Delivering backstory in first vs. third person

You can definitely do that in first; you can also do it in third, if you're willing to have a non-transparent narrator.

Basically all you need to be able to cozy up to the reader is a narrator they can notice. So it would be hard to do in really tight-third, but Jane Austen, for example, does it all the time.

I'm currently experimenting with first person myself and you are right about that. I almost feel lazy sometimes because I just have my narrator TELL her story. The trick is that there are certain histories your first person narrator won't know, so it's fun to find ways to allude to that. It's also fun to present hints of information without having the narrator pick up on it.

Basically, the technique with first person is to create an 'unreliable' narrator. The narrator tells his/her side of the story, which includes some information that wouldn't be revealed with a more distant third pov narration. Even with all this extra narrator-specific information, your readers should still have a sense of the greater story and a sense that some things the narrator tells them should be taken with a grain of salt.

So, it's a balance. I personally still don't feel as confident in doing first person as I do in my third person, but it is really great and educational experimenting with it. I also think that if I can master it, there are certain stories that are most effective in first person.

I know there are some great essays out there on POVs, but none immediately spring to mind. I would recommend either searching the absolute write archives or googling "POV in fiction" or something along those lines.

But PM me if you have any questions! I love discussing the process and the differences in the POVs.

It's the easiest thing in the world in first person, but people throw down expository riffs in first or third, and some great writing would have some people at this forum shouting "infodump!"

Here's a bunch of examples from very different writers.

David I said:

It's the easiest thing in the world in first person, but people throw down expository riffs in first or third, and some great writing would have some people at this forum shouting "infodump!"

Here's a bunch of examples from very different writers.

Click to expand...

Why, David, I think I love you . . . (in a platonic way, of course )

I'm working on revisions for my agent right now, for a first-person novel that is coincidentally my first go at this POV. And I've got this one chapter that's killing me -- because, you see, it's sixteen pages of nearly all backstory.

(Sixteen pages! I hear you gasping in disbelief and vowing never to read my book . . .)

Anyway. It's near the middle of the book, and it's the history of the djinn wars (no, they're not real, I made them up), and it's really, really important to the story. I was feeling sort of okay because the book doesn't open with backstory, but largely not okay because . . . well, it's sixteen pages of backstory. Told through a conversation between the two main characters, so it's not just one character talking or reflecting, but still. The stigma against doing this is enormous, especially in genre fiction.

I feel so free now. Thank you!

I appreciate the thoughts and reminders on info dumping. That's probably my Kryptonite. I just started to play with a story in the first and know what to clean up when the time comes.

Pike

dreamsofnever said:

I'm currently experimenting with first person myself and you are right about that. I almost feel lazy sometimes because I just have my narrator TELL her story. The trick is that there are certain histories your first person narrator won't know, so it's fun to find ways to allude to that.

Click to expand...

I've seen narrators say, "At the time, I had no way of knowing [whatever]." Or, "I later learned that he..."

First-person makes so many things easy, that honestly, I don't know why I don't use it more.

While reading David's examples of good "infodumps," it occurred to me that first-person (for me, at least) actually prevents infodumps. Here's what I mean:

A genuine infodump is a recitation of facts told in an uninteresting way. (There is no good argument against anything that holds the reader's interest.)

When I write in first-person, it feels like I'm telling the story to someone in the room with me. And when I actually tell someone a story, I'm highly aware of what is and isn't interesting (perhaps I came by this awareness by noticing people looking at their watches or yawning).

In any case, unlike 3rd narration, in which I feel like I'm talking to space, my instinctive sense of what's interesting is always engaged while "talking" to my reader. So my narrator never includes pointless details (that can seem so important in 3rd), and gets on with the story.

Damn, I should write more first-person...

An infodump...

is only called backstory or an infodump if that is what it is.

If it's a chunk of information dumped into the story, then it's boring.
If it's an active part of the story and very well written, then it's fine.

The problem is that new writers do it a lot, because they don't know how to write well enough to say what they want to say in a better way, and that's when everyone shrieks 'infodump' or 'backstory'.

For me, it's an inate fear of not giving out all the information that brought me to writing that part of the story. I'm still trying to establish that fine line between giving out the important details for the reader and not throwing a crap load in their face.

Y'know, like you've got the story figured out in your head and write it very clean and tight, then someone comes along and says, "WTF? I don't get this." So you go back in and fill in the blanks with a big, fat black marking pen so there's no confusion. Serious overkill. That's me. Can't go middle ground for nobody.

Pike