Yes, teasing the two things apart (narrative POV and genre) is a question.
And I'm glad of your additions to the data points; I'm sure the books that are recced to me or that I pay attention to skew female these days.
Ad for Romance being almost exclusively 3rdP, yes, I thought of that, but decided that I'm not looking at "all books by women" but rather "books in the SF/F genres (by women)."
I do think that 1stP is a UF thing regardless of the writer's gender. But are women steered that way because of the POV or because they're women or what? UF has a lot of crossover/informing from romance, so there's that "talk about the feelings" thing.
Obviously there's no simple answer, because every book is different; but trends aren't about every book in a genre, they're about a preponderance of something. I think the YAFantasy/1stP/women-writer interlock is VERY much a result of steering. A lot of those books could be done as Epic Fantasy. I'm sure in many cases the author wasn't interested in writing Epic, but I wonder how many sensed, even unconsciously, which way the wind blows and turned to put it at their back.
I tend to agree with you about 1stP narrators being irritating; there are things we might tolerate from a 3rdP narrator that sound obnoxious when someone says them about themself. I think some of this goes back to my point about the "invisible" 1stP narrator, who could just swap out pronouns and voila, it would be a 3rdP narrator and nothing would be different.
Even when a 1stP narrator is humble, they can irritate me because hearing someone's insecurities from first-person narration annoys me. It's much more tolerable if done by a 3rdP narrator, or if it at least seems like a reasonable insecurity.
I think it's safe to say that 1stP allows the writer to get away with some things, but makes others harder, at least to me.
Yes, on Katniss (a point I noted in the previous part of this series, and will note more in the next part). In that case, though, I thought that worked less as letting her get away with being cold and more as showing that no, she's not actually cold.
I think yes, I'm inclined to cut 1stP narrators slack for bad behavior if they're explaining themselves sensibly. Isn't this true for people in real life? But perhaps some authors lean on this heavily when it's just being neat-o, not being a larger aspect/theme of the story (as with Katniss, imo).
But I still get sooooo annoyed by 1stP narrator insecurities. (This is not helped by the preponderance of YA fantasy with female leads--so much playing the "insecure teen girl" bullshit! I hated that crap when I was a teen girl; it has not grown more tolerable with my age.)
Somehow that stuff is easier to take when an outside (3rdP) narrator is showing/noting it. It feels less whiny.
1stP narrator insecurities bother me less if they narrator is actively addressing them rather than wallowing in them. Katniss has some regarding her romantic situation with Peeta, but mostly when they crop up she's like, "But whatever, right now I need to focus on not dying. I can deal with that other shit later." Much more tolerable for me.
And I'm glad of your additions to the data points; I'm sure the books that are recced to me or that I pay attention to skew female these days.
Ad for Romance being almost exclusively 3rdP, yes, I thought of that, but decided that I'm not looking at "all books by women" but rather "books in the SF/F genres (by women)."
I do think that 1stP is a UF thing regardless of the writer's gender. But are women steered that way because of the POV or because they're women or what? UF has a lot of crossover/informing from romance, so there's that "talk about the feelings" thing.
Obviously there's no simple answer, because every book is different; but trends aren't about every book in a genre, they're about a preponderance of something. I think the YAFantasy/1stP/women-writer interlock is VERY much a result of steering. A lot of those books could be done as Epic Fantasy. I'm sure in many cases the author wasn't interested in writing Epic, but I wonder how many sensed, even unconsciously, which way the wind blows and turned to put it at their back.
I tend to agree with you about 1stP narrators being irritating; there are things we might tolerate from a 3rdP narrator that sound obnoxious when someone says them about themself. I think some of this goes back to my point about the "invisible" 1stP narrator, who could just swap out pronouns and voila, it would be a 3rdP narrator and nothing would be different.
Even when a 1stP narrator is humble, they can irritate me because hearing someone's insecurities from first-person narration annoys me. It's much more tolerable if done by a 3rdP narrator, or if it at least seems like a reasonable insecurity.
Reply
(The comment has been removed)
Yes, on Katniss (a point I noted in the previous part of this series, and will note more in the next part). In that case, though, I thought that worked less as letting her get away with being cold and more as showing that no, she's not actually cold.
I think yes, I'm inclined to cut 1stP narrators slack for bad behavior if they're explaining themselves sensibly. Isn't this true for people in real life? But perhaps some authors lean on this heavily when it's just being neat-o, not being a larger aspect/theme of the story (as with Katniss, imo).
But I still get sooooo annoyed by 1stP narrator insecurities. (This is not helped by the preponderance of YA fantasy with female leads--so much playing the "insecure teen girl" bullshit! I hated that crap when I was a teen girl; it has not grown more tolerable with my age.)
Somehow that stuff is easier to take when an outside (3rdP) narrator is showing/noting it. It feels less whiny.
1stP narrator insecurities bother me less if they narrator is actively addressing them rather than wallowing in them. Katniss has some regarding her romantic situation with Peeta, but mostly when they crop up she's like, "But whatever, right now I need to focus on not dying. I can deal with that other shit later." Much more tolerable for me.
Reply
Leave a comment