@ChickenFreak sorry, my knowledge of American snarkiness is kinda limited Whatever the reason, I still find it silly. I mean, the whole narratology-thing is taught in the States as well, and in France, South Africa, Uruguay and Moldova, so I thought that whatever text explains Genette is good enough...
Okay. Your link was super. I'm a better person for having read it. Any time anyone in the future is having a simple thread about first vs. third person, I will post that link, and all will genuflect before it. Good? Enough?
Had a mind-flash this morning that it might help to switch my second novel project from third to first person. I've gotten over it. The ending, which I've already sketched out in my head, needs to leave the reader uncertain about what the MC will do. If I write that in first person it'd just be her being cagey. No fair, no fair. I hope to take a stab at first person some day, if I find the right story idea for it.
While interesting, I think the level of the article is a bit too abstract and academic for most would be writers. Most have a hard enough time with the standard POV definitions and all the other basic technical aspects of writing, and I'm afraid that being directed to such a reference would make them throw up their hands and give up trying to improve. As for me, I write mostly in what I call in my mind "cinematic" mode, basically a close third person omniscient much like the camera work in a TV crime show with the narrator serving as the camera and having no voice of its own.
To read? I will take either, provided they are written well. To write? I can't write first person. I have tried and failed many times before. Though I do have an idea broiling that I think will only work in first person, so when I get to that one, it will be a learning experience.
What's wrong with taking a side? I see not taking a side as potentially problematic, because the winners represent an argument and the losers represent the anti-argument.
Maybe a book-end would serve well? The protagonist could hop from belief to belief, and land up back where he started at the end, more doubtful than ever. That way, his conflict and argument will keep changing—all the different lenses will get to go for a spin. Edit to add: You could also make him unaware of the fact that he's back where he started.
I don't think you necessarily need to reach a resolution, but you have to really interact with your subject matter. Ending on ambiguity, well, this is probably one of the most earnest ways to end a piece of art, I think. At the base, there's simply ambiguity. However, to simplify to a dumb "I don't know" without substance, this is something to avoid. If you want to approach doubt and these things, you might need to do it through the hard-pressed difficulties within your characters, and their struggle to "know" anything. I'm sure you'd do such. Simply, I guess, I don't think leaving the question open is bad, but there's a difference between leaving a question open and just asking a question. Bring up the overwhelming nuance, and a smart reader should understand why something doesn't really have an answer. Most things, when you push into them with the full keenness of a human mind and, more importantly, human experience, it's hard to suggest any solid footing, so there's that flux. Just don't essentialize it. Some of your questions, however, are more metaphysical, and I don't know how they'd be as caught up in this ambiguity of human judgement. I don't know if there's a struggle between a person and whether multiverse is true. Well, there is, but it's more related to identity and place than the metaphysics itself. ETA: I think a really good work disassembles the present perspectives and asks how the fuck do we put it back together.
Without knowing more about the storyline I find it difficult to answer this question. However, I don't think a story has to take one side or another as long as it is well written. There are many good books written that include many belief systems without ever having one be stronger than the other, or one be 'right'. I too look forward to reading some of it as this is very much my special interest.
You're probably right. I enjoy first-person writing, although I guess sometimes I feel it sounds too much like the author's voice.
Third person most definitely. It may be odd, but when I read a first-person story I feel like I'm reading a diary after the fact. I don't feel like I'm there, watching the events happen. It's more like I'm receiving the story as told after the events unfold. I don't know if that's weird of me or not, but it's how I feel about it. Third-person makes me feel more like I'm there. My favorite author George R.R. Martin once said (and I'm paraphrasing), "Third-person limited is more consistent to how we would experience the events in real life. We aren't omnipotent; we can't know what every person is thinking or what their intentions are. We can simply observe and draw our own conclusions from what we see as an outsider." Again, this is very far from the actual quote, but that was the general idea of what he was saying.
GRRM is making the distinction between 3rd person limited and 3rd person omniscient, and NOT comparing it with 1st person. Because 1st person is even more consistent with how we experience events. "We can't know what every person is thinking"...but we do know what we, ourselves, are thinking. From that perspective, 3rd person limited is unrealistic because we only know what the 'disembodied' narrator observes, not what he/she experiences in response to what has happened...e.g. I would be horrified to see a dismembered body, and I'd relate that in 1st person, but 3rd person omniscient would report it without the filter of emotion.
I haven’t long finished writing my first novel totally in first person and I preferred it. I haven’t been writing long and chose 1st because I had previously been prone to jumping heads. My first person is the bad guy and as a writer I felt what actors often say – the POV of the bad guy is much more fun. I had to rewrite chunks from time to time because I felt they were in my voice rather then voice of the bad guy and overall I think my story had a much stronger clearer voice than previous ones. So for writing - 1st person bad guy is great for me. As for reading – I don’t mind which POV. If it’s well written it works for me.
The last project I worked on was in first person but I used the perspectives of the two MC's both believing they are the hero and the other is the villain.
GG - What did you do when the two were together? My bad guy didn't see himself so bad and the copper opposite him wasn't too clean. Perhaps I simply had 2 villains.
@Tim3232 There were only two a few chapters where they were actually in the same room and in the final chapter one of them died, I found that it depends on the direction the stories going on which characters point of view I went with. I pretty much have the project written twice.
Up until now, my novels have all been written in third person. I came up with an idea for another one yesterday though, that I'm imagining in first person. The story idea just strikes me as being more powerful if it's cast as the main character telling his own story. Having written only third person previously, I'm a little nervous about undertaking a first person story. Have you written in both formats? If you have, did you have any trouble making the shift? Are there any pitfalls that I should look out for?
I had always written my stories in third person, until after university, when I had decided to write a novel. It was awful, it was a novel with no story or plot, my only aim was to experiment and break every rule of writing I'd ever heard about. I got to 25000 words and then called it a day. But I learnt a huge about from such an exercise, and learnt the majority of the rules of writing for myself within a fairly short period of time. My second attempt at a novel is my current one, and again, I decided to write first person, as it was a plot device. 5 years on I'm still writing that novel, but it is hard work, and on one occasion I nearly threw out my work and wanted to revert to third person. So be prepared for a slog. If it is not your natural writing style. But I would say try it, you will only improve as a writer by having a go.
