Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Creation >

Writing techniques - the First and Third person.

16:02 / 23.03.03

I'd like to ask for your opinions on the subject of writing in the first person. I know that some books work very well using this character viewpoint, and it's a style I personally like, but I wonder if this is a generally held view? I am very unsure of which direction to take, as my automatic writing style is to use the first person, but I've read that the third person is usually considered to give more of a 'storytelling' feel.

17:27 / 23.03.03

One drawback that springs to mind: first person limits your viewpoint. Certain crucial events may have to take place "off-camera," as it were. There are ways around this (main charater hears about events from somebody else, or imagines what it might have been like, et cetera), but they require a modicum of skill to pull off.

The converse also holds true: it can be awkward if your narrator has vital information that you do not yet wish the reader to know... unless, of course, your narrator is not the main character, e.g. the Sherlock Holmes stories are narrated by Watson, so Holmes can know the solution to the mystery for some time before he reveals it.

17:36 / 23.03.03

i have written using the first person perspective of more than one character.

you have to make it plain who is talking; i used a similar technique to the gospels, telling the same story from four viewpoints, but not only the same events take place in each.

14:38 / 24.03.03

I am writing a story at the moment and I chose the first person for it. I chose this purposely because I wanted to create intimacy, as if when you are reading the book it's like listening to an actual person telling you are story, not just picking up an inaminate book and hearing an objective story about someone. However I'm just beginning out as a writer and I think my choice of the first person is causing me more problems than I thought because I keep getting confused and thinking that the character is actually me when she's supposed to be fictional! So perhaps the third person does have a more story telling feel. I wrote a twenty thousandish word story about a year ago which was done in the third person and I actually found then that I had real fictional characters.
I want to try and stick with the first person perspective but I'm wondering whether I should avoid it until I'm a better writer and can differentiate between myself and my fictional characters a bit better!

16:59 / 24.03.03

I know what you mean, if your character is written in the first person you can tend to drift off into your own actually thoughts, rather than those of the character. But then they say most first novels are 80% autobiographical, so using your own thoughts might be considered acceptable in that instance! I agree that the first person is more intimate, I feel I can never truly get inside a character's head when a book has a narrator, however well told the story. Really I need to feel that I *am* the character when I read, and unless the writer is exceedingly talented it doesn't usually happen to me in the third person. reading 'It made so-and-so cry' doesn't give you the same emotion as 'It made me cry'.

13:03 / 25.03.03

I don't think it's a question of whether something is autobiographical or not but whether a character is speaking to you. For me when I'm writing something good it's like there's a different person in my head relaying the story. It could be the story of my life, 100% autobiographical but if it felt like it was coming from some unconscious force that wasn't the same as me then it'd be a proper story.

14:34 / 25.03.03

first person is also great if you want to evoke a feeling of claustraphobia - especially if your narator is unreliable - see the works of H.P. Lovecraft...

Disco is My Class War

02:34 / 26.03.03

I agree with Fear -- it's pretty hard to give a bird's eye view from first person and you have to be subtle and sophisticated to get the same information across. But it's not impossible. And character narration can have a beautiful atmosphere. But I don't agree that first person means the reader will empathise more with your character. It depends on the writing: first person narration can be incredibly boring and wooden. If you don't write her/him well.

I'm trying to figure out just this question myself right now. I have a first chapter, written in the first person, in akind of hard-boilednoir style. (Think Jim Thompson but not as good.) And that voice works, and is strong. On the other hand, there are at least two other characters in this story who will need a good amount of third person focus. I've been thinking of maybe doing a de Lillo style segmnetation between stream-of-consciousness first person (eg some Lee bits in Libra) and third person, which will be most of it.

Do people think it's okay to switch between third and first (and even second person, god forbid!) in areadable novel? On the other hand, this is trashy experimental scifi porn born of Bill Burroughs and there's no guarantee I want it to be 'readable'...

12:50 / 26.03.03

Yeah, I think it'd be fine. I can't think of a book offhand that does it but a I think a good writer can get away with anything ! Did you consider having the other characters having first person bits as well, or did you want to stick with third person for them?