You have a point there, think will try to write in 3rd as my writing in 1st is like a graveyard littered with deadly old I's

My novel was rejected by an agent (a UK agent) who wrote back saying, amongst other things, that she wasn't a fan of novels written in the first person.

But I believed in it (first person and all) and kept on sending it out and eventually an agent rang me up to tell me she loved it and wanted to sign me.

So there you go. It's all subjective. 'All' you need to do is find that one agent that loves it and can sell it. Who cares what the rest think!

Thinking about it some more, I don't really see the difference between first person and limited third, where you stick to one narrative POV. The text is then just as likely to be littered with 'she's as a first person story is to be littered with 'I's, surely? And there is the same problem of always seeing events through one lens. But what that loses in terms of rounded storytelling gives countervailing benefits in terms of intensely close engagement with that character - and also the chance to play about with mystery, and things-the-narrator-doesn't-know - to have the reader guessing as the character guesses. Or it can be used to give a feeling of claustrophobia, or isolation... In my current WIP I have found (without pannning it) that for the first time I have stuck just to one simnghle POV (in third person) whereas normally I either go for omniscient or at least have two or more POVs. And it's because the MC's loneliness and isolation - and her unsureness of what others are actually doing for much of the book - is half the point. In particular, there is a crucial relationship between the two other main charcaters which she is outside of and has to guess the nature of - and that seems to work best by sticking to her POV throughout.

Horses for courses, I reckon - and this agent ruling out first person as a blanket rule is just plain illogical.

Rosy

In my current WIP I have found (without pannning it) that for the first time I have stuck just to one simnghle POV (in third person) whereas normally I either go for omniscient or at least have two or more POVs. And it's because the MC's loneliness and isolation - and her unsureness of what others are actually doing for much of the book - is half the point.

Isn't it revealing when you find you've done something, without realising it, which is just right - your instinct working without you even knowing it is. I've got a narrator in the WIP who is frustrating me, because he's bad at understanding or recognising affect, and also very single-focussed on what's going on. So I'm finding it coming out with very little scope for evoking other's emotions, except by their actions, and none at all for evoking setting...

Horses for courses, I reckon - and this agent ruling out first person as a blanket rule is just plain illogical.

Couldn't agree more. What the agent should be saying is "It's rarely done well, so please make extra sure you're doing it brilliantly, especially on the first page, because we're even more likely than usual not to read further than that..."

Only they won't.

Emma

For me the particular character seems to almost demand how you do it.
For example, when I do a teenaged character I seem to slip into present tense because it seems so immediate, so lacking in reflection, which is how the character is.
When I write from the POV of the vilain of the piece they seem to like first person - it kind of gets to the heart of their selfishness somehow, that it's all about me -ness, that I'm trying to communicate.
To be honest I delve around in each book with POVs in first, third, mixing up tenses etc all of which are supposed to be the kiss of death.
HB x

Sorry to crash in again. Unsure now how to go on with my novel so could anyone advise.

Notice no mention of "I" LOL

No I can't keep it up.

Originally my novel was going to be from the main female POV, but the plot demanded a lot of research into the main male character and the research has shown that his story is the main focus of the book with the most twists. I have tried writing from a male POV and not been that successful.

So I am thinking that it should be told in 3rd person adding snippets of information therefore controlling the suspense. Does this makes sense or am I (is she) not thinking is through properly or should she just get on and write it and find out.

Bev

Apologies as a newby butting in, but this is a subject I'm passionate about.

On the original question, I agree totally with Emma, that what the agent really means is: if you're going to do first person, just make sure it's extra brilliant. The reason for that can be found on the interviews section of this website, where you can see how many editors and agents loathe autobiography masquerading as a novel. That first person has to come across on the very first page (and preferably the first paragraph!) as NOT YOU. It needs to have a distinctive voice of its own, and that is the best fun in the world to write. Going inside someone's head is what for me personally writing's all about.

As a separate issue - Bev, why not follow your instinct and do multiple first person POV? It's a highly acceptable format, and (from experience) just some of the publishers who allow it are: Penguin, Hodder Headline, Hodder & Stoughton, Orion, Virago, Bloomsbury, MacMillan and Harper Collins. Any agent who'd rule all that lot out doesn't know what they're talking about.

Bev, would it be worth persevering with your single male PoV? I think it can take some time to write yourself into someone different in as fundamental a way as gender is, but that doesn't mean you can't get there.

One trick might be to try writing a short story purely as an exercise, in order to try a male PoV: set up a character and a situation which will explore the maleness, and see what happens. Doesn't matter if it doesn't 'work' as a finished story, that wasn't the point. (And it might - some of my best stories started as an exercise). Sometimes it's easier to get yourself to try things out that way, when there's less at stake, than as part of a novel where it's hard to throw yourself into something which you know well might turn out after a long time not to work.

Which isn't to say 3rd person multiple PoV isn't an option, it just takes a bit of practice to get the changes of PoV and moves through the psychic range right. But it gives you lots of scope, as you say, for controlling suspense. Switching single first or third person PoVs is another option, though with less flexibility, perhaps. I do think, though, that if you have more than one first-person narrators you need to make sure that their voices are extremely distinct: I've sometimes woken up (in the readerly sense) in the middle of a novel done that way, and realised I don't know who's telling this bit of the story. TMOL is alternating 1st person, and I had a rule of thumb that at the point of switch, the opening sentence had to have two things it in - usually a name, and always a particularly characteristic syntax and vocab - which keyed the reader in really quickly.

Emma

Interesting points Chevalier and Emma

I have written the first chapter of my novel now which is about the female mc and find that I have written it in first person.

Also I have looked through my hand written notes and most of the time I have written scenes in first person for either main character. So I am going to go with this for now. Thanks for your help.

Beverley.

my hand written notes and most of the time I have written scenes in first person for either main character

I think this is dead right - it's very revealing to look at what you did when you were brainstorming, because it's usually instinctively right.

Emma