Comments on: First Person

By: Carol Anne

Carol Anne — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 10:43:19 +0000

When a first-person story resorts to monologue to reveal backstory, it’s at least as annoying as when two characters in a third-person narrative start telling each other what they both already know to give the reader the backstory. Both really annoy me and indicate an author too lazy to find a more natural way for the reader to learn what’s been going on. Really, what both situations involve is fleeting references to thoughts that come to the surface that relate to the past, not a telling of the complete past.

I find third person is harder to write than first person, but I prefer third person because it feels more, um, I’m not sure why, but more right. I’m still inside my main character’s head. Since I write mysteries, that’s a critical point. It is cheating to keep from the reader information that my main character has, and it is cheating to give the reader information that my main character doesn’t have. The reader should know what my main character knows, at the same time she knows it.

What is interesting is that people who have read my work can’t later remember whether it’s in first or third person — they just remember being inside my main character’s head. I generally take that as a compliment.

I don’t currently have time to take you up on the diagramming challenge, but if I have time this weekend, maybe I’ll get it done.

By: Jerry

Jerry — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 21:48:44 +0000

There are a lot of good first-person stories, and there are even more good third-person works. As I dig into this I’m finding that first person is generally less intimate, rather than more. It’s counterintuitive, but when I convert a story to third person I suddenly discover all kinds of devices I can use to make that character more real. More intimate. Your mileage may vary.

First person enables monologues, and god knows I enjoy writing a good monologue, but so often monologues are used for backstory (I wrote one of those tonight!), and even if the backstory is necessary there’s no compelling reason it has to be a monologue.

Your assignment for tonight, dear readers, is to diagram that last sentence.

I’m not saying first person is bad, but I am saying I understand why some editors consider first-person perspective as a strike against a manuscript before they even start reading.

By: Aser

Aser — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 16:57:14 +0000

Hmm. I’m thinking of Kenneth Roberts, and Mika Waltari, and Nancy Mitford … all first-personists and none of them at all lazy…oh, and Robert Graves, too. Their books are some of my favorites, because they allow me to sink into the narrator’s character and see the world through his or her eyes. Probably Waltari’s “The Egyptian” has been the greatest influence on my own writing, and why I prefer writing in first person as well.

By: Jerry

Jerry — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 11:26:25 +0000

Three of my favorites listed there, all in first person. Kinda undermines my argument. You can add a hard-boiled detective or three as well, but you already know who those guys are. You read the name of the author and then when you see “I” you know more about the character than he knows about himself.