First/Third

[fountain923]

What generally makes you decide whether to write your horror story in third or first person?

 

[Unimportant]

I choose what I think will best serve that particular story. Doesn't everyone?

 

[Maryn]

Same here. As I do for every story in every genre. While first person comes more easily to me, often it's not quite right.

 

[Gramps]

Personally, if I lived it, it's 1st. Like trying to navigate town without crossing paths with a Starbucks at lunchtime. All other horror, I listen to the story, except Walmart after midnight, then no person should be there 1st or 3rd. I hope this helps, but I must warn you, my family says my help doesn't feel like help.

 

[Norsebard]

What generally makes you decide whether to write your horror story in third or first person?

Well, I almost always write in third person because that's the approach that works best for me, but I have done one or two in first.

I guess the deciding factor is how 'close' the horror is to the main character. If it's some kind of world-engulfing Thing that's doing all the horror'ing to everyone at once, I'd do it in third, but if it's a personal / internal / psychological type of demon (metaphorical or otherwise), I'd go for first.


Norsebard

 

[Nether]

Right now, I prefer writing in first-person, so that's my default.

However, when I started writing my first ghost manuscript, I began in the first person but quickly realized it'd be difficult to show all of the deaths from the first-person (at least, not without getting a bit silly), so I changed it to third-past... and wound up having at least 30 POVs by the end (some of whom only got a single chapter, although they were referenced or appeared in others).

The second ghost manuscript was also multi-POV, but stuck to a far more reasonable number of POVs (maybe 4-8?). Because one of the characters suffers from memory loss (forgetting their own identity), I decided to write that one POV in first-present.

And then for the kinda-horror example of my upmarket werewolf, the POV use was a gimmick

Otherwise, it's not so much that I use first-present because I write YA horror (or things adjacent to horror), it's more that I found a lot of elements to my approach worked better as a YA (ie, voice-ier first-person, the characterizations/relationships made more sense, and -- importantly -- a few of my ideas were on the shorter side where I could maybe get away them as a trade-pubbed YA but not a trade-pubbed adult (since 50-60k would be closer to novella territory).

Beyond that, there are advantages and disadvantages to each. When people harp on one or the other, they tend to focus on certain practices which aren't necessarily intrinsic to the POV style and that kind of POV can be written without them. Technically, you could even write a multi-POV in the first person, but that can be confusing depending on the number of characters involved and the voice has to be very distinct (even if the chapters are labeled with that POV character)

 

[JGregory]

Third. I cannot stand First POV. I need that distance between myself and the character to see things clearly--and I get super annoyed with 1st POV when the character does something stupid that I know is stupid but I have to write anyway. Unless it's character entries (diaries, letters, etc), those are fun.

 

[Fi Webster]

Third. I cannot stand First POV. I need that distance between myself and the character to see things clearly--and I get super annoyed with 1st POV when the character does something stupid that I know is stupid but I have to write anyway. Unless it's character entries (diaries, letters, etc), those are fun.

Fascinating. I'm exactly the opposite: I have to write in first in order to be close enough to the character to see things clearly. I do things that are very stupid all the time, most of them things I know are stupid, so that's not an issue. =laugh=

I wrote a long messy draft of a novel quite a few years ago, in third person, but I bogged down at the rewrite-and-revise stage. Recently I've been changing it all to first person, which I find is helping a whole lot in figuring out what works and what doesn't. It feels like a magical transformation, bringing all my thoughts and feelings about the story into much sharper focus. I'm on the fence about whether to change it all back to third when I'm done.

 

[Fi Webster]

However, when I started writing my first ghost manuscript, I began in the first person . . .

What's a ghost manuscript? Do you mean you're a ghostwriter, or are you referring to some other type of book?

 

[Nether]

What's a ghost manuscript? Do you mean you're a ghostwriter, or are you referring to some other type of book?

Meaning a manuscript featuring ghosts. In hindsight, I suppose that may've been a little unclear, although I hadn't thought it'd be interpreted like that

 

[JGregory]

I wrote a long messy draft of a novel quite a few years ago, in third person, but I bogged down at the rewrite-and-revise stage. Recently I've been changing it all to first person, which I find is helping a whole lot in figuring out what works and what doesn't. It feels like a magical transformation, bringing all my thoughts and feelings about the story into much sharper focus. I'm on the fence about whether to change it all back to third when I'm done.

If it works for the story, and it works for you, and you can get it all to work--which it sounds like you have--keep it first!

That's how I feel about the third POV. That clarity and feeling of rightness is such a powerful gut feeling. There are a lot of technical parts of writing, but it gets funneled down to, "does this feel right? this doesn't feel right. I need to fix this."

 

[Gramps]

Meaning a manuscript featuring ghosts. In hindsight, I suppose that may've been a little unclear, although I hadn't thought it'd be interpreted like that

That's fine we held a seance and the spirits told us you were referring to them.