Imposter’s Daughter: The Omniscience of the Frame

Omniscience 1 : having infinite awareness, understanding, and insight. 2 : possessed of universal or complete knowledge.

What an awesome read! Not only was The Imposter’s Daughter completely different from anything else we’ve had in Craft thus far, but it was also welcomed and left me feeling refreshed. The form itself felt like the comic book of life, meaning—real life issues/non-fiction in comic book form. I loved it!

            The first and most major thing I noticed is that, the omniscience of the Frame allows the author/narrator to shift forward and backwards in time, and without it jolting the reader. For instance, on page 22-23 there’s a quick shift when the family moves settings. On top of 22, they’re pictured in their home in California, and then by the bottom of that same page, they’re already in New York. 

Also, check out the wiggly lines. (See Craft of the frame on 77). The author makes this frame look different in order to take the reader out of the present moment to place us in the past.

            There’s also shock factor within the omniscience of the frame. For instance, on page 37, Sandell describes how her father replaced all of the locks in the house with combination locks. Directly following, we actually get to see how intrusive this can be when he walks in on his naked teenage daughter. With the frame, we don’t have to imagine what happens, how it might look, or feel to the narrator, because we’re thrown right into the action with a visual. We can see how petrified Sandell looks in the picture and know how she must have felt with her hand up in a defensive position. Also, just the headings themselves are helpful in cutting to the chase and getting the narrator’s point across quickly and accurately. Sandell writes, “NO BOUNDARIES” in all caps. She doesn’t have to describe anything. Just slapping a heading and picture beneath it is all it seems to take with this format, and it’s really quite a clever and accurate way of storytelling. All this to say, the frames really allow for the storyline to move at a faster pace then normal. We can see this type of fast action depicted on 47-48 as well, but even more the run of emotions that the narrator encounters in a short space of time. We go from a crying face, to a worried face, then angry, then back to crying in very few frames. In short, we get all of these emotions displayed for us by this omniscience frame, so the narrator doesn’t have to describe much to her reader. If she tells us, “My Dad committed credit card fraud,” we don’t have to ask how she feels. Her feelings are displayed on her face in the picture below.

            The frames allow for more storyline in less words. Take page 53, for example. The reader gets three different events on one page. One, a flash forward in the first frame, which describes a four-year timeframe of self destruction. Two, her travels to Israel where she had her first lesbian fling, and Three. The third frame in which she describes the type of person she was back then, just wanting to be in a relationship for the sex. So with the work of the frame, a story like this is perhaps cut down by pages of description of the setting, time frame, character development, etc. However here, the frame lumps it all into a few snapshots and we get three different storylines at a very fast pace. (Check out page 55. Same technique here as well.)

***Since my blog is getting a little long, and I can’t add every example, I want to post my short comments with page numbers in reference to the frame! It was easy to get a bit carried away with this one. :)

-BH

Imposter Notes:
41, 26 27, 22-23, 27, 45,-4647, 48 top rt, 49,53, 55
The windows allow for quick shifts in the storyline. 
Also, a transition forward, and backward in time is necessary . 77 in wiggly lines
*if it's in the past, wiggly lines are there 
57-59
Headings 61
Cinematic windows 
75. He was a habitual liar! Lol
Lmao! Bottom 80
81 the feeling of separation. Feeling smaller, detachment 
92 LOL
101 A little stereotypical. Hispanic?? 😂
102 lol
108 lol
The picture boxes allow the author to say things, without writing them. 
I.e.: We had sex. Just a pic of two people naked. 110.
Ambien? 111
118-119 Favorite! Meeee all the way.

120 My boo
122-123 like a guess who game
131 her intense feelings
148 A picture of frustration, opposed to saying it. 
137 the looks way 
Later that night.... 141 back to 77
Got a bit confused on pg.143. The convo switches from her and the man, to the man and her father.
There are headings in the box sometimes, where the narrator comes in. Then it switches back to the protagonist/main character. 
167 flash back box BIG! Zoom in affect 
169 woman in same color, but younger. Make it simpler for reader to identify the character  
And the reason behind the name change 
228-9 Bald head zoom out. Time reflection