What IS it about first person?
I'm reading a book that...okay, I'll admit it: I bought it STRICTLY from the title: Carpe Demon, by Julie Kenner. I thought, Hey! Demons! Because I am a total SPN dork.
This isn't a review of the book, so much as some thoughts I had while reading the first half (the plot is fine, WAY too heavy on the soccer-mom part and light on plot, it's...okay). The book is told in first person. First person's a favorite, of course, with a lot of mystery writers (this one was shelved with the SFF, but that connection is marginal at best) -- maybe because a twisty plot unfolds best from one POV, and first person is, perforce, one POV. Anyway.
I never thought I hated first person, but it is driving me bananas in this book. Is it the POV? Or the writing of that POV?
(FYI: I've been surprised already at discovering a pro author I was reading was someone I actually sorta-kinda knew IRL, so if Ms. Kenner's around, y'know -- sorry, man, but I don't know you're you.)
I tend to say, "Just like there are no bad dogs, there are no bad tenses or points of view, only less and more capable writers." And I tend to think that way still, but in this book -- and in others I've read in the recent past -- it has gotten to the point of absolutely grating for me.
Lemme give you an example of the sort of thing that annoys me. This one is the Unnecessary Aside:
"I poured myself a glass of wine (the better to stay calm)."
Okay, maybe that isn't the most grating example in the book, but it's the first one I found flipping through. Anyway. This approach is RIDDLED with parenthetical asides. Why? Why do that? If the information's important enough to include, why the parentheses? Ugh. It BUGS me.
Here's another:
"While downtown San Diablo retains its quaint old-world charm, the rest of the city has become truly California-ized, with strip mall after strip mall and a Starbucks on every corner. (A slight exaggeration. And since I'm a frequent and willing patron, I can hardly complain.)"
I don't...get the parentheses. I don't get the having the parenthetical remarks sometimes four or five to a PAGE.
But this is about first person. Okay. So. We're stuck inside one person's head. God willing it's an interesting place to be stuck, because if it isn't, we're screwed. I don't find this gal's particularly interesting -- she SHOULD be interesting, considering her background as a demon hunter, but quite honestly, she's about as interesting as one of those strip malls so far, which is to say -- not very.
I've been mulling over first person for a while, since I began noticing a significant number of people seem to dislike it. I couldn't remember ever thinking, "Boy, I really HATE first person" in the past. But I think it may well be that first person is hard for reasons that don't at first appear all that evident. After all, a lot of writing workshops tout first person as a handy new-writer device -- it's easier, they say. Well, it isn't HARD. In terms of keeping strictly POV, so on and so forth.
Sorta leading me to suspect that there is something about the POV character -- the interesting quotient, so on -- but also something about the writer personally. Something about the approach. Too many first-person narratives feel intensely self-conscious to me, and I don't think it's the POV that causes that. I think it's the writer, peering too noticeably out between the lines.
Are we more hyper-aware of the author within a first-person narrative? Is it simply part of the POV choice, or is it a matter of the level of capability of that author? Is it only that some characters are sufficiently interesting as to warrant first-person narrative, but most are not?
Back some time ago I started an SPN short piece in first person -- Sam's recollection of a period in Dean's life, some things that happened, told from that outsider POV (I guess the easiest example of this is "A River Runs Through It," maybe). I don't find it hard or easy, either one, nor do I think I'm particularly good at it. But this current book REALLY got me thinking about WHAT first person is about, what makes it work and what keeps it from working.
Any thoughts, y'all?
This isn't a review of the book, so much as some thoughts I had while reading the first half (the plot is fine, WAY too heavy on the soccer-mom part and light on plot, it's...okay). The book is told in first person. First person's a favorite, of course, with a lot of mystery writers (this one was shelved with the SFF, but that connection is marginal at best) -- maybe because a twisty plot unfolds best from one POV, and first person is, perforce, one POV. Anyway.
I never thought I hated first person, but it is driving me bananas in this book. Is it the POV? Or the writing of that POV?
(FYI: I've been surprised already at discovering a pro author I was reading was someone I actually sorta-kinda knew IRL, so if Ms. Kenner's around, y'know -- sorry, man, but I don't know you're you.)
I tend to say, "Just like there are no bad dogs, there are no bad tenses or points of view, only less and more capable writers." And I tend to think that way still, but in this book -- and in others I've read in the recent past -- it has gotten to the point of absolutely grating for me.
Lemme give you an example of the sort of thing that annoys me. This one is the Unnecessary Aside:
"I poured myself a glass of wine (the better to stay calm)."
Okay, maybe that isn't the most grating example in the book, but it's the first one I found flipping through. Anyway. This approach is RIDDLED with parenthetical asides. Why? Why do that? If the information's important enough to include, why the parentheses? Ugh. It BUGS me.
Here's another:
"While downtown San Diablo retains its quaint old-world charm, the rest of the city has become truly California-ized, with strip mall after strip mall and a Starbucks on every corner. (A slight exaggeration. And since I'm a frequent and willing patron, I can hardly complain.)"
I don't...get the parentheses. I don't get the having the parenthetical remarks sometimes four or five to a PAGE.
But this is about first person. Okay. So. We're stuck inside one person's head. God willing it's an interesting place to be stuck, because if it isn't, we're screwed. I don't find this gal's particularly interesting -- she SHOULD be interesting, considering her background as a demon hunter, but quite honestly, she's about as interesting as one of those strip malls so far, which is to say -- not very.
I've been mulling over first person for a while, since I began noticing a significant number of people seem to dislike it. I couldn't remember ever thinking, "Boy, I really HATE first person" in the past. But I think it may well be that first person is hard for reasons that don't at first appear all that evident. After all, a lot of writing workshops tout first person as a handy new-writer device -- it's easier, they say. Well, it isn't HARD. In terms of keeping strictly POV, so on and so forth.
Sorta leading me to suspect that there is something about the POV character -- the interesting quotient, so on -- but also something about the writer personally. Something about the approach. Too many first-person narratives feel intensely self-conscious to me, and I don't think it's the POV that causes that. I think it's the writer, peering too noticeably out between the lines.
Are we more hyper-aware of the author within a first-person narrative? Is it simply part of the POV choice, or is it a matter of the level of capability of that author? Is it only that some characters are sufficiently interesting as to warrant first-person narrative, but most are not?
Back some time ago I started an SPN short piece in first person -- Sam's recollection of a period in Dean's life, some things that happened, told from that outsider POV (I guess the easiest example of this is "A River Runs Through It," maybe). I don't find it hard or easy, either one, nor do I think I'm particularly good at it. But this current book REALLY got me thinking about WHAT first person is about, what makes it work and what keeps it from working.
Any thoughts, y'all?