Another weird writing post
Well, I finished The Hunger Games (yeah, it took me a while, but I've been working lately). Plotwise, it was a pretty good story, though I'm STILL waiting for a good explanation on why the districts haven't rebelled when the Capitol has been making their kids kill each other for 74 years. The war that led to the Hunger Games was very vague in both book and movie.
But anyway, I was bitching about first-person when I started the book, and now that I've finished it I STILL think the first-person narrative hindered it. When a narrative goes like, "I do this, then I do this, then I do this," it's hard for me to get into it. A good portion of the narration was Katniss explaining things about the story and the world, which felt awkward, since she's not supposed to know anyone's reading her thoughts and she's lived in this world all her life. In third-person there would have been more freedom.
It actually got me thinking a bit about Twilight and how one of the only scenes I really loved was the scene in Eclipse where Bella goes to the Quileutes' campfire party and Billy Black tells the story about how they became werewolves. Admitably, I don't know much about the real-life Quileutes, but I know Meyer stole borrowed at least some elements from their legends and forced stuck in her sparklepires, so she shouldn't get all the credit for that scene. But anyway, I think one of the things that makes that scene work is that for ONCE Bella isn't intruding. She's not grafting on her whining and condencending, but she's simply listening to the story, and what do you know, when Billy's telling the legend it's almost magical. The first-person that Meyer is so addicted to is gone for a while, letting in the magic.
I'm not saying first-person can't ever be well-done - it can, but it's really overused in today's fiction, and it takes a hell of a lot of skill to pull it off well. Harry Potter wouldn't have had the same magic if Harry had been narrating. Nor would His Dark Materials have had the same magic if Lyra had been telling her story. To me, third-person feels more like genuine storytelling than first, and I REALLY think The Hunger Games could have been a much better book if it were written in third-person.
NaNo soon. Maybe someday I'll write something in first-person, but not this year.
But anyway, I was bitching about first-person when I started the book, and now that I've finished it I STILL think the first-person narrative hindered it. When a narrative goes like, "I do this, then I do this, then I do this," it's hard for me to get into it. A good portion of the narration was Katniss explaining things about the story and the world, which felt awkward, since she's not supposed to know anyone's reading her thoughts and she's lived in this world all her life. In third-person there would have been more freedom.
It actually got me thinking a bit about Twilight and how one of the only scenes I really loved was the scene in Eclipse where Bella goes to the Quileutes' campfire party and Billy Black tells the story about how they became werewolves. Admitably, I don't know much about the real-life Quileutes, but I know Meyer stole borrowed at least some elements from their legends and forced stuck in her sparklepires, so she shouldn't get all the credit for that scene. But anyway, I think one of the things that makes that scene work is that for ONCE Bella isn't intruding. She's not grafting on her whining and condencending, but she's simply listening to the story, and what do you know, when Billy's telling the legend it's almost magical. The first-person that Meyer is so addicted to is gone for a while, letting in the magic.
I'm not saying first-person can't ever be well-done - it can, but it's really overused in today's fiction, and it takes a hell of a lot of skill to pull it off well. Harry Potter wouldn't have had the same magic if Harry had been narrating. Nor would His Dark Materials have had the same magic if Lyra had been telling her story. To me, third-person feels more like genuine storytelling than first, and I REALLY think The Hunger Games could have been a much better book if it were written in third-person.
NaNo soon. Maybe someday I'll write something in first-person, but not this year.