What IS it about first person?

[janissa11]

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

Comments

[lyra_wing]

The first person POV is a tricky, tricky thing. Which is why I avoid writing in it most times. It can be done really well, or it can just... not sit right, and then leave you feeling off for the entirety of the piece. Usually, I can tell from page 1 whether I will like a book that's written in the first person or not. Most times, it's not. I don't know! Maybe it's just a matter of taste, too, since I prefer third person narration, but... yeah, tricky.

And? Maybe this is just me, or maybe this is the reason why you're disliking them, but in my opinion, parenthetical asides shouldn't have to be used in something that's already in the first person. I can see it being used in the third person, but in first person, you're already in their head! They're making asides to themselves, which... doesn't make sense.

[janissa11]

To me, the parenthetical asides make it obvious that the narrator is very aware of having an audience. It's just like an actor onstage, turning to the audience and fake-whispering, "This is what's really going on here." Now every once in a while that trick works -- it can be funny, startling, acerbic, etc. -- but most of the time it's just artificial, smacks of some sort of...smugness. And it's just plain bad writing -- as you say, if we are fully inside someone's head, it's just not needed. The asides are NOT to themselves; the asides are to US, and maybe the author felt that would pull us more strongly into the story, but instead it alienates. Sitting in the audience, I don't want the spotlight trained on ME, you know? I want it kept where it belongs -- on the characters. *shrug* Man, the more I talk about it the less I think of this particular novel, or its author. Yeesh.

But I wonder about first person, because I'm absolutely blown away by Slaughterhouse Five. And have loved many another first-person novel, such as Gun, with

[lyra_wing]

I totally get what you're saying about the parentheticals. Only to be used sparingly, and, in my opinion, not really needed for first person.

Oh, but I have to say I am a big fan of the footnote. Pratchett's footnotes in his Discworld books are often HILARIOUS. It does the same sort of thing as an aside, but it doesn't take you out of the story because it's sorta like you're reading a history.

There ARE great first person stories out there, no doubt. I dunno! I guess they're just rarer because I feel like it's harder to pull off.

[lunardreamed]

I tend to agree that there is no wrong style, but I think it takes better writing to pull off some over others. Also, you need to be able to fit all your stylistic aspects together

[janissa11]

You know, I think all of this points to the idea that NO writing is truly easy for everyone. I mean, that sounds facile and simplistic, but hear me out -- third person is the most forgiving of POVs, therefore the most popular (amongst writers AND readers). First person arguably next in line, followed by second person, used rarely across the board

[ban_sidhe]

I've noticed the parenthesis thing and chalked it up to the current style of 1st POV along with a less formal, more rambly than my English teacher would have condoned, 1st POV voice. The result uses parentheses to capture tangents the character touches upon in their meandering thoughts. I believe the intent is to give the reader a sense of being right there, in the moment before the character can edit themselves. It can be fun if you enjoy the character's voice and the asides are funny; or the asides could, as they seem to have done here, underline the things you don't care about in the story. Either way, sloppy writing is still sloppy writing

[janissa11]

It does make sense. Levels of intimacy are crucial, I think, in the decision of which POV to use in a given story, which tense. Say, you're writing a very owwie-laden narrative -- not that I'm prone to such or anything -- my choice as an author is often to put it in third person, simple past, in order to give the reader some perceived breathing room. OTOH, if I truly WANT the reader to feel as if she/he cannot breathe, I'll keep the third person and place it in present tense. That conveys, to me, the idea that things are in the process of happening, the outcome is NOT foregone, and things could go any number of ways. Simple past informs us that events have already transpired -- the ending is known, if not by the reader than by the narrator(s). Present doesn't allow that leeway

[graceandfire]

I think first person is harder to do than 3rd person but that it can be done if the writer is skilled enough and makes the character interesting enough. The few authors who have written in first person who I've really enjoyed in actual published books are

[janissa11]

I've read a number of pro novels in first person that I quite enjoyed -- earlier in these comments I mentioned Gun, with Occasional Music, by Jonathan Lethem, and I think most noir mysteries use first person. Vonnegut, of course, and a splendid example of third person present tense is Neal Stephenson's amazing novel Snow Crash.

See, I never thought of myself as bothered in any intrinsic way by first person itself. But lately I've noted a number of folks saying they don't like it at all, and I got curious. Then I read this current Kenner novel, or part of it, and found MYSELF annoyed to the point of madness -- so I thought, WHy is that? What's gone ass-up here? *g*

Never read any of Hamilton's novels. Maybe one day I will -- no idea why I've avoided them, honestly, except I'm a little tired of vampire novels. Thank you for the info!!

[qzxy]

Well, I think some other commenters already touched on this, but I think first person works really well when the story is written as if the character was sitting next to you telling this story, i.e. it's one long monologue. When the character has a very distinct voice, is insightful about the situation, and is overall just an interesting person and a good oral storyteller (which is a must for this to work, for me), first person is fantastic. This also avoids that hyperawareness of the author, because the character is so distinct. But if you are telling a third-person style story and it just happens to be first person (e.g. "I walked up the steps of the building and admired the beautiful stained glass on the door before walking in."), that can get superboring. The alternative to that example would be "So, I get there and the house has all this really neat stained glass with various angels of death on it, you know, swords and fire. Kind of ominous, actually. But anyway, I walk in and he's standing there

[janissa11]

I find it interesting that I haven't seen ANY SPN fiction done from first-person POV, that I can recall right now. (That doesn't mean there aren't any -- I'm sure there have been -- I simply can't call any to mind.) I do tend to wonder if it's the POV itself, or the idea that many readers appear not to LIKE that POV, that explains the lack. Hmmm.

[qzxy]

I think I can remember a few, but I also remember them not holding my interest past the first paragraph because of the POV. They were all on FF.net, and I'm not sure how I came to be reading them. Usually it was told by some OFC much in the style of the novel you're reading, and the Mary Sue vibes were overpowering. I also vaguely remember one from Sam's POV... but it didn't feel like Sam talking, it felt like the author. I guess that's another tricky thing: if you're going to do first person from a well-known character, you better have his/her voice exactly right, and that's already a bit of a task in third person.

But I find it funny that I can actually remember a similar number of second person fics, which is a POV I consider far more difficult to pull off. I don't even have an inkling with that one, but I have read one that worked astonishingly well, I think by stele3? Yep, found it, it's called Highway 140.

[cofax7]

Sorry to jump in days after the convo, but pov and voice are big interests of mine.

One of the ways I think pov is particularly problematic in fanfic, as opposed to profic, is that the reader already knows the character's voice. So the demands of first person, in particular, are much more challenging for first-person in fanfiction, if the pov character is a canon character.

Which, I think, is why most of the successful first-person fic I've seen has been written from the pov of an OC. Like femmenerd's latest.

I do think it's possible to write fic in 1st from a canon character, but it's damned difficult and the readership is going to be extra critical. I've done it, for reasons related to the structure of the story, but it was hard and I've never been as satisfied with that story as I would like to be.

And I totally agree with you and your commenters that in general the pov character in 1st person has to be interesting at least, and better if they're likeable, to keep the reader reading.