As much as I love first person narrative, I do have a few concerns that others may wish to comment on.

Firstly, when I write in first person, I always feel my writing comes out like a poor imitation of Holden Caulfield, although this is not what I was aiming for, and the cotext being totally different anyway. See "Double Vision" in the archive section for an example.

My man concern with first person narrative though, is that unless the character telling the story is a writer, then you pass over the chance to use your best and most desciptive prose. After all, it would seem very contrived to me, that your character, unless he/she were a writer, ccomes out with descriptive lines that as writers' we strive for.

Any comments?

I don't think the character has to be a writer at all. I'm a writer, and yet, get me to describe something I see, and the most advanced descriptive words you'll see are things like "big" and "round". Unless I don't like it, in which case I'll describe in great and glorious detail how utterly poor I believe it is...

Yet I know people who've never written a line that are wonderfully "wordy".

It's all about the character you create. If it's some gibbering simpleton, sure, you're going to have to tone your verbose style down a little. However, if it's someone intelligent, they may well describe things intimately as a matter of course.

Cynics are the best in my humbly diseased opinion. Nothing quite like intricately describing something from the upside looking down. From a great height.

IB I love that - cynical perspectives looking from a great hight.
I'm completely addicted to the first person as well. There's a certain immediacy to it, but I also enjoy the games you can play with characterisation. It's very easy writing in the third person to cast judgement on your characters, but when you're writing as them it's always interesting to see how dislikeable you can make them and still keep the reader in their perspective. There's a balance I'd like to achieve one day between holding the reader in a mode of thinking and bringing them to question that thinking at the same time. I think to do this there has to be a kind of invisible influence from the author - a separate entity from the narrator who exists within the text without imposing on it. That's where I like to think description and sensation within a piece can come from, even if it doesn't fit exactly with your character but kind of reflects off them. Hmmm, does that make any sense??

I love writing in the first person, to put myself inside someone's head and see things as they might. You can still describe things in a writerly manner, you don't have to limit yourself, unless of course you create a character who is so colourless that they can barely see or think in any but the most boring way. That might be a challenge though. And if a character was mind-numbingly boring on the outside, they could still have an extraordinary interior life that you as a writer could reveal to the world. Now there's an idea...

Generally, I find that first person perspective lends itself to present tense, and third person to past tense. Dunno why, really - it just feels right!

As a short story writer, I use both, but often find that readers assume my story is autobiographical when written in first person, which can be extremely embarrasing sometimes...! Lol!

Unless you're Jeffrey Eugenides (read 'Middlesex' using first person to write a novel doesn't leave much scope to use other POVs, so third person has to be a safer bet in my view.

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Not sure how the smiley face appeared - substitute a close bracket!

Daryll

Don't know that I can totally agree with your statement that if you use the first person you are restricted as to the type of language the character might use, although I do accept that there may be extremes where the language and the character don't match.

However, I've recently read - and commented on - your Double Vision, and there is no suggestion that the narrator is/was a writer. Yet at the same time there is nothing in the language yu use that looks, feels or sounds out of place - given the character as we know them, and the setting you have placed them in. For example - the morning as grey as my Mother's coat, and the vivid description of judgement day - they both work.

And that must be the test. If it works on the page - and in the head of the reader - surely it must be okay?

John

Thanks John,

I was a little concerned about what may appear to be contrivedness and unrealistic desciptive powers of an 'ordinary' person.

I think my concerns were a little unfounded, that's why the piece 'Double Vision' ground to a halt. I really wasn't sure my First Person POV was either working or believeable.

Darryl

Hi Darryl, I've just read 'Double Vision' and agree with John,.. it doesn't sound as if the writer him or her self is talking to the reader and some of this writing is very good indeed. Where I think the problem could lie, if there is one at all, is in the style of address to the reader. What I mean is that it's intimate, as if the reader were sitting down with the writer, as in 'If you were hoping to hear a story of..' And at the top 'Before I start..' and 'They always say that to actually start writing a book..' I find that to be a forced type of approach and it's tricky because you can start to waffle, explain, justify etc. If you made yourself more distant from the reader and just told what looks so far like an interesting story in the first person do you think this would help? I know that historically there was a place for the 'intimate reader' I thik Dickens did it didn't he and a lot of others? but, do you know what I mean? Hope my take on it is of use.

Becca,

I think I know what you mean, but I'm not too sure how the intimate style is a problem, if you could possibly expand what you mean I'd be very greatfull.

Thing is, one reader liked it because it felt like a story that was being told to her alone. (I think it was Nell or Hilary)

So I'm in a bit of a quandry at the moment.

Darryl

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I think I find the comment particularly interesting because I was planning on starting a re-write on this piece, and was planning on using the intimate sentences. I'm now wondering if I'm heading in a totally innapropriate direction. Comments particularly appreciated.

It is a quandry isn't it? I am only one reader, so what I said is almost certainly a matter of taste alone. I'll tell you what I feel about the 'Intimate Reader' if you like, if that clarifies anything for you. It's that when you have the writer 'addressing' the reader, the reader has no chance to make up his or her mind how closely they want to sit next to you. I wouldn't go so far as to say you have the reader wriggling on a pin, but for me it's not far off. I wondered if you felt comfortable about taking up that particular role. I'm just going downstairs to find 'Angela's Ashes'. Excuse for two seconds.
Here I am. Are you listening reader? Well 'Angela's Ashes' is utterly morbid and just holding the book gives me thoughts of hopelessness, but I'm flicking through now, so don't go away. Most if not all is in the present tense, he just launches right in with the first sentence, 'My mother and father should have stayed in New York where they met and married and where I was born. Instead, they returned to Ireland when I was four,..'
I suppose I mean decide what the real function of being intimate with the reader is about for you, is it just a convention you picked up along the way, or are you using it as a real writing craft tool? Does that make any sense yet? I suppose I find the intimate stance a contrived one. It is possible that historically it served a purpose, maybe, and this is pure conjecture, the authors were trying to replicate oral story telling to make it more recognisable for readers who were not extremely well versed in books. Dickens, after all, was popular fiction. Are you with me?

I think I'm getting what you mean. I do like the idea of giving the reader enough rope to hang themsleves rather than sticking their head in a noose. (innapropriate simlie, but I think that's in the vein of what you mean)

Thank you for taking the time to answer this, I'll have to have another look at this piece and see what I can do.

Darryl

Welcome, I might be off track, but you have to be comfortable with what you're writing and there are some fine moments in it.

My entire first novel is written in the first person, and boy, did it become tough. As an actor, it was an easy role to slip into, but not a journey I'd want to make again in a hurry (at least not for 140,000 words).

People do tend to think it's autobiographical, but to a certain extent, all writing is. Its about our influences and our imaginations, so I suppose there is a lot of the writer on every page.

I overcame the limitations presented by first person, but I ground to a halt a few times when I wanted to explain how other characters were feeling/thinking etc. The whole project, being based on one persons viewpoint, could have easily slipped of its axis.

I used breathing techniques, and 'got into character' before I wrote. It sounds strange, but it appears to have worked.

Hi guys,

This is sometihng that has really been bothering me as I'm working on a novel set in the first person. I too have tried to avoid sounding wordy because in most cases it looks like someone trying to write like they think writer would instead of getting on with it.

I would love to have your comments on the stuff I have uploaded so far, check it out.

Geoff

First person narrative becomes truly intriguing when you start to explore the idea of the unreliable narrator; this works best when a story is told by several voices, all speaking in the first person, and the reader has to make judgements as to the relative reliability of each voice. A superb example of this is The Master of Ballantrae by Robert Louis Stevenson.