Making 1st Person POV realistic relative to the narrator

BuffStuff · Mar 7, 2006

Reading a few posts here a few minutes ago, got me thinking about a question I've always wanted to ask.. yet had never seen covered in depth in any books on POV...

One thing that I have always found tough about doing 1st person narration well is in making the descriptions believable relative to the narrator in question. For instance, a very well-read narrator with a college education is going to have much different vocabulary, and a higher level of perception etc, and be much more fun to write than one of lower intelligence (generally speaking, of course). But, in order to make the scene in question interesting to the reading audience, we need to use language in a very...precise way. But what if our 1st person narrator either isn't very bright, or isn't perceptive, or otherwise isn't in an appropriate mental-state at the time of the action to be meticulous with the details?

"I stabbed her in the neck and then her body hit the floor" is both a boring *** sentence and a lame description of a murder... of course but there is a problem in choosing a very vivid description, sometimes. And that is in making it believable relative to the narrator. A vivid, flowing description of an action (and the accompanying perceptions described by the narrator) can sound perfectly believable if Our Man is a college professor.. but what if he is a (stereotypical) example of a truck driver or garbage man? What sounds believable and exciting coming from the mouth of the Professor would sound completely out of character and hopelessly overwrought if coming from the mouth of Our Man the stereotypical truck driver.

How do we reconcile this? It seems we are caught between:

A: If I want to make this man's perceptions realistic relative to his intelligence, lot in life, and mental state during the time he commited the action then I'm going to have to use everyday language and everyday verbs... (and risk making even a catastrophic event sound boring to the reader)

or

B: Suddenly give him vastly increased perceptions, attention to detail and ability with the english language (he is narrating after all) to make this scene read with the intensity that it deserves (but risk it "sounding" unbelievable because Our Man truck driver would never use verbs or language in such an articulate way)

And for example B, I don't mean suddenly giving him an enormous vocabulary, I just mean using language much more precisely.

Depending on a character's intelligence, powers of perception or mental state during an action; the most they might BELIEVABLY remember about an event is... "I stabbed her, and her body fell" But if we described a scene like that.. even though it'd be more authentic to real life (for certain characters), any one of us'd probably stop reading right there.

I've seen the inarticulate/unintelligent 1st person narrator pulled off quite well by a few but this was confined to the short story.

Any thoughts? I am not writing a 1st person narration story, right now, I just always thought that the ? was an important one, and one that wasn't given enough attention. I hope I explained myself enough. Any questions about my points, just ask.

-Jeremy

Prosthetic Foreheads · Mar 7, 2006

BuffStuff said:
... but what if he is a (stereotypical) example of a truck driver or garbage man? What sounds believable and exciting coming from the mouth of the Professor would sound completely out of character and hopelessly overwrought if coming from the mouth of Our Man the stereotypical truck driver.

How do we reconcile this? It seems we are caught between:

A: If I want to make this man's perceptions realistic relative to his intelligence, lot in life, and mental state during the time he commited the action then I'm going to have to use everyday language and everyday verbs... (and risk making even a catastrophic event sound boring to the reader)

or

B: Suddenly give him vastly increased perceptions, attention to detail and ability with the english language (he is narrating after all) to make this scene read with the intensity that it deserves (but risk it "sounding" unbelievable because Our Man truck driver would never use verbs or language in such an articulate way)

And for example B, I don't mean suddenly giving him an enormous vocabulary, I just mean using language much more precisely.

Depending on a character's intelligence, powers of perception or mental state during an action; the most they might BELIEVABLY remember about an event is... "I stabbed her, and her body fell" But if we described a scene like that.. even though it'd be more authentic to real life (for certain characters), any one of us'd probably stop reading right there.

If you wanted to make the narrator/MC a truck driver or garbage man, it seems to me that he would be a much more interesting and complex character if you created him as intelligent and articulate and showed why he ended up in that profession. I don't know about garbage collectors, but when I used to work in the restaurant business I worked closely with quite a few truckers (I was in charge of the weekly delivery), and I can tell you that there were several who were well above average intelligence and could articulate quite well. Maybe not the percentage of college professors, but it seemed that the ratio was pretty close to the normal population. An intelligent person wtih a blue collar job has a level of complexity already built in.

veinglory · Mar 7, 2006

The language of every person is evocative when put in the right context. Vocabulary and excerpts of poetry are nice but an illiterate Welch crofter can have a turn of phrase that would stun any man into silence. I think a character of any type can be made expressive using their own words no matter how many or few they are or the number of syllables involved.

BuffStuff · Mar 7, 2006

Is it something of an inherent weakness in 1st person where it's hard to make the unintelligent narrator believable, while still being exciting? The reason, I ask is because I've seen it done so very little. I've read a fair number of 3rd person and omnicient stories where the protagonist was exceptionally naive, or otherwise slow-witted but the number of 1st Person stories I'd ever read with a protagonist under the same circumstances, have been far, far fewer in number. There are far more options and greater complexity available with the bright, articulate 1st person narrator, of course and that's probably a main reason why having a 1st person work of any substantial length with a psychotic/mentally disadvantaged Protagonist can be difficult to pull off believably while still being interesting.

And true, job choices don't have nearly as much to do with the intelligence level of the employee as much as their financial circumstances. Some of the brightest people I know have worked either blue collar or 'dead end' jobs for decades.

Veinglory,

You are most definitely correct. Context becomes all the more important when doing a 1st Person scene with a narrator who is otherwise coming from a disadvantaged position.

veinglory · Mar 7, 2006

I think the best master class in POV from varying intellect is 'Flowers for Algernon'. This is a great book in which a developmentally delayed person undergoes treatment and becomes a genius level IQ. Both aspects of the same character are engaging.

Mistook · Mar 7, 2006

Read Micky Spillaine sometime, or any war novel, or western, if you want examples of how less than cultured characters still manage to speak in very compelling ways... and no, I'm not talking about cursing and swearing.

Slang, etc, takes over where education leaves off. Some of the most entertaining storytellers I've ever heard were high school drop outs. Any character, with any level of IQ or education can be given an intriguing voice that will hold the reader for the whole novel.

And in 1st Person... that's really the whole point.

reph · Mar 7, 2006

"Born of Man and Woman," by Richard Matheson, is a classic short – very short – story, first person, POV of a child with severely limited experience. Not a novel, but it shows what can be done.

BuffStuff · Mar 7, 2006

Thanks everyone, I'll be sure to read your suggestions. Flowers For Algernon is one of my friend's favorite books in fact.

Jamesaritchie · Mar 8, 2006

First person

I don't think it's at all difficult to make less than intelligent narrators interesting in first person. I think, in fact, such characters work far better in first person because everything, narration, description, and dialogue, are all written from the same, consistent viewpoint. It's only when you cross the line and make them unrealistic that problems arise.

And who said a garbageman isn’t as intelligent as anyone else? Never confuse lack of education with lack of intelligence.

And everyday language and everyday verbs usually make writing far better, not worse. Fancy language and fancy verbs are far more likely to bore a reader than everyday language. Articulate isn't exciting. Good use of plain, everyday language is exciting. As Mark Twain said, "I never write metropolis when city will do."

I think you're vastly underrating the intelligence of the average person. Or even of the less than average person. And you're certainly underestimating how well the speech of the average, or less than average, person can work in fiction. It's usually considerably more colorful than anything a professor would have to say. Really, how many readers out there can relate to a college professor?

I think you're also confusing a college education with intelligence and perception, and a lack of education as lack of intelligence and perception. Half my college professors could go take a leak without an instruction manual, and many of the dimmest people I've ever met have college degrees. Conversely, many of the most intelligent people I've ever met were high school dropouts. High school dropouts, in fact, average higher on the IQ scale than high school graduates. But guess which group receives more college degrees?

And who said a college professor was one bit more perceptive than the average person on the street? Nothing I've ever seen indicates this is so.

Stereotypes seldom play well because they're usually false. In all likelihood, the average garbage man probably reads much more popular fiction, and probably watches far more popular TV, than the average college professor, which means he's going to relate better to average people, and will probably speak in a way the average person can relate to. And he may know ten times as much about life as the college professor, and almost certainly knows far more about violence, crime, mean streets, seedy bars, colloquial language, and a thousand other things that make for a great first person narrator. And many a garbage man wants to be a writer, or is studying to start college, etc,

Dr. Watson made a good first person narrator, and so did Holden Caulfield, but first person fiction is filled to overflowing with inarticulate narrators, and with narrators who are, at best, of average intelligence.

You're right when you say: What sounds believable and exciting coming from the mouth of the Professor would sound completely out of character and hopelessly overwrought if coming from the mouth of Our Man the stereotypical truck driver.

That's why you don't have the same thing come out of both mouths, and why you never make anyone a stereotype. Have you ever read "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn"? Hardly a college professor speaking, but it's the most famous first person novel there is, and is considered by many to be the greatest American novel ever written, and the novel that gave birth to all twentieth century popular fiction.

Read this passage.

Then I set down in a chair by the window and tried to think of something cheerful, but it warn't no use. I felt so lonesome I most wished I was dead. The stars were shining, and the leaves rustled in the woods ever so mournful; and I heard an owl, away off, who−whooing about somebody that was dead, and a whippowill and a dog crying about somebody that was going to die; and the wind was trying to whisper something to me, and I couldn't make out what it was, and so it made the cold shivers run over me. Then away out in the woods I heard that kind of a sound that a ghost makes when it wants to tell about something that's on its mind and can't make itself understood, and so can't rest easy in its grave, and has to go about that way every night grieving. I got so down−hearted and scared I did wish I had some company. Pretty soon a spider went crawling up my shoulder, and I flipped it off and it lit in the candle; and before I could budge it was all shriveled up. I didn't need anybody to tell me that that was an awful bad sign and would fetch me some bad luck, so I was scared and most shook the clothes off of me. I got up and turned around in my tracks three times and crossed my breast every time; and then I tied up a little lock of my hair with a thread to keep witches away. But I hadn't no confidence. You do that when you've lost a horseshoe that you've found, instead of nailing it up over the door, but I hadn't ever heard anybody say it was any way to keep off bad luck when you'd killed a spider.

Clearly, this character is not a college professor, but he's a wonderful character. And all the language is simple, yet the writing is superb.

Great use of everyday language is what makes writing wonderful, not fancy language and fancy verbs. Realistic, everyday people you can put down on paper in a realistic manner is what makes for great characters, not college professors.

One last thing. There's nothing at all wrong with a garbage man who loves to quote Shakespeare, or a janitor who has memorized The Raven. Real people aren't defined by their jobs, or by the degrees they hold. There are many brilliant street cleaners, and many college grads who couldn't find their a## with both hands and a map. . .or who, as the saying goes, couldn't pour water out of a boot if the instructions were written on the sole. And how many college professors have you heard use that wonderful expression?

I would also say that, unless you're going for humor, no character should be a stereotype. Who wants to read about stereotypes? Real people are seldom stereotypes, and characters shouldn't be, either.

Lastly, I'd also say I tend to believe that if you make a protagonist less than intelligent, really and truly stupid, that story probably should be told in first person, else the narration simply is not going to do it justice. Third person narration that's written by someone who sounds like an English professor doesn't match up well with a protagonist with an IQ of 80.

At any arte, fancy langauge and fancy verbs usually make stories worse, not better. Plain language used well makes for great writing.

Mike Coombes · Mar 8, 2006

BuffStuff said:
"I stabbed her in the neck and then her body hit the floor" is both a boring *** sentence and a lame description of a murder...

But is it? Whether garbageman or college professor, it describes what happens adequately. It's what goes around it that matters. If it's a college professor that does the stabbing, and you give us a precise, textbook description of how you think a professor would see it, you've lost the moment.

What James says totally goes - what goes on inside someone's head may be (and often is) totally at odds with their social standing and profession. I had a friend who was homeless, lived on the streets for a year. The thing that kept him sane was reading Oscar Wilde. I know a guy with degrees seeping out of his fundament who proudly boasts that he has never in his life read a novel, and avoids fiction of any kind. The guys who work for me are largely uneducated labourers, but are also witty and insightful.

pianoman5 · Mar 8, 2006

I think James has said it all. The central issue here is the requirement for a compelling narrative/story told by a compelling narrator. That bears no relation to the supposed educational level of the narrator, only to the contents of their apparent soul, and their capacity for telling a story you want to read. There's no need for any ten-dollar words, only for strings of ordinary words and phrasing that have a natural, or at least naturalistic, rhythm and poetry about them.

In many ways, the putative 'lower' socio-economic strata often have more interesting things happen to them, as they are not shielded from life by the artfully guarded circumstances of middle-class life, so there's great richness to be plumbed.

The challenge for an educated middle-class writer pretending to be someone more humble is to retain consistency of voice and language so that the piece as a whole does not come across as a sham.

One caveat I'd suggest though, is that since the majority of the book-buying public does tend to be somewhat middle class, dumbing-down too much can easily alienate your potential audience.

PastMidnight · Mar 8, 2006

I'm trying this out a little bit. My WIP is from the POV of one character, but I do have one chapter so far from the POV of her sister. My narration in these chapters reflects each woman's way of speaking. Both have had the same education, same background, but different ways of talking. My MC is an avid reader and delights in her expanded vocabulary. She tends to speak in longer sentences, use more description and a greater variety of words. Her sister is not at all literary and rarely reads. She tends to be more practical in her actions and this comes across in her speech and narration as well. She uses simpler words, shorter sentences, usually more declarative sentences, very few adjectives. Her descriptions of things around her are always tied up in her actions, as she is a person who doesn't like to sit still.

A good book that I can think of with narration in the POV of a less-educated person is Caleb Carr's The Angel of Darkness, told from the POV of a street kid. This is a contrast from the book that comes before this, The Alienist, which is told from the POV of an older man who is a journalist, so someone who is very literate and well-spoken. The narrations are very different yet both very effective at telling the story.

gp101 · Mar 8, 2006

I write novels in 3rd, though I hop around from POV to POV as scenes change, and in 1st (usually) for short stories. Because I enjoy writing in the crime genre, most of my leads are not the intellectual type, and the narrator's voice is a pretty similar comparison. They have a very basic education, or below-average education, but they're smart at what they do. The vocabulary may be fairly simple, but they can convey the most complex ideas when it comes to something they know well. Real life example: I know a basketballl fanatic, dumb as a stump in almost all aspects of day-to-day life. But be near him watching a basketball game and he'll break down every play in minute detail and explain why something works or doesn't with complex reasoning, even if he opts for the five-cent word over the five-dollar word.

If you write in first person, or if the narrator is reflective of the hero's sub-par intellect, there has to be some aspect they can speak with authority on, otherwise there's no point in creating that character (or story). You can also show a smaller-than-average vocabulary or IQ without being boring or making the reader disinterested because the character is just simply too stupid. I certainly haven't mastered it, but it can be done. Making the character humorous, though not a total buffoon, usually helps.

I wouldn't make the character too foolish, or fail to give him some subject (pertaining to the plot) that he wasn't exceptional at, otherwise it would be nearly impossible to keep the reader identifying with him/her, or at least interested.

Stew21 · Mar 8, 2006

what matters, to me, is that the story is most interesting from that character's perspective. Otherwise, why would you write it from their POV? The character must be able to contribute something in the telling that makes it a good story, better than if someone else told it.
Holden Caulfied was a teenager, who didn't have any profound ways of speaking or "narrating" and yet Catcher In The Rye is one of the best books I have ever read. It wasn't because of fancy descriptions it was because the story from his perspective was the best perspective. I recall the teacher he went to visit and he was sick and smelled like Vick's and his gray haired chest was peaking out of his robe and Holden's reaction to that and description of it was what mattered, not that it was worded in the most eloquent way. As long as it is the best POV to tell the story and there is something about that character's perspective that makes it the story that it is, and it is told unique to what we know of that character, I believe it is fine. Even if it is a little "remedial" in some of the descriptions, there has to be a reason that person is the one telling it or someone else could tell it better and you would need to use a different POV.

Trish (I hope all that ramble made sense!)

Jeneral · Mar 8, 2006

In reading this topic, and the question it asks, my first thought was of Charlaine Harris's heroine, Sookie Stackhouse, in the Southern Vampire series. Those novels are 1st person POV. Sookie is a waitress in Louisiana, and she's told us more than once that while she's not well-educated, she reads a lot, so she's not stupid. She also has a "word of the day" calendar, which she'll credit when she uses more fancy vocabulary words.

First chapter of the newest book is here: http://charlaineharris.com/definitely.html

I never really "got" first person POV till I read this series, and now I love it. Sookie tells her story like she's sitting across from you at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee in her hand. A very conversational style.

Jamesaritchie · Mar 8, 2006

Phrase

Mike Coombes said:
. I know a guy with degrees seeping out of his fundament

I cannot tell you how much I love that phrase!

Jamesaritchie · Mar 8, 2006

pianoman5 said:
One caveat I'd suggest though, is that since the majority of the book-buying public does tend to be somewhat middle class, dumbing-down too much can easily alienate your potential audience.

Maybe, but is the majority of the book buying public really nmiddle class? I know middle class people buy more hardcover fiction, but I think all classes read books.

I'm not sure lower class people like reading about dumb characters any more or any less than the middle class, or that the middle class fail to relate to a character because of his IQ. If anything, I believe the middle and upper classes probably like such characters more than the lower class. There may be less empathy, but there's more sympathy.

In fact, people who could actually relate to a dumbed down character probably don't read books at all.

For that matter, the middle class may be richer than the lower class, but they aren't any more intelligent. Good characters, I think, draw millions of readers, and Mark Twain remains the most popular fiction writer in the world, outpacing even J. K. Rowling.

A character should be what he is, and what the story demands. If the character is good and realistic, and fits the story, you won't lack readers.

MadScientistMatt · Mar 8, 2006

One other thought:

The problem with "I stabbed her in the neck and then her body hit the floor" is not that it's a boring sentance. It's that it is only a small part of how the murder scene should go. What about the tension building as he sneaks up behind her, hopign she won't see him or at least will miss the knife behind his back? What is going through his mind - rage, guilt, hatred, regret, what?

Danger Jane · Mar 8, 2006

If it's first person but past tense, you can be a little more descriptive than you might think...even if at that time in their life the narrator wouldn't have been very descriptive, he can be vivid in retrospect.

Jamesaritchie · Mar 8, 2006

Mdlle. Nancy said:
If it's first person but past tense, you can be a little more descriptive than you might think...even if at that time in their life the narrator wouldn't have been very descriptive, he can be vivid in retrospect.

Only if you open the novel by showing the narrator as many years older than he was when the story took place. Even then, once he goes into the past, he needs to stay there. If he gets more descriptive, if he starts talking like an adult, he needs to come back to the present to do so. The whole point of past tense, which is the vast majority of first person fiction, is to go back, to tell the story from teh viewpoint of a previous time.

Otherwise the character needs to act and talk exactly as he would have at the age he is in the story. A first person narrator who's twelve needs to act and speak and describe as a kid of twelve, even in past tense. If not, the story blows, and the whole point of writing it goes out the window.

Past tense does not mean you can make a POV character of twelve talk, act, or describe anything as an adult would. And why would you want to do so? Kids can be just as descriptive as adults, and more so than many adults.

Cathy C · Mar 9, 2006

Since I write primarily first person, one of the things I've found very important is that you not only tell the reader what the narrator sees and does, but you only tell it AS they see it. This is where you start to get into the interesting bits. Like the example James posted, the character's perspective of the event might not be what another person sees. One of the best examples I've seen came from the movie, My Cousin Vinny. When he was cross-examining an elderly witness near the end of the movie (who had given damning evidence against his client), he realized that her perception of the event was skewed because more time had passed that she realized from Event #1 to Event #2. That little bit of extra time, about eight minutes, was enough to blow away her testimony. So, I try to incorporate that in my narrative. The narrator might see something one way, but later get corrected by a third party in dialogue a chapter later. That then changes the reader's view of everything that occurred. It's an "Ah-ha!" moment that sends the reader scrambling backward to see what else they missed.

Since most people do this same thing in real life (hence the police interviewing multiple people at a crime scene), the intelligence of the character doesn't matter---the PERCEPTION does.

JMHO, of course.

Jamesaritchie · Mar 9, 2006

First person

Cathy C said:
Since I write primarily first person, one of the things I've found very important is that you not only tell the reader what the narrator sees and does, but you only tell it AS they see it. .

ohhh, good point there. That's exactly right.

The percentage of first person I write varies more now than it used to, but it's always somewhere around 70%. When done well, I love writing first person, and love reading first person.

It is tricky for many new writers to do well, however. Especially if they don't read it very often.

oswann · Mar 9, 2006

MadScientistMatt said:
One other thought:

The problem with "I stabbed her in the neck and then her body hit the floor" is not that it's a boring sentance. It's that it is only a small part of how the murder scene should go. What about the tension building as he sneaks up behind her, hopign she won't see him or at least will miss the knife behind his back? What is going through his mind - rage, guilt, hatred, regret, what?

Why does everyone want to stab women in their necks all of a sudden?

Os.

BuffStuff · Mar 9, 2006

Blame it on Haggis! His "I plunged the knife into her neck" thread got me thinking..and seeing as I'm about as original with threads as Shakespeare was with plot-lines (and I love Shakespeare btw) I couldn't get his example out of my head.

This is a great thread, I've learned a lot from everyone. Many people start out writing 1st person as it is easiest to "write" for the neophyte... but it is quite hard to do well, for various reasons. From the writer "sub-consciously" writing from their own perspective instead of the narrator they've chosen, to including an extremely unbalanced ratio between introspection and action that advances the plot. The amount of bad 1st person out there is legion and I want to be sure that if and when I write it, it will come across as authentic to the reader.

One additional question... ok, 3..

1. Is there any way to get around the problem of suspense in 1st person? Or rather.. what techniques do you (the collective you) use to ensure that suspense rises? I ask this because the common technique used for 3rd person of switching to a different POV character after a 'cliffhanger' chapter ending is unavailable (in traditional 1st person, anyway).

2. When I write 1st person (past tense).. I always have a tendency to want to tell the reader too much, giving plotlines away (an integral character dying, etc) rather than let it unfold naturally AS the story happens. In 3rd person, the impulse easier to fight off because the POV character DOESN'T know everything in advance of the story but, in 1st person, the narrator is relating a past event back to the reader so it is hard for me to specifically withhold information in order to make the telling seem authentic. It's one of the writing ticks I have, I guess...it comes from the way we usually tell stories in real life. We say the event that happened and then everything leading up to it. A complete suspense-killer. But in 1st person, in order to maintain suspense, in many cases, we need to keep the reader in the dark until the point where said event actually happens in the story. Anyone else experience this problem?

3. And, is there any way to get around the "1st person narrator can't die" problem? Or is that just an accepted limitation behind 1st Person narration?

Sage · Mar 9, 2006

BuffStuff said:
2. When I write 1st person (past tense).. I always have a tendency to want to tell the reader too much, giving plotlines away (an integral character dying, etc) rather than let it unfold naturally AS the story happens. In 3rd person, the impulse easier to fight off because the POV character DOESN'T know everything in advance of the story but, in 1st person, the narrator is relating a past event back to the reader so it is hard for me to specifically withhold information in order to make the telling seem authentic. It's one of the writing ticks I have, I guess...it comes from the way we usually tell stories in real life. We say the event that happened and then everything leading up to it. A complete suspense-killer. But in 1st person, in order to maintain suspense, in many cases, we need to keep the reader in the dark until the point where said event actually happens in the story. Anyone else experience this problem?

Why wouldn't your first person narrator want to keep the end of the story at the end like the writer does? A writer telling a story in the third person often knows what's going to happen, who's going to die, & so on, but they don't feel the need to tell the audience: Here's the story of how Joe saved the planet & got his girlfriend killed doing it. Why would the first person narrator start: Here's the story of how I saved the planet & got my girlfriend killed doing it. In other words, have your narrator tell the story as a story. They don't want to give away the twists or the ending, so they won't.

BuffStuff said:
3. And, is there any way to get around the "1st person narrator can't die" problem? Or is that just an accepted limitation behind 1st Person narration?

Only if you're dead-set against giving them an afterlife. (or if you can pull off first person present, possibly)

Making 1st Person POV realistic relative to the narrator

No more being nice to Pee D

volitare nequeo

No more being nice to Pee D

volitare nequeo

Neverending WIP

Fig of authority

No more being nice to Pee D

Guru

Means well

Oponionated

Cat wrangler

Empirical Storm Trooper

Ooo! Shiny new cover!

Grumpy

No more being nice to Pee D

Our Lady of Parentheticals