I'm of the view that you can do virtually anything in 3rd that you can do in 1st and vice-versa, and with the same impact or lack thereof. This includes hiding info from the reader (where a tight 3rd person POV and a 1st person POV really don't make a difference as far as I can tell). But I'm also of the view that this is one subject where people's viewpoints (including my own) aren't likely to be swayed
I still love you Steerpike - I don't entirely disagree that most stories can't be told either way, but I still think some have a POV that is more appropriate. I love Tales of the Otori but actually think they would have been better third person despite being a teen boy because she didn't really portrary teen boy very well even with the change in culture she didn't exploit what she could have done... However her story is amazing and her descriptions beautiful. Sue Townsend's Adrian Mole being a diary was mostly first person as a result. It kind of showed what you could exploit using a Teenage male as protagonist. if I tell you that I have to kill you - it involves the ending of one of my stories. With first person it is the character's limitations hiding the information from the reader - in third person even close limited it is the author. That can have an impact when you are reading a scene. I am not an experienced writer but I am a very experienced reader, I know when I feel cheated and when I don't. Everything I have included in my stories is what I like to read.
Eh? How does discussing literary technique threaten the ending to one of your stories... meta fiction? It's tricky disagreeing with someone's opinions on something as [sometimes] personal as writing. But, the fiction teacher in me can't help but believe your thinking here is flawed. In a tight, limited third person, as with first person, the character effectively becomes their own narrator (or at least can/should). That doesn't mean the character realizes they're in the story and start narrating their own lives (unless that's the point), but that the old fashioned narrator is effectively killed and instead of a middle-man between the reader and character, the reader simply becomes the character, experiencing what the character does and feeling what the character feels, etc. Assuming a limited, close pov: If in a first person story, the character can't know what another character is thinking, or what's behind a wall they can't see through, then that's what the reader should get. If that same character is in a third person story, it's not suddenly an author pulling puppet strings if the character can't see through a wall. It's simply a slightly different point of view employing the same concepts and methods of writing a story. Artificially hiding information from a reader is never a smart move by a writer. Should be more clever, hiding things in plain sight, not simply withholding. Huge difference between mystery and confusion, between an ignorant narrator and the contrived manipulation of a writer. I see this mistake made just as often in first person stories, where something is sprung on the reader that the character should have known all along and would have been thinking about, thus the reader should have also known. It's not clever, not creating mystery, and instead is just playing a joke on the reader, which never goes over well. Unless I'm still misunderstanding what you mean, which is possible since you seem to think there are fundamental differences between first and third person, whereas I think the functions of psychic distance between the character and reader and whether it's a limited pov or omniscient are the actual only major differences between points of view. Maybe what you mean is being lost in translation between our two different beliefs, but I at least hope you're seeing where I'm coming from based on my presumed understanding (and attempts to understand) your perspective on this.
I do - I am not saying it always the case. However some of the most amazing writers have got the POV of a book wrong, that is when for me I notice - normally I don't care. I am not a writer - I am an avid reader that sat down and wrote a book or four - like Wreybies signature nothing left on the shelf to read so picked up a pen. Some stories are better suited to first, second or third. (can't imagine Choose Your Own Adventure in first or third). A story is the sum total of all its elements and POV is part of that. I think if it is dismissed as the same story in either first or third that is the fallacy - fact is it isn't. The author should work out which POV and which tense will exploit, bring out, highlight and carry the story. I don't have a default POV I choose the one the story needs - with one story that was decided on three scenes that would have been very different in third. With my current book it may become third person past tense because of two particular scenes I think need to lose the intimacy of my usual narration. I don't have a huge amount of fiction training but I had read thousands of books - I know what I like, what stands out, what works etc. A very dull story becomes something amazing in first (Jane Eyre is classic example), sometimes a story can be too fast paced in first - third allows it to naturally slow down (I think Brothers Bishop - two years since I read it)- some like the God Box get a level of cute fun it wouldn't have had in third.
