I avoid writing things in the first person. I find it difficult to present anything but a biased view of the narrator/MC and it gets in the way of story. There have been some great books, Catcher in the Rye, Moby Dick, etc. done this way but for the most part I find it is hard to do, and usually marks a beginner. Your thoughts?
I definitely prefer third person. I can read first person, no problem, unlike present tense--I can't bear present tense. I don't agree that first person marks a beginner, but I do think that a fair number of writers start with the false idea that you can't get into a character's thoughts and feelings in third person.
A short-story I'm working on right now is first-person present-tense. Writing in first-person comes a lot more naturally to me than writing third-person. In 3rd person, I have difficulty getting into the character's head and expressing that in a way that's natural. Maybe part of that is because it feels more distanced from me, the author, by virtue of having to use "he/she" instead of "I". Every time I go to express thoughts in third-person I feel this irresistible urge to start with "He thought" or some variant thereof. Very annoying. The only time I tell stories in third-person is when I'm relaying what happened to another person, but when I *write* a story in third-person I'm supposed to write it as if I'm... not relaying it? Confusing. Foxxx sounds like Khajiit. Somebody please explain. Let me flip the question. Why do you like third-person so much? What do you find easy about it? Why do you think first-person marks a beginner, but also say it's hard to do? Isn't it? I'm curious to know what people think the difference between "first person voice" and "third person voice" is.
There is authorial voice, which some people in the writing community think should be scrubbed from novels and replaced completely with "character voice," but authorial voice is still popular in film making.
I've occasionally suggested that a writer who prefers first person, but would like to be more comfortable with third person, write a piece in first person and then do a grammar-only translation to third person.
Thank-you for the suggestion, I'll give it a try soon. The current short-story I'm working on works better in first-person present-tense for the simple reason that (spoiler) they die at the end. But a novel I will be starting to work on will be switching POVs constantly between at least two characters, so I'll have to somehow get more comfortable with third person. It'll be tough because, again, the nature of the story requires it to be told in present tense. I'll try your translation method. Not to hijack the thread, but the current short-story I'm working on has a brief POV change after the protagonist dies. @ChickenFreak do you think that this can work (especially considering it's being told in first-person present tense) so long as I make it clear to the reader that the POV has changed?
I'm unclear on why the protagonist dying at the end makes first person present tense a better choice? I'm not seeing the connection. However, I think it CAN work, yes. I think that close third person would be better, because people are more accustomed to POV switches in third person. And because I have a mild prejudice against first person and a vehement prejudice against present tense. But that doesn't mean that it can't work in first person present tense.
Sorry, I should've also specified that they are the narrator in my story. I always found that my suspension of disbelief was shattered when a story was told in first person *past tense* and then the narrator dies at the end. Imagine if somebody was telling you a story in the past tense about what happened to them earlier that morning, and they finish it with "and then a car ran me over, crushing me to death and now I'm here in the lounge telling it to you." Then again, a story told entirely in first person present tense isn't exactly all that natural anyway. I suppose I should've said present tense is a better choice for when the narrator dies at the end (unless there's some kind of twist involved) but I don't think first person or third person would matter now that I think about it.
Not often. [oh sorry] Save it. Skip a screen and re-write it all 'I feel so lousy,' he said...and you won't look back. Even if it ends up published the experience will make you shudder every time you return & read it. All the comments underneath as you bite your fist: It was a great story. Then wha happen? Is that God? Whe...e? Someone fix the typeset, the words is wobbled.
As a reader, first person is a hard stop for me. When I'm thinking about purchasing a book the first thing I do is punch up the "Look Inside" feature on Amazon and make sure it's not written in first before I click the order button. I don't want to be in the shoes of the protagonist, I prefer the distance of being an observer and first person POV shoots that all to hell. I know plenty of people who range from loving first person to "able to tolerate if the story is good enough", so it's not like I think there's anything inherently wrong with first, but for me as a reader it's like nails on a chalkboard. I exclusively write in 3rd person limited past tense, because that's what I prefer to read and thus it has become my natural writing voice.
Ah, now I see your point. I disagree with it, but I see it. My argument is that past tense is just a grammatical structure. It doesn't mean that the events happened centuries or years or hours or even minutes ago--they may have happened milliseconds ago. If there's a crash in the kitchen and you say "What was that?" and the person in the kitchen says, "I dropped a glass," that all happened seconds ago, even though you're speaking in past tense. If you're talking someone through a software problem on the phone, and you say, "Click the Cancel button," and they say, "OK, I clicked it. Now what?" it is, again, seconds ago. And, similarly, present tense can be used for stories that happened long ago. In an oral storyteller's voice: "So, it's 1955--September. I'm a college freshman, on my first day of class. I walk into the classroom and the professor says, 'I think you're in the wrong classroom....'" IMO, present or past tense can be used, interchangeably, for stories happening in the moment or stories that happened a century ago. That doesn't change what you're comfortable with. I say present tense can be used for all sorts of stories, but that doesn't mean I'm ever, ever going to use it.
Those are good points. Do you believe that some tenses / POVs are better suited or certain stories than others? After all, they're deliberate chosen for purposes related to the craft, so I doubt it's completely arbitrary. But yeah, you probably *could* tell any story in any tense / POV combination, practically speaking. I always found it interesting the way that people like to change tenses and POV when telling a story aloud. "I'm going into the break room, you know? When you walk in through the back it's the first door on the left? Yeah, well anyway, Peter - you know Pissed off Peter - is at the Culligan as usual. I'm walking toward the vending machines when I hear him cursing under his breath about the Culligan being broken. He hits it and hits it with his fists and it turns out just before we open, some of the new guys decided to play a prank on him and replaced it with a Culligan that was frozen solid." You get my point: sometimes we "retell" the events that happen to us, and other times we tell the events as if we're "reliving" them again in the very moment, and often times we mix the two together.
My general view is that everything should be my favorite tense--close third person past tense--unless there's a good excuse for using something else. Actually that's not altogether true--it's possible that good third person omniscient could be my favorite tense, but it's very rare in modern fiction, so it's hard for me to say. And writing it is definitely beyond my current talents. I hate present tense so much that I struggle with finding an excuse for it. For a moment, I thought of Flowers for Algernon, where the author arguably becomes a different person as time goes on--but that is handled nicely by the fact that it's written as a diary format. So each bit of the book is in a firmly set place in time, but it isn't necessary to use present tense to do that--and it wasn't present tense. However, I do think that it needed to be first person. You needed to see the protagonist's intelligence, and thus his language, change. Memento, the movie, is arguably present tense--the protagonist can't remember more than a few minutes of what has just happened to him, and he sometimes muses in present tense. (Bad quote from memory: "I'm running. Why am I running? Oh, I'm chasing him. No, he's chasing me"). If that movie were written as a book (I don't suppose it has been?) I could see writing it as first person present tense. I don't think it would be necessary, but there would be far more excuse than usual. In your example, it sounds like the present tense events are the ones for which the narrator was present, and the past tense ones are those for which he was not. So his tense is based on his point of view--when he discovered the news about the prank, the prank was already in the past tense. So it makes sense.
I enjoy first person narrative *because* it's presented through the biased view of an interesting narrator. It's a great way to tell a story.
I don't suppose anything is wrong with it, but in my experience it's incredibly jarring for a reader unless it's dialogue.
As a child I mostly read in third person so maybe I found it easier to mimic. Young Adult was not about when I was a teenager very much and that is often in first. When I realized I had this weakness, I wouldn't let myself write in any other POV until I'd gotten just as comfortable and skilled as in third. Now I have that exra tool in my kit so that if a story demands first I don't get caught up in worrying about. There are hinderances in first and their and pros of writing in first.
So, you avoid first person because it's not suitable for your story. My thoughts about it? That's perfectly fine because there are couple of other persons for you to choose from. I don't see anything to discus here. It's choice. Maybe we could discuss your understanding of First person narrative. Then my thoughts are that it's a bit limited. First person only means that you write "I this, I that" and whether your narration is biased is up to you. It can be perfectly neutral and objective, and non-biased, if you make it so. And the "voice" thing doesn't mean anything. You can have a character that's as bland as voiceless as you like. Whether that's going to find a lot of readers who like it is another matter entirely, but you can write it that way because YOU like it. Have a story with non-biased and non-voicey narrator.
