First Person POV or Narrator [Archive] - Absolute Write Water Cooler

ChunkyC

07-17-2004, 12:10 AM

Almost all mystery/detective type stories are in first person. I'm currently working on my second novel and it's in first person.

First person POV and first person narrator are different. One way to look at it is to think of a narrator as outside of the story (either not in the story in any way, or someone looking back at something that happened to them in the past, that sort of thing), whereas the POV character is, well, a character in the story. Examples:

1st person POV

I stepped out from behind the car. "Hey, Larry."

He turned around. "There you are. What did you want?"

"This." I walked up to him and stuck my shiv in his neck.

1st person narrator

I stepped out from behind the car and called to him. When he asked me what I wanted, I stuck my shiv in his neck.

Think of the POV as the events unfolding as you watch, and the narrator version as the guy telling what happened after the fact. Either way, first person is far more intimate, you can let the reader really get inside the character.

veingloree

07-17-2004, 12:17 AM

I think 1st person can work, but it may be making your job harder. I often visualise a scene in 1st but 'translate' it to third as I write. I find 1st can be marketable in a short story but I would hesitate to risk it in a novel length work.

SRHowen

07-17-2004, 12:20 AM

doing first person well is not easy at all--you can end up with the I syndrome very easy. Finding ways to describe your character or those he knows well around him are not easy either.

Many writers (first time novelists) think it is easy after all they can put themselves in the main character's shoes.

Sue Grafton, detective stories (yes) but she writers very good first person. Remain in the main character's head at all times, you can't write, say, know, or put in author voice about things the first person character doesn't know about first hand. Follow that rule and avoid the word I any time you can and you may come out with a great story.

Incidentally, 6 of my completed novels were in 3 POV--the first one I did in first person found representation. That doesn't mean it is the charm--but you can switch from another POV you have been writing.

And who knows?

Shawn

maestrowork

07-17-2004, 12:29 AM

It's been discussed before.

Pros and cons:

First Person:
- more intimate
- more internal thoughts, philosophies, observations, etc.
- more limited POV (no "I gazed at her. She thought I was an idiot.")
- harder to pull off

Third Person:
- easier to write
- omniscient POV -- narrator can go anywhere to observe
- more detached
- easier to goof POV shifts

There are MANY novels written in 1st Person. Read a few and see for yourself how it's done.

Kate Nepveu

07-17-2004, 12:51 AM

Suggested first person SF novels, all recommended:

Most things by Steven Brust, especially the very brilliant _Agyar_, which is a diary format, back in print soon if not already, or try your library.

Epistolary novels:
Steven Brust and Emma Bull, _Freedom and Necessity_. Set in 1849 England, ambiguously fantastic, about means and ends and coming back to life. One of my favorite books.
Patricia Wrede and Caroline Stevermer, _Sorcery and Cecelia_, reprinted in a YA line, alternate Regency with magic, very fun and frothy.

Narrators writing it down after it happened:
Emma Bull, _Bone Dancer_ or _Finder_, urban fantasy, coming-of-age tales.
Jo Walton, _The King's Peace_ and _The King's Name_, alternate-history take on the Matter of Britain.
Caroline Stevermer, _When the King Comes Home_. Exquisite alternate-Renaissance fantasy.

Books where it's not clear how the narration is happening until the end:
Roger Zelazny's first five Amber books (or just try _Nine Princes in Amber_).

Books where either the means of the narration isn't explicit or wasn't explicit enough to stick in my memory:
Peter Beagle's _The Innkeeper's Song_, an example of the rare multiple-first-person book. Fantasy.
Doris Egan's Ivory trilogy, reprinted in one volume by DAW, SF.
P.N. Elrod's Jack Fleming vampire novels, starting with _Bloodlist_.
And our very own Uncle Jim's _The Apocalypse Door_, hardboiled fantasy.

That's more than enough for now, probably. As this list should suggest, you can chose to have an explicit means of how your 1st-person narrator is getting this information in the form of a story and even onto paper, or not. This will affect how you provide information to the reader, which is very important in 1st person especially--if the narrator is writing to his best friend from childhood, he will refer to past events differently that if he's writing for a time capsule to be opened in two thousand years (to take extreme examples), and your reader is likely to be sensitive to that.

Jamesaritchie

07-17-2004, 12:54 AM

Not all thrid person is omniscient viewpoint. In fact, a minority of it is. Almost 90% of all published novels are written in third person limited, which is not at all the same thing as omniscient. Third person limited means it's still the character's story, and the character is still telling it. There's just a bit more distance between the charcter and the reader.

Just because a novel has several POV characters, and just because a novel may have POV characters in many locations, has nothing at all to do with whether or not the novel is omniscient.

Third person limited is told almost exactly the same way as first person, only with an extra bit of distance between the character and the reader.

ChunkyC

07-17-2004, 01:32 AM

avoid the word I any time you can
An excellent point, Shawn. I'm struggling with that right now.

Kate Nepveu

07-17-2004, 01:46 AM

An excellent post about POV (http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=20010515074240.00358.00001087%40nso-mm.aol.com) by Patricia Wrede that may be of interest.

gp101

07-17-2004, 02:43 AM

Love reading a good story written in 1st person cuz you discover things at the same time as the narrator. Since 1st person obviously means you can't go in another character's head and the narrator is in every scene or at least narrating a scene from the past, the reader and narrator can't see what the other characters are plotting off-stage. So when the bad stuff comes at the narrator, it's as much a surprise to the reader as to the narrator.

This can limit suspense however. I also like mainstream thrillers where we see the antagonist plotting his next road block for the protagonist in one scene, then the next scene the protagonist walks into the trap/dilemma/situation without knowing he's in danger. In 1st person you lose a lot of this kind of suspense, so I guess it depends on what kind of story you want to tell.

If you're that interested, rewrite your novel in first-person but save it under a different filename so you can always just stick with your original 3rd person version.

maestrowork

07-17-2004, 05:00 AM

This can limit suspense however.

Doesn't have to. If done well, you can have tremendous suspense because the readers are as in-the-dark as the narrator, but given good foreshadows and set up, it can be incredibly intense. Kinda like watching a movie when the camera follows the POV character closely and you sense something is going to lurk from behind, but you don't know what. Ow!

JuliePgh

07-17-2004, 07:51 AM

A lot of good information and things to think about here. Thank you, everyone.

I've started writing from 1st person POV, and I'm not sure I'll be able to make it work for a whole novel at this point, but I have to say, just writing from this POV has given me incredible insight into my character. I feel that I should approach all my characters this way, just sit down and write from 1st person POV to discover who they are and then write my novel using 3rd person POV.

Jamesaritchie

07-17-2004, 04:08 PM

The difference between first and third person is so subtle some writers write first drafts in third person limited and then convert the protagonit's sections to first person, and some writers write the entire first draft in first person, then convert needed sections to third person limited.

The difference is primarily the simple use of pronouns and proper nouns. Converting from one to the other is simple.

The reason most agents and editors hate to see first person from new writers isn't because it's a different POV, but because new writers can't seem to figure out how to avoid "I," and don't understand that even in first person the character still needs to spend most of his time looking outside, rather than looking inside.

First person protagonists by new writers spend far too much time dealing with internal struggles, internal thoughts, internal reflections, when the real story is taking place outside the protagonist. It's happening to him, not inside him.

Too much "I" and too much introspection are what kill first person writing.

In first person, the story is told from inside the viewpoint character, looking out through his eyes. In third person limited, the story is told from outside the viewpoint character, standing directly behind him and looking over his shoulder for just a bit of extra distance. But everything is still tied to that one character just as firmly as in first person. It's still the viewpoint chracter's story, and he's still telling it.

Kate Nepveu

07-17-2004, 07:32 PM

Jamesaritchie: The difference between first and third person is so subtle some writers write first drafts in third person limited and then convert the protagonit's sections to first person, and some writers write the entire first draft in first person, then convert needed sections to third person limited.

This is a fairly-widely-held opinion. I know other writers who quite strongly disagree, however--so if you're one of those writers, who would have to rewrite every word to change POV, don't worry, you're not alone in the world. =>

maestrowork

07-17-2004, 09:20 PM

I agree and disagree with James.

Third and First person are not interchangeable. You don't just change the pronouns and call it done. In third person, the author can switch POV characters between scenes or chapters and following a different story (subplot) whatever. It's actually closer to omniscient than first person -- without switching POV all the time. It's a more disciplined type of omniscient. That's my understanding and opinion.

One way to do transition from first to third is to write every scene in first, but for a different POV character (e.g. in chapter one the "I" is the protagonist. In chapter two the "I" is the antagonist.) Then in your later draft you can replace the pronouns and do some minor fixes and voila, you have an intense third person narrative!

In true first person, you ARE stuck with the narrator. Of course, there are many ways to get around the "I" -- you can tell back stories, heresays, describe a story that someone else have told you ("My father told me this story... it goes something like this.") But if the story is happening now, you have to stay with the "I."

But I agree with James about the cons of first person. Most new writers (heck, most seasoned writers as well) can't do it well. Like he said: too much "I" and not enough objectivity, too much internal conflict and introspection and not enough external action. Everything is filtered through the narrator and if you have the wrong narrator, you'd lose your readers fast.

But it depends on the genre, doesn't it? That's why thrillers are usually written in third person, and memoirs or personal stories are written in first.

I'd say, as long as you have a strong voice and as long as that voice is suitable for your story, do what works. First person, third person -- it doesn't matter.

Don't let anyone tell you "never."

Jamesaritchie

07-18-2004, 04:04 AM

First person and third person limited are essentially interchangable, and switching from one to the other really is almost always as simple as changing pronouns and proper nouns. I've done it many times. If it isn't almost always interchangable you've messed up on third person limited POV.

Fist person has a simple rule. You can only write down what the protagonist sees, hears, feels, smells, tastes, or knows. Third person limited has exactly the same rule. You can only write what the POV character in a given scene sees, hears, feels, smells, tastes, or knows.

The only real difference between first person and third person limited is that in third person limited you can use more than one viewpoint character, but you can't use more than one in the same scene. If you do it's called head-hopping and it's a bad thing. Because third person limioted allows only one POV character per scene, switching from first to third, or tird to first is a snap, and takes almost no practice to do perfectly.

All the third person limited I write, even multiple viewpoint novels, begins as first person all the way through.

Third person limited is nothing at all like omniscient. There's almost zero similarity. Third person limited, in fact, is an offshoot of first person, and was developed because it is written almost exactly like first person, but allows just a bit of distance.

It doesn't matter in the least whether the POV in one chapter is the protagonist, and the one in the next the antagonist. This changes nothing in how it's written. The same POV rules apply to both characters. You only have to decide whether you want to write "I" or "He," or "Insert Proper Noun."

And, of course, there are many writers who write as Ben Bova does, which is one character from page one to page last. Multiple viewpoint is not automatic, and is often done simply because the writer doesn't know how to show what's happening somewhere else without having a viewpoint character be there. There are just as many single viewpoint third person limited novels as there are third person multiple viewpoint novels.

In fact, first person and third person limited are so similar that if you're writing first person correctly, there will be long stretches of the novel that don't even need coverting in any way.

"The plane seemed to tremble in the air, then dropped abruply, slamming into the ground and disintegrating into fire and smoke and strewn bodies."

Now, is that first person or third person limited? The answer is that it's both or either. If first person is written correctly, just about all the narration actually will be third person limited.

The thing is, you also have to stay with the "I" in third person limited, you just have more than one "I," and you change the "I" to "he" or "she."

But first person and third person limited are the same thing, only with distance added for the comfort of the reader,

For that matter, you aren't limited to one POV character in first person, either. There's no rule at all that says you can't have more than one first person character in a novel, and it's been done more than once.

vstrauss

07-18-2004, 05:59 AM

>>But first person and third person limited are the same thing, only with distance added for the comfort of the reader,<<

I'd agree, where you're talking about the kind of present-time narrative of, say, a Sue Grafton novel. The first person narrator is experiencing things right now; they have no more foreknowledge of coming events than the reader does. In that case, third person limited and first person are very similar.

But if you're writing from the first person viewpoint of someone looking backward, as in a memoir or a journal, the person has already experienced the events they're narrating, and hindsight becomes part of the story. This is really quite different from third person limited.

I've been discovering this through my WIP, in which I have two third person limited viewpoints, and a first person viewpoint through journal entries. I want to make it feel like a real journal, not a fictional device (even though it is). For many years I've been strictly a third person limited writer, and it's an interesting challenge to write in what feels like a very different style, balancing the character's knowledge of the outcome of often catastrophic events--which, realistically, is going to color her narration--with the need to involve and surprise the reader. To my surprise, I'm really enjoying it. I think I might like to write a whole novel this way at some point.

- Victoria

Euan Harvey

07-18-2004, 06:59 AM

>You can only write down what the protagonist sees, hears, feels, smells, tastes, or knows. Third person limited has exactly the same rule. You can only write what the POV character in a given scene sees, hears, feels, smells, tastes, or knows.

AFAIK, and from what I've read, this is true. In 1st person, everything is filtered through what the protagonist senses, and in tight 3rd person, everything should be filtered through what the POV character senses. So your choice of details in both 1st and tight 3rd will depend on your character, the language you use to describe them depends on your character, and so on.

I can't remember where it was, but I read a piece of advice on POV somewhere (it might have been in Orson Scott Card's book 'Characters and Viewpoint') that said in a tight 3rd person POV, ideally you should be able to tell whose head you are in without the name of the POV character even being given. Just like with different 1st person POVs, different tight 3rd person POVs should be completely different -- not just have different names.

Sounds reasonable to me -- also sounds very difficult.

Anyway, just my 2c,

Cheers,

Euan

HConn

07-18-2004, 07:39 AM

Third person limited means it's still the character's story, and the character is still telling it. There's just a bit more distance between the charcter and the reader.

As a reader, I find that it's first person that increases distance between the reader and the character. When you read third person limited, you're the POV character's invisible buddy, following them around like a ghost, seeing into their thoughts, whatever, and it really builds identification.

In first person, the POV character is talking to you, as though you're sitting across a table from them listening to the story. It distances the reader from the character.

Sometimes that's a useful thing. If you have a unreliable narrator, a character with an interesting perspective on the story, or if you just want to maintain a certain separation between the character's ordeals and the reader's reaction to them. It can be a terrific tool.

And I've done James A's trick of turning "He" into "I" in a short story (and changing nothing else). It worked nicely.

As for the internalized conflicts in first person, imagine a person talking to you over coffee telling you: "I was miserable. I didn't know if I should stay in my marriage with Jim or run away with Pablo. Jim was a blah blah blah."

How much of that could you take? As a reader, I'm more willing to listen to a catalog of internal misery in third person. It sounds less whiny.

pina la nina

07-18-2004, 09:34 PM

1st can be more forgiving of sloppiness - things that sound passable when they are an extension of a certain character's direct thoughts wouldn't fly in 3rd. (this is not something I consider a good thing about 1st)

But as a reader, if a narrator has a strong, unusual voice, I find myself curious to hear another character's POV just to understand how much of the style is that character's and how much is the author's.

I just finished Donna Tartt's The Secret History and for nearly 600 pages; she doesn't crack from the single 1st person and the narrator is a strange one. I felt sure that he was hiding something, because his voice was so formal and I thought fake, but in fact he just talked that way (or at least no great revelation came out in the end.) I'm curious now to see her second book - how much of that was the author and how much was the character. I really wished she'd have used another narrator for part of the story if that wasn't just her writing style. All of her characters seemed to speak in the same pompous tone.

Maybe that is one suggestion for 1st person: to try and add some diversity to the style using dialogue from other characters - who speak enough differently from the narrator that it breaks up the potential monotony of their voice.

cluelessspicycinnamon

07-19-2004, 05:37 AM

I personally tend to like first person better, in most books that I've read. It makes it easier to believe the characters, I think. 3rd person definitely works, but I'd say if your character wants to tell the story, don't fight it. I like hearing what characters have to say.

vstrauss

07-19-2004, 05:45 AM

I loved The Secret History--it's a great Gothic story--but felt Tartt made a mistake in trying to write from the first-person viewpoint of a male character. I'm not one of those "men can't write women and women can't write men" people, but this was one book where I found the maleness of the narrator singularly unconvincing. There were great characters in that book, but the protagonist wasn't one of them. Possibly she didn't have the technical experience at that point to carry it off.

The Little Friend, her second novel, is done from several POVs, none of them first person. All are wonderfully-realized characters; the book is gorgeously written and there are compelling conflicts and an interesting plot, but there's too much attention to scene, and not enough to story. Nearly every scene is perfect--but you need more than a string of perfect scenes to make a successful novel. In the end, despite a really dramatic denouement, it doesn't come off.

That said, I enjoyed it a lot, and think it's well worth reading. You can get completely lost in the vividness of the writing. It's not till the end that you say, Hey, what happened?

- Victoria

pina la nina

07-19-2004, 06:39 AM

Victoria - (gladly veering with you OT here :) ) I'm interested to see the second book - I found the first oddly compelling - it wasn't until the end that I felt really let down. The whole thing carried an air of much deeper, stranger things afoot than in fact turned out to be. I kept feeling like the wording was so stilted throughout and yet read on, pulled into the mood and the place and rooting for most of the characters - except the narrator. I didn't single out his maleness as problematic but something definitely was off with him. I felt like it was the talented Mr Ripley - so much fakery and so much riding on the pretense - and yet ultimately nothing came of it. I felt like the whole fragility of his character was just a device to make us believe him going along with the events that happened.

Since the big 1st person binge of that book I'm sort of off it right now. Went to a used book sale and put down anything that had "I" in the first paragraph.

MThomas2003

07-19-2004, 08:41 AM

I kept feeling like the wording was so stilted throughout and yet read on

Hmmm. We may need to start a "Secret History" thread. :lol

I've read this book more times than anyone should, I think. I was young(er) and away from home and...well. It drew me in, because I was off to college too (second try after 2 years off), looking for that very same experience, although probably not what resulted from it. As I've re-read it over the years (it's a "comfort" book I take with me on trips), I always assumed that narrative voice was deliberately stilted, in the way a young college student trying to pass himself off as a Greek scholar would be. However this comment:

I felt like the whole fragility of his character was just a device to make us believe him going along with the events that happened.

Has made me rethink that. Very interesting take on it. I may just have to read it again. :p

I'm not a huge fan of first person narrative, and will rarely pick up a book with such. It's that second, third, or fourth paragraph (or page) technique where the author informs the reader, via the vehicle of a mirror, pond, or other reflective surface, what the character looks like. Throws me out of the story every time. Tell me some other way. Or don't tell me at all, and let me think it's me. I feel that very few people are truly honest or subjective about what they see in the mirror (driven either by vanity or unwarranted self-loathing), therefore the narrator describing themselves in any way always has a tinge of falsehood about it (or self-indulgent fantasy), since it's really the author who wants the reader to know what their character looks like to the outside observer. And then you've just tossed me right out of the character's mind, and tried to get into mine.

Yeshanu

07-19-2004, 08:57 AM

I generally read and write third person narratives, but recently I've had a couple of characters pop into my head and start telling me their story, so I wrote it down in first person exactly as they told it to me.

(Okay, so I'm nuts because I have voices in my head. So sue me...)

I may rewrite one of them in third person, but I don't think the other one would work well in third person. Too many snide remarks by the narrator would get lost or seem stilted. Changing "I" to "he" just wouldn't work in this case. At least I don't think so.

But that one's not finished yet, so I'll have to wait and see.

vstrauss

07-19-2004, 09:45 PM

>>I felt like the whole fragility of his character was just a device to make us believe him going along with the events that happened.<<

I'd go even further: the character himself is a device. The story doesn't belong to him, but to the other people in the book. He's there only so that we, the reader, can observe them, like the narrator in Christopher Isherwood's I Am a Camera or Dostoyevsky's The Devils. This kind of thing, at least for me, never quite works--but it especially doesn't work in The Secret History, where the narrator is neither unobtrusive enough to vanish into the text, nor compelling enough as a character to transcend his status as a window onto something more interesting.

- Victoria

pina la nina

07-20-2004, 12:24 AM

Yes! I constantly forgot his name and was startled whenever anyone referred to him as Richard.

Part of my disappoinment with the book was that he wasn't actually doing something behind my back. I kept waiting for it to in fact be him, the narrator, who had secretly orchestrated the events in some devilish way. I was SO sure he had to be. Ah well.

maestrowork

07-22-2004, 02:24 AM

"House of Sand and Fog," a remarkable Oprah Book's Club book, is written in first person, present tense (except for flashbacks).

Nameless65

07-22-2004, 08:08 AM

<blockquote>Quote:<hr>Too much "I" and too much introspection are what kill first person writing.<hr></blockquote>
What exactly is "too much I"? I pulled out Micheal Moorcock's Warlord of the Air (written in 1st person) and, after a quick count, found an average of 11 I's per page. The fewest I found in perusing 4-5 pages was 8 on a page.

As an aside, Leon Uris' Trinity alternated between 1st POV in one chapter (for one character throughout the story) and 3rd for the others. He never mixed POVs in a chapter (IIRC) but it was still a bit disconcerting to go from 3rd to 1st.

HConn

07-22-2004, 09:55 AM

I think "Too much 'I'" refers to boring sentences. The word "I" amplifies the annoyance evoked by a boring sentence, IMO.

arrowqueen

07-23-2004, 04:37 AM

Being Scottish and brought up on such saying's as: 'I wants don't get', I find writing in the first person extremely uncomfortable.

Self-effacing, that's me.

;)
aq

spooknov

07-23-2004, 10:15 AM

so I'm nuts because I have voices in my head.

Ah, but the voices in our heads are not our own. They are characters that need to tell a story. (If anyone had to listen to the voices in my head all day, they'd need tranquilizers by noon.)

When a character will not stop, when they are screaming
"I need to tell the story", let them tell the story. When this happens, I really feel the story should be expressed as it needs to be. Sometimes, that's first person.

I wrote a story and it's very personal. I sat down at my computer one day and started it in 3rd person, but as I got further into the story I realized it wasn't me speaking any longer. So, I went back and re-wrote the peice in 1st person and had a few beta readers run thru it. They chose the 1st person. Each said they felt more connected to the piece when it was written in 1st. Sometimes it's the only way to go. Just follow your instinct.

willmarks

07-26-2004, 02:55 PM

I tend to prefer to read and write first person narratives.

As a writer the "I" should will hopefully not you, the writer, otherwise you risk death by nausea. Thinking of your "I" as him/her to yourself should reduce your discomfort.

“I” works if you've got a strong character whose personality ties in directly with the themes and ideas of the book, and if their actions are critical to the series of events that make up the plot. The Outsider by Camus is a classic for the “I” being the basis for the story itself.

There is certainly a skill to mixing the personal side that creates the intimacy, with the ability to write without too many "I"'s. It helps if the character is not self-obsessed and can clearly see and describe the universe around him without always seeing himself at its centre. I’ve done a lot of rewriting to take out all the "I"'s wherever possible, and been surprised by how often rephrasing works.

In third person writing, I tend to find myself hearing a crowing all knowing author which I find much more distracting than a few “I”'s.