, by Scott Fitzgerald, one of the character name is Nick Carroway, he was the good and neutral narrator. It was because, in the novel, he analyzed all of the things with regard to accuracy of observation.

I'm probably wrong, but maybe secondary characters - sidekicks such as Dr Watson, or Hastings - could be called neutral narrators: used by the author to mull over the facts with equal emphasis, thereby muddling together the clues and the red herrings. Only the main character has the talents to sort the wheat from the chaff - or in Gatsby's case blindly following his destiny to destruction, ignoring the good advice from his friends.

Nick in Gatsby is an unreliable narrator. How neutral does that make him? His main blind spot is himself - e.g. his drinking to hallucinatory levels. I'd say also that the relationship between author and narrator in Gatsby is a tricky one to tease out.

Jim

I think I've used it meaning a narrator who isn't a character in the novel - don't know if that's the correct use. It would always be third person, but not in the kind of third-person narrative which is nonetheless written in a character's voice.

What I mean is the implied person who's saying,

'He got off the bus and thought she looked specially beautiful today. She kissed him as he reached the pavement and wondered why he hadn't shaved.' etc. etc.

It could shade into what I'd (again, probably wrongly) call an 'opinionated narrator' who does the above - having access to everyone's thoughts and PoV - but is also prone to saying directly to the reader, 'The thing about buses is that they always come in threes, and the Number 27 Nick was waiting for was no exception,'.

And again, as in Jane Austen, it can slide in and out of the kind of third-person narrative which is in the PoV and voice of a character.

Nick Carraway's an interesting case because he appears to be neutral - the classic outsider - and the ways in which he isn't neutral show up very subtly. I don't think you can have a truly neutral narrator in a first-person narrative. Could you make a case for the narrators in Wuthering Heights? Or, again, are they actually not neutral.

Emma

I would of thought that would be an omiscient narrator, Emma, whereas a neutral narrator would be a character acting in the role of an observer. Possibly that description fits Charles Ryder in Bridehead Revisited.

I’m trying to relate it to a sense of place (an Achilles heel for me).

Chapter one: POV MC, John walks down the street for the umpteenth time. In voice, unless he’s got an edge, “There’s the bastard bank that wouldn’t give me a mortgage”, why on earth would he, as narrator, bother to describe his surroundings.

I think this is more difficult in closed third person than first. But I’ve been having a read of Rankin today and this is sort of what I’d like to say:

http://www.ianrankin.net/pages/books/index.asp?PageID=60

(but there’s no actual need for MC Rebus to talk about Knoxland in the context of his character - as I say I've been weened on too much TV!).

Sorry if I’m boggarted on fundementals!

Naomi My example would be ominiscient, yes, but also neutral in the sense that you can believe what s/he says, and they have no particular bias towards one character than another. You can have omniscient narrators who are far from neutral.

I would say that the difference between neutral/unreliable/opinionated is about attitudes, whereas with first-person/third-person-closed/third-person-omniscient the difference is about PoV (in the technical sense). I love 'third-person-closed' as a term, BTW, Murphy.

Voice, of course, in many of those cases, can slide about.

Emma

In your Harry Singh piece you already have an omniscient narrator describing the location, Murphy. These descriptions could just as easily be written as Harry's thoughts. People do automatically register a place as they walk past it; all you, as the writer, are doing is giving those passing thoughts a voice, and filtering them out so the reader only reads a selection of the more interesting ones, thereby setting the scene.

Is an omniscient narrator someone who sees (maybe senses) something your viewpoint character can't? And comments on it.

Yes, Naomi, I could put location more in Harry's voice. I'm still suffering a hangover from book one, where I decided he'd be a fairly shallow, self-centred, thickie!

I read Pawson’s The Judas Sheep (good book) recently. His detective’s (the MC) hobby is art, so you get things like: “The sky was a duck-egg green”. I’m afraid Harry’s hobby is eating kebabs so: “The sky was a lamb-fat grey”? That’s why I was taking an interest in what the “Neutral Narrator” could do for me.

In Rankin’s example there’s a wonderfully detailed description of the Knoxland estate. If anyone reads it what sort of narrator would you call that?

An omniscient narrator is a narrator who has access to as many characters' actions and thoughts and PoV as they like. It therefore can't be a character. Most 19th century fiction is like this (the exception I can think of is Jane Eyre) and I suspect this 'rule' I hear peddled about not changing PoV - or only with a change of chapter, or other such nonsense - would seem like complete gibberish to most writers before - I dunno - 1930?

Emma