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A point of view
May. 14th, 2010 10:21 pmA matter of view
Recently I was told that I was brave for writing in third person as opposed to first person POV because it was much harder for them to do third person. Most of my work has been in third person limited, with only a few pieces being in first person because I find it harder to write in first person.
For starters the biggest problem I have is that I don't know who the protagonist is speaking to. Obviously they're speaking to someone otherwise they wouldn't be using the "I" pronoun. If they're speaking to someone they know then it's sort of silly all the things they have to explain that the 'reader' doesn't know. It's a sort of "As you know Bob" for me. Especially when they use descriptions to describe people. It can get a bit flowery sometimes. Usually when talking to someone you don't give a full body description of a person you mention.
If I am going to say something about my brother in conversation to someone whose never heard of him I would still say, "My brother, name, did such and such" as opposed to "My brother, name, who though younger than I am, is a good four inches taller causing many people to mistake him for being the elder of us. He's got the tight curly hair that would poof out into an cotton ball as opposed to falling straight if he were to grow it long and gray blue eyes. He did such and such." It just feels awkward to me to write.
Never mind trying to get the protagonist's name into the story in a smooth manner. Again since the protagonist is supposedly talking to someone, the someone should already know their name so they wouldn't introduce themselves. In fact it's entirely possible that the entire story could be told without the reader ever knowing the protagonist's name. Usually, this is rectified by someone else calling them by their name or them talking about their name. But who actually talks about their name in real life? Unless they're a complete egotist.
That's another thing that bothers me about first person povs, it makes the speaker sound rather egotistical in that they are assuming that the listener wants to know every detail about their lives. They're just that interesting.
And then I just realized that I'm rambling on here in first person, using 'I' like they're pennies. But then again, I'm giving an opinion piece. This is all my lovely personal opinion. It's getting filtered though my own personal bias. Which is also true about first person narrators. It gives you an excellent opportunity for unreliable narrators.
But, I don't really like them. If I'm being told a story, I want to be able to trust that it's true otherwise it just feels fake (duh). Almost like a 'it was all a dream' endings. Of course we can't always know that it's an unreliable narrator.
With third person however, it feels more natural to me to add in such things as what a person looks like because it's like telling a story. You're painting pictures. You're giving a report of what is in reality. You're not expecting the reader to know things because they're not part of the world. You're making it up, you're not holding a conversation.
I actually had a lot more to say on this, but my brain went blank in the intervening days since I got back to it.
Recently I was told that I was brave for writing in third person as opposed to first person POV because it was much harder for them to do third person. Most of my work has been in third person limited, with only a few pieces being in first person because I find it harder to write in first person.
For starters the biggest problem I have is that I don't know who the protagonist is speaking to. Obviously they're speaking to someone otherwise they wouldn't be using the "I" pronoun. If they're speaking to someone they know then it's sort of silly all the things they have to explain that the 'reader' doesn't know. It's a sort of "As you know Bob" for me. Especially when they use descriptions to describe people. It can get a bit flowery sometimes. Usually when talking to someone you don't give a full body description of a person you mention.
If I am going to say something about my brother in conversation to someone whose never heard of him I would still say, "My brother, name, did such and such" as opposed to "My brother, name, who though younger than I am, is a good four inches taller causing many people to mistake him for being the elder of us. He's got the tight curly hair that would poof out into an cotton ball as opposed to falling straight if he were to grow it long and gray blue eyes. He did such and such." It just feels awkward to me to write.
Never mind trying to get the protagonist's name into the story in a smooth manner. Again since the protagonist is supposedly talking to someone, the someone should already know their name so they wouldn't introduce themselves. In fact it's entirely possible that the entire story could be told without the reader ever knowing the protagonist's name. Usually, this is rectified by someone else calling them by their name or them talking about their name. But who actually talks about their name in real life? Unless they're a complete egotist.
That's another thing that bothers me about first person povs, it makes the speaker sound rather egotistical in that they are assuming that the listener wants to know every detail about their lives. They're just that interesting.
And then I just realized that I'm rambling on here in first person, using 'I' like they're pennies. But then again, I'm giving an opinion piece. This is all my lovely personal opinion. It's getting filtered though my own personal bias. Which is also true about first person narrators. It gives you an excellent opportunity for unreliable narrators.
But, I don't really like them. If I'm being told a story, I want to be able to trust that it's true otherwise it just feels fake (duh). Almost like a 'it was all a dream' endings. Of course we can't always know that it's an unreliable narrator.
With third person however, it feels more natural to me to add in such things as what a person looks like because it's like telling a story. You're painting pictures. You're giving a report of what is in reality. You're not expecting the reader to know things because they're not part of the world. You're making it up, you're not holding a conversation.
I actually had a lot more to say on this, but my brain went blank in the intervening days since I got back to it.
