First person versus third

Cephus

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I write in both. Thinking about it, this year, I've done 3 books in first person and I'm starting my 3rd book in 3rd. It's always a bit of a challenge to switch between the two at first, especially since I spent close to six months doing nothing but first person, but after a little bit, it just comes naturally.
 

angeliz2k

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Note that first person isn't always narrated in the same voice the pov character has at the time of the story. For instance, if the narrator is an adult telling a story about their childhood, their narrating voice will be different from that of themselves as a child. Likewise if the first-person has changed in some significant way since the story happened.

QFT. And this can be a really interesting dynamic to work with. I didn't realize quite how useful this aspect could be until I hit upon it myself in my most recent WIP. The characters are telling their stories from the perspective of many years later. The story is of their childhoods, but they were different ages at the same point in the time (because they were brothers), and they're telling the story from different distances (one is telling it from a certain date, one from six years later, one from four decades later), and at different ages (two are in their twenties, one is in his sixties). And of course, having them tell the story of their own childhood in their own voices is a totally different prospect than telling it from a third-person perspective, because it's all filtered entirely through their perspective of their own childhood memories. It's isn't their childhood. It's what they remember of their childhood. If it were in third person, you wouldn't have that layer of memory and hindsight and assessment. The reason this all works (I hope) is because the story is about memory, legacy, and loss. If it were a different story, this wouldn't fit.