Anyone have advice on rewriting in first-person POV?

I quite like writing in 1st although I do have to pull myself away from writing in my voice rather than the MC's - at least, that's my big fear with 1st.

I can't offer any advice other than get into your character's head as much as you can and write what they say, not what you say.

swvaughn:
I have just realized, eight chapters in, that my WIP would be stronger written in first person (it's tight third right now, but everything's been from the MC's POV).

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Welcome to my world. I made the same realisation on my WIP, but did so after 4 chapters in and ended up re-working 3 of them to put them into the first person.

The best advice I can give you is to sit down and imagine that you're talking to your character in a bar and s/he's telling you this story. Do they use a lot of slang? Are they aggressive? Sarcastic? Defensive? Can they be trusted to be telling you the truth? Are they naive in their assessment of people? Are they trying to persuade you that what they're saying is true or are they just telling you the story to get it off their chest? Most imporantly - who are they talking to on the page and what do they want them to know?

With my WIP, I found that putting it into the first person meant that I got much more personal reactions from her to everything - from personal assessments about the characters she meets, to gut reactions about the places she visits, which made her feel much more real when down on the page. I also found it easier to get in some of the background, e.g. she meets up with a character she's met before but didn't know was there, allowing her to aside about how she knew him.

It did however take a while for me to get her voice firmly set in my head and the way I did it was to just go on long walks and allow her to talk in my head about what I was seeing (and yeah, I know that sounds weird, but it seems to have worked).

Hope that's of some help

MM

I write in first-person. The best advice I can give is to limit your use of "I" and don't rely on too much internal thought. This way the protagonist does not appear self-absorbed. If you'd like, post a paragraph and I (hopefully) can show ya what I mean.

I love writing in 1st person POV and really enjoy the planning process for writing from a new character's perspective, too. There are a couple things I like to do before I start a new 1st person novel or short story:

1.) I write a few journal entries in the voice of the character. This way, I get into the voice, learn the character's verbal tics, and start to see if he or she is either too wordy or not wordy enough. Also, it just gives me an excuse to babble in the character's voice, and hopefully I'll have gotten all that babbling out of my system by the time I start the story.

2.) I write a letter from the POV character to another character. I start to figure out how my character interacts with others.

3.) I try to spend some time in that character's head while I'm going about my daily life. I walk my dog and pretend I'm Character X -- what would he or she look at and think about while walking a dog? How would he or she walk? Would he or she stop to say hello to the neighbors or just walk on by?

4.) Sometimes I'll talk in my character's voice -- out loud, to myself. Honestly, this is part of my morning routine nowadays. I'll be drying my hair in the morning before work and start talking out loud to my reflection in the mirror -- as my character. It's a good way to get my mind started for the day. I'll pretend to be talking to another character, or I'll just do a soliloquy.


It's like method acting, I suppose. I want to be completely empathetic to my character before I start the story. And then, while I'm writing the story, I learn even more things about the character. It's a little bit neurotic, but mostly it's fun.

I know your pain! On the advice of some industry professionals I just did a total rewrite of 90K words into first person.

Actually, there really is a lot you can do with search and replace. her=my or me, [name]= I, etc. That will at least get you started and make it so that when you start reading through it, you're in the right mindset. Once I finished all of the searching and replacing, then I started going through chapter by chapter, and it ended up being a lot easier than I expected. Yes, there's a good amount of actual rewriting, but after the first few chapters it really starts to flow. I was able to do the total rewrite from 3rd to 1st in about a week.

I only write first person books. It's a format I really like.

For me, the trick is to think like the MC but to also realize you are not the MC and that you have control over the MC. When I write I try to think of myself as a director. I put myself in my main character's shoes but realize I have control over where these shoes walk.

Just Do it! We're waitinggggg....tapping foot

swvaughn the only thing about first person is that if your character doesn't see it or know it to be happening, you can't write about it. For instance, you can't say someone was lurking unseen in the bushes because... well... they were unseen in the bushes. Your character didn't see them. Although, on the flip side, you can give your readers a nice scare when the character does realize someone's in the bushes.

The switch from third to first is tough to start but once you get going it's a lot of fun. I'll look for your submission in a few minutes

I've done the third-to-first switch several times... both ways... The one piece of advice I have is that sometimes it's really tempting to just transcribe everything to "I" and "me." However, first-person narrative is just DIFFERENT, and you don't use the same sentence structures. So I have two methods: 1) Read a scene. Then put it aside, take a deep breath, and rewrite in first person from memory alone. After you finish the scene, take a look at your original draft. Anything from the original you really wanted to include? Stick it in. 2) The harder route... transcribe everything to "I" and "me." Then go through paragraph by paragraph and rewrite anything that feels weird.

I wrote my second novel in first person, and so far I like it the best of all. I felt so connected to my main character because I felt so one with her. When I write in third person I find myself more absorbed by the scene as a whole. I'm constantly worrying about all my character at once. I guess that's good, but first person has a intimate feel to it that leave me warm all over.

SWV, I've been heavily considering changing mine to 1st person as well. I'm still not done with my first draft so I won't make the changes yet, but it has crossed my mind that the story would come out stronger from 1st person POV.
I'm not really sure how it will go.
I guess I'll find out. Or we'll find out together!

Watch your tense switches too! It's easy to go between past/present when you're in first person!! Pick one and stick with it!! Good luck!

Advice? Just sit down and do it.

(Our first published short story was written in third and re-written in first. "Bad Blood.")

Not to jijack this thread or anything, but in response to James real quick, I just picked up one of your books this morning, Land of Mist & Snow from the library. I haven't touched it yet, I'm just curious what your affiliation with Doyle is. Husband/wife team or something?

Thanks.

And back on topic, I started writing one book years ago, in first person. Thought it would be hard at first, but I rather liked it. Now if only I can dust off that piece again someday...

Wow I got late to this party...
I too love first person POV and revised an earlier novel (95,000) to reflect this. I think the most important thing is to determine your character's likes/dislikes/personality so you can be consistent and create a real and compelling MC. RE the tense switches - I do switch back and forth between past and present -- whatever serves the story.

I like to get in my character's head as much as possible. That might be by doing a lot of character studies, or by talking out scenes I'm planning while I drive. Those are my favorite ways to get the character.

One thing that can be tough is making sure that character is unique from other characters you've written in first person. Otherwise people will pick up a couple books from the shelf filled with books by you and realize halfway through the second that you've written the same character in a different situation with a different name.

For some reason, I prefer writing first person with paper and pen. It just makes me feel closer to the character -- I guess sort of like diary writing. I write most of 3rd person on the computer, unless it's a particuallary emotional scene, or I'm just tired of staring at the blasted screen.

Nicole

ORION said:

RE the tense switches - I do switch back and forth between past and present -- whatever serves the story.

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Everyone has their own style. I stick with past and only use present for internal dialogue. Ah well... It's not like I'm published yet.

Oh sandy I did not mean to infer you were wrong! I totally agree with you - Your voice, story, and style (as you say) determine tense.
I was just commenting about what I do in LOTTERY. I do not necessarily do it that way in my other novels.
Best.

ORION said:

Oh sandy I did not mean to infer you were wrong! I totally agree with you - Your voice, story, and style (as you say) determine tense.
I was just commenting about what I do in LOTTERY. I do not necessarily do it that way in my other novels.
Best.

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I didn't take it wrong, and I didn't mean to sound defensive. I'm nursing a case of the no-news-blues today, that's all.

You're very sweet to say such nice things to soothe me.