First person dialogue question

I think I understand what you're asking.

I guess I would think about interspersing the character's story with some comments, questions, and throughts from the MC. Such as . . .

"Blah, blah, blah . . . blah, blah, blah. I was more worried about John at the time."
"You mean John didn't know?' I asked.
"No, she never told him. Blah, blah, blah . . . blah, blah, blah. I didn't know what to do."
"I see," I said. I wondered what she wanted from me. I was afraid to ask.
"Blah, blah, blah . . . blah, blah, blah. Do you understand my concerns?"
"Certainly," I told her, although I also thought she was making a mountain out of a molehill. "Go on."
"Blah, blah, blah . . . blah, blah, blah. I'm thinking of going to the police and telling them what I know about Yvonne."
I didn't think she understood Yvonne as well as she thought she did, or how dangerous Yvonne could be. I knew she didn't know anything about Yvonne killing her first husband.
"Blah, blah, blah."

That's a poor example, but I think you will understand what I mean. You'd have to be careful, of course, but I think with just a little effort you could make it so that a reader could easily follow who's speaking even with both characters using personal pronouns.

Read pretty "Scandal in Bohemia" or pretty much any of the other Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. In Bohemia, there's a point where Holmes is telling Watson (the first person POV character) about the events of his evening, as he so frequently has to. Doyle's handling is a good example of how to handle this technique.

As long as your characters have their distinct voices and you're clear about who is speaking, I don't see there's a problem with the "I"s.

Is the problem that in the course of 2nd char's story, 2nd char needs to relate a conversation between 2nd char and 3rd char? For that, you could use indirect dialog (I think I just made up that term; I forget what it should properly be called). See bolded portion below:

alleycat said:

I guess I would think about interspersing the character's story with some comments, questions, and throughts from the MC.

Click to expand...

That is a very good way to handle it.

Here's an excerpt from my own work where a character is telling the MC what happened to him -- if you'll pardon the self promotion:

* * *

“You were going to rip off a practitioner? Bad idea, Rafe. Bad idea.”

“Yeah, no shit. Anyway, I scoped out the place for a while and finally got up the nerve to go in, so I pry open this window and climb through. At first everything was cool, nothing scary, just a bunch of empty rooms and stuff, but then something happened. There was this mirror on one of the walls, and when I walked by, my reflection got stuck. I mean, like I was just frozen there inside the mirror, you dig?”

I did. It was an image capture spell, flashy but not that difficult. A security camera would have done just as good a job.

“It totally freaked me out. I could barely make myself go upstairs.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “There’s something here you’re not telling me. I know you like money, everyone does. But not that much. It’s not like you’re ever even broke. You knew what you were getting into, breaking into a practitioners house. It’s not worth it. Why didn’t you get the hell out of there?”

Rafael nodded. “Yeah, you’re right. The thing is, I also heard that this jewel could do things. That it was special. Like, if I had it I could be just like you guys.”

Now it made more sense. Rafael had always been jealous of those with talent. Talent was the one thing he’d always wanted, more than money, more than sex, and he’d risk his life for a chance to acquire some. He started rubbing his forehead abstractedly.

“So then I go upstairs. There are like, three rooms, and so I go in the first one and it’s mostly empty, and there’s a door leading out on the other side. So I go through that, but then somehow I‘m back downstairs where I started.

“Now I’m really scared. I figure, screw the jewel, it’s time to get out of here, so I climb back out the window, only that doesn’t work either. I’m on the other side of the house, but I’m still inside. Weird, you know? So then I tried the front door. Same thing. I tried a bunch of other stuff. But I couldn’t get out.”

“Well, you got out somehow,” I said. “You’re here.”

“Yeah. Which is just great, you know? Anyway, I ended up sitting on the floor, just waiting. It must have been a couple of hours. Then I heard a key unlocking the front door, and it opened partway, stopped, and then swung all the way open. I don’t think I ever was so scared in my life.”