I love books like Goodbye to Berlin and Brideshead Revisited - where the narrator is somewhat of a passive observer documenting the times their lives have intertwined with very colourful people (namely Sally Bowles and Sebastian Flyte from my examples). The story I'm writing is a similar type - an older woman reminisces about the summer she met a strange and enchanting woman. But, as the story is in first person and the relationship is romantic in nature, I'm worried about the narrator coming across as too bland for a mutual interest to be believable, or even worse, for it to come across as some sort of self-insert Bella Swan type situation. Does anyone have any examples of where this has been done well?
Yeah, that's first person minor character, and it's very effective. Basically, the narrator is telling somebody else's story and really doesn't have their own arc. It's actually much easier to write in first person than third because the "I" voice kind of stands on its own regardless of what it's actually doing. If you were to try that in third, the distance and lack of agency would come off more detached, I would think, to the point of being absent almost. There's zillions of books that have done this, notably all the Sherlock Holmes with Watson as the first person minor, The Great Gatsby with what's-his-dick as the narrator, and King's Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption with Red, to sight a more modern example. I can see what you're saying, though, about how a romantic relationship might be problematic with a minor character as a participant. I guess that would depend on how central the romance is to the real MC's arc and how much word count is dedicated to it. You can always alter the depth of the narrator as needed. POV works along a spectrum and has a decent amount of wiggle room. It can move from tight to distant, though it might get wonky if it swings too far or too often. I don't think you have to worry too much about the distance of the narrator coming off as bland to the love interest. They may seem detached to the reader in their minor, distant role, but that doesn't mean they would appear so to a character within the milieu of the story. Especially if it's an older character looking at past events. In those cases, the story has already happened and the perspective of the narrator has changed from experiencing something to remembering it. That can get wonky too but I wouldn't sweat it too much.
