I am still figuring out the outline for my YA fiction novel. I wasn't able to find out whether or not to write my book in third person or first person, so that's why I'm asking you guys for a little advice. My novel is about a 21 years old woman, Daria, who cannot feel any emotions at all due to a terrible accident from childhood. She was able to live a normal life until now, fitting into society and trying to learn again emotions. Daria did a pretty good job to fake some emotions with help from her parents. Her hobby is collecting things. She collects a mask for every emotion she faked successfully, and keeps them along with a diary in a box under the bed. I will do some research for this, but so far I've established that there are 83 emotions a human can learn. (we are not born with them) This may not be entirely true, but it doesn't need to be. After all, it's fiction. Daria faked a total of 39 emotions so far, some being much hard to imitate than others. Take remorse, for example. Now, she's been told there is no cure for her accident, since the part of her brain that processes emotion is badly damaged. Everything changes when her psychology teacher, Heldrex, hears about her accident and tells Daria about a theory he's been creating for a long time. A theory that states she would really feel emotions, if she could somehow fake them all. Heldrex knows this is a dangerous theory to prove, but tells Daria anyway about it, because he really wanted her to come back to normal. With remorse being almost impossible and dangerous to fake, since she needs to kill somebody close to her, this could make a very interesting story. This is where I could use a piece of advice. I want the readers to find out at the end of the book that she was a murderer in the past, too, trying to fake remorse. Daria didn't followed the theory of her teacher back then, since she didn't meet him. If that's too far fetched, maybe she didn't actually kill and only tried to do so. In the end, Daria would finally be free, but with the cost of her mother's life. I would like to write in first person, but Daria seems a very cold woman that not many people would relate with. And there is no way to hide her murder attempts from the past in first person, is it? So the only solution is third person. If there's anything that doesn't make sense, please let me know. This is the outline I made in two, three weeks. Thank you!
I always recommend third person. It gives you pretty much everything first person does, plus more flexibility.
YA is pretty heavily into first person, but... it's not at all into 21-year-old MCs, so I think you might not be writing YA after all... It sounds like you're probably going for an unreliable narrator device? In which case I think 1st is probably best, just to avoid that feeling of being lied to by the narrator. I think you can avoid this in third as long as you stay zoomed in really close for the significant parts, but... I feel like it might be trickier.
Well, I don't know if everyone is going to agree with me on that one, but here goes: your main character is female and you are a dude so I don't think you could write through a girls perspective. It just wouldn't sound genuine. I had the same dilema when I started writting my novel and that was the conclusion I came.
Writing for another gender of MC is not uncommon. Harry Potter and Skullduggery Pleasant, for instance.
People do it all the time and pull it off flawlessly. It becoming more common to accept gender as something bigger than a birthright. And with a whole bunch of civil rights and feminists movements, gender doesn't have to limit us or even be at the center of what defines us. Open your mind, man. You must allow for your characters to have the complexities of a real person. And you must be open to the radical notion that women are people too.
I always write in 3rd person, but that's because it's what i am comfortable with. Go with what you are comfortable with, but if you like both, write the first chapter in 1st and 3rd, see which works for you style and your character? Rgds
3rd person is safest. 1st person can be done and gives a good personal perspective. I have only used 1st person for short short stories as it can get very limiting. 1st person suffers from the disadvantage that it's difficult to build suspense or get an outside perspective, something larger works tend to need, whereas 3rd person, while less personal, allows different perspectives and suspense.
I'd argue that third person has the potential to be even more intimate than first. First person narratives, save the ones written by the most talented of writers, always seem forced to me. That, and they are exhausting to read!
I know many feel this way, so this is in no way a view directed at you personally, Iain, but I'll never understand this thinking. At the risk of turning this into yet another 1st Vs 3rd debate, third-person never allows me invest in the story like first-person does. I suppose I must have a very different view on how a story should serve the reader, but I'll never get to grips with a third-person narrative in the same way I can first.
I've done it before, in my previous book. I asked my beta-readers about this, they said I did pretty well, really. That's a good advice, actually. I am more comfortable with third person, though. Can you give me an example, please? I always thought first person is more personal.
I did a purely grammatical flip of third person to first person in this post: https://www.writingforums.org/threads/god-narration-by-a-character-in-the-story.158352/#post-1680688 If we're talking about angsty personal, I need to think of where to get an example.
The problem I have with first person, is that there's no stepping back from it. In third person I can put the reader where I want, when I want.
I played with two more passages from Three-day Town by Margaret Marin. The "IMO closer" is also shifted toward my voice, because I have trouble rewriting without leaning toward my voice. ---- Original first person: Except for his eyes. There was no curiosity in those cool gray eyes, yet I felt that we were being scanned and catalogued and that everything about us was being filed for future reference. Plain grammar flip to third person: Except for his eyes. There was no curiosity in those cool gray eyes, yet she felt that they were being scanned and catalogued and that everything about them was being filed for future reference. Shifted IMO closer: Except for his eyes. There was no curiosity in those cool gray eyes, yet it was as if they were being scanned and catalogued, everything about them filed for future reference.---- Original first person: “No?” I was suddenly feeling cranky and tired of all these people and wished they would go away and leave Dwight and me alone. I was sorry that someone had died here. Phil Lundigren had seemed like a nice enough person and he probably didn’t deserve to be killed. All the same, it wasn’t as if he were someone we’d had any kind of a relationship with. “Anyhow,” Buntrock said, “it’s just a cheap Plain grammar flip to third person: “No?” Jane was suddenly feeling cranky and tired of all these people and wished they would go away and leave her alone with Dwight. It was too bad that that someone had died here. Phil Lundigren had seemed like a nice enough person and he probably didn’t deserve to be killed. All the same, it wasn’t as if he were someone she’d had any kind of a relationship with. Shifted IMO closer: “No?” Her grip on her temper was loosening. She was cranky, and sick of all these people, long past ready for them to go away, very far away, and leave her and Dwight in peace. Yes, it was sad that Phil Lundigren died. He seemed like a nice enough peson. He didn't deserve to die. But none of that needed to be her problem. ----
Nice examples as usual, @ChickenFreak . I noticed the pronoun issues in the first one (the "they" in "they were being scanned" has an unclear antecedent in the third-person versions, since it could refer back to "eyes" rather than the party being scanned) and obviously that's not over-hard to fix, but it does raise one interesting advantage of first person. By introducing a new pronoun for the narrator, you can avoid a lot of pronoun confusion when you have two (or more) characters of the same gender interacting. As an author of m/m, I often struggle with the clarity of "he put his hand on his cheek and his body tensed in anticipation" type writing. Much more clear if it's "I put my hand on his cheek and his body tensed in anticipation". I still generally write in close third, so it's not as if it's a problem I've found unsurmountable, but I hadn't really thought of this before (I don't think) so I thought it was worth mentioning!
This story sounds like third person limited from the protagonists POV. I struggled with this same question for Evergreen. After much debate and issues with character names I settled on first person POV. I really wanted Rose and her mother to have the same name. It’s part of the naritve. I felt like it would be to confusing to read in third person if I had any scenes with Rose and her mother. Now when when Rose refers to Rose she’s talking about her mother instead of her self. Plus I wanted to delve deeply into Roses mind which would be hard to do in third person. First person is harder to write but it’s great to learn. Just don’t fall into the trap of using to many filter words or I every single sentence.
I just can't help saying: It's not. You can delve just as deeply in third person. I might argue you can go deeper, because you can choose, occasionally, to add a bit of distance that allows you to reveal things that the person is in denial about.
An interesting story you got there, Marius. My first and second thought is to go third person. I don't know how believable you would be portraying a female. Also, when I read fiction, I want to believe what I'm reading is accurate. If there are 83 emotions a human can learn, this should be true, and not something you pulled out of thin air. One way to fake remorse is through dialogue. Another would be acting out ways to make up for what she is faking remorse about.
The scientists don't have an exact number, but it's up there. Even more than 83 emotions in reality, some say. It's not a clear domain that was fully explored. What you said about dialogue could help me. Thank you. That is very true, now that I read your examples above. I was thinking to reveal something important about my main character just before the end. It's a game changer for sure.
Just exactly what part of what I said made you think that I don't see them as people? Seriously... do you must bring your agenda everywhere?
You don't pay attention, do you? Harry Potter is a third person book. My whole point regarded the first person viewpoint of a female character that was written by a man.
I can't see why first versus third would make any difference. Also, what's with the rude remark? What did that specific poster do to you?
