Quick question regarding IA prose.

[Captain Badger]

Hey all, been a follower of this forum for a long time and plan to write up my own IA for my own chapter the "Knights Tigris".

I have read Octavlungs guide which proved extremely informative and amusing but I found a hitch in my original plans.

The guide suggests using a third person narrative from the perspective of an Imperial historian or suchlike. What I wanted to do was to give a first person account along the same lines from the narrators own experiences within the time he spent with the chapter (an inquisitor or some other high ranking official). If anyone remembers the old Wolves 'dex, something like that, with pieces of personal reflection scatttered throughout giving some greater depth and character to the subject.

The vast majority of the IA would be written as per a professional report but even my own lab reports for uni contain some level of personal evaluation of the findings.

I just wanted to ask before I wrote something rather long only to discover I needed to edit it massively .

Thanks in advance.

[Messor]

Third person is popular, but by no means the only way. First person will have different challenges, but is certainly acceptable.

[Octavulg]

Allow me to explain myself a bit. There are two ways people use the term IA, young grasshopper.

One group of people use it to describe any article about a chapter.

Another group of people use it to describe articles that are like the the series of articles GW produced back in the 90s that all follow a more-or-less consistent format when they were about particular chapters.

I'm in the latter group. "Article about chapter" is not synonymous with IA for me. And all those GW articles are written in the third person.

Does it have to be third person to be an IA? That's a philosophical question which I don't want to get into (and which likely depends on how you use the first person - if all the reflections are in sidebars, I'd say it's definitely within the bounds of the style). Does it have to be third person to be a good article about a DIY chapter that uses the organization of an IA? Definitely not.

This is a long way of saying "do it, I want to see how it turns out".

Oh, and spell my damn name right.

[Captain Badger]

Thaks for the quick replies.

I'll give it a shot and see how it turns out just for you Octavulg

I should be a ble to tap out a decent first draft in a couple of days, other commitments and all that. Looking forward to see what you think of it.

[BrotherCaptainArkhan]

Just to throw in my vintage £0.02, as I'm in the process of writing (and rewriting, and rerewriting) my own Index Astartes: there may be a way to incorporate both ideas by having a Brother-Librarian narrating the Chapter's history in the same layout and order as an Index Astartes. Imagine a cross between one of the old captain's logs from Star Trek and a monastic chronicler. The purpose of an Index Astartes is to be a more or less comprehensive tome of all knowledge about the Chapter at present; you might frame your IA as an Epistolary or Codicier recounting the Chapter's history, in the prescribed IA format, to a young Lexicanium, who will one day do the same for future generations. Can't see anything wrong with that approach.

Of course, I rarely come up with my best ideas at half 11 at night so feel free to disregard, this was literally the first thing that popped out of my head when I read your post.

 

[Captain Badger]

Thats quite a good idea and one to bear in mind. I have already begun the first draft so it won't be implemented yet but I could include some "refence articles" created by the chapters librarium? Might be a good way to convey the narrators want to divulge the chapters own perspective in thier own words according to his research.

 

Thanks for the input.

[ChaplainMathreyn]

Who IS in charge of the Chapter's history? Either the Librarium or the Reclusiam, I'd imagine... As above, it'd becool to have a Librarian or a Chaplain writing it.

... Oh, and isn't the Octavlung one of the implants... The most important implant, I'd imagine...

[Valkyrion]

Octavlung sounds like a Jethro Tull record...

 

IMO, IA's should be third person - it's tradition and there hasn't been a single instance of an official first person IA, so if it's in first person then it's not an IA.

 

IMO, of course. 

[Captain Badger]

I could always change it of course, but atm it is being written from an outsiders perspective with access to the Library records. When a first draft is posted you can feel free to rip it to shreds of course .

If that perspective doesn't work I could always rewrite it to be an article written by the Chief Librarain. The idea is that the chapter has recently undergone some extreme hardship as well as having lost face in the eyes of its peers. I want to convey this with first hand emotions as opposed to the rather dry third person perspective.

I always read Octavulg's name as Octavlung lol. It sounded like something I'd heard.