The First Person

[scribblemyname]

This entry is part 2 of 8 in the series December Ramblings

Because naturally, the first person in importance and existence is oneself.

So, prompted by in_the_blue: my thoughts on the first person point of view in fiction.

I have an odd relationship with these sorts of things. Fiction is fiction. It's all a device. It's all a way to convey a story and lock you, the reader, into the moment. Which is a fancy way of saying that I have no opinion on the point of view as a point of view and I often wonder why so many people get up in arms over this.

Divergent by Veronica Roth is in first person. We are told "I" and "we," etc., and that's the narrator/main character, Tris. But once the story gets going, as a reader, I am swept along and forget the point of view, the verb tense, and so forth because I'm lost in the story. When I read a third person point of view story, such as Emma by Jane Austen, the same thing happens. I forget how it's written and get caught up in what is going on. I forget half the words, except as they let me speed faster through the panorama in my mind. If I notice the framing for too long before getting sucked in, then there's a good chance you're doing it wrong. Equally half of my favorite books ever are in first person and the other half mostly in third. The book of poetry, naturally, doesn't count either way. :grins:

There is one thing that I'll admit is difficult to pull off as gracefully in first person—names. You're stuck with self-referential names and thus, Andrew and Natalie, the names of Tris's parents in Divergent, are only mentioned once each. I had to ransack the book to find them for fanficcing. Other than that, they are rightly referred to as Mom and Dad.

So there you have it, the bulk of my opinion on the first person. Though if you think about it, "the first shall be last..." and all that jazz.

Download article as PDF

Originally published at Liana Mir. You can comment here or there.

Comments

[scribblemyname]

Yeah, I don't kill characters, but I never feel a loss of tension from the POV. As far as that goes, there are stories where the "I" dies and it switches to a new 3rd person POV and keeps on trucking. This is also how one successful mystery series made it SEEM as if the detective died, then brought him back.

So that's kind of what I mean when I say, the how doesn't dictate the what for me. It just doesn't. It's a story, however you want to tell it. When I talk about my day, I do it in present tense even though it's already happened and should be in past. So yeah. But that's just me.

That is also why I don't do meta very well. Stories and characters aren't devices; how I get them onto paper is. Meta makes my characters feel like devices to me—a how rather than a who.

what works for one writer doesn't work for another and the same for readers.

:grins: And always this.

[thecatisacritic.livejournal.com]

I don't like stories where characters die, but that seems to be all too common with what I used to be into fandom wise. It was another reason why I moved away from doing stuff with it. I was tired of the unnecessary deaths.

I haven't read any series like that, but I could see how it might work. I was going to say I wouldn't do it, but I guess I sort of did by shifting the point of views in the Superhero story. It wasn't quite the same because there was always a first person lead-in to a third person section, but I guess I did do it.

I like it to be about telling a good story. If first person is the way to tell it, then it works. If it doesn't, then it should be in third. Or second, maybe, but that one does seem trickier.

I guess I never stopped to think about it that way, but I think I feel the same: I don't want my characters or stories to be devices. That could explain why I was bothered by a friend's comment that the reason I couldn't finish my stories was because I was using them to solve a problem in my life I couldn't solve.

It all comes down to personal preference in the end. :)