Writing 1st person POV

[birdsofshore]

I love to write in 1st person. I think I am a little bit hooked on it, tbh. I have been writing 1st person Draco for ages, but last year I wrote a lot of alternating 1st person, and really enjoyed that, too, and then this year I felt compelled to write 1st person Harry. With debatable results, BUT, I still very much enjoyed writing it, and wouldn't rule out doing it again.

My dracotops_harry fic was quite a long 1st person Draco POV, and I noticed a real trend in the comments to talk about the fact that people had liked it despite it being 1st person. This came up again and again, as if it was a complete rarity to enjoy a 1st person fic. Someone also left a bookmark which really made me laugh:

Usually first-persons are stinkers, but this wasn't.

WOW THANKS :D

Anyway, I mentioned to Mr Birds that apparently people felt mistrustful of 1st person, and he was surprised as well. We googled for a list of novels that were written in 1st person, and what do you know, a ton of my favourite books are 1st person. Catcher in the Rye, Jane Eyre, Lolita, Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, To Kill a Mockingbird, Breakfast at Tiffany's, A Clockwork Orange, The Perks of Being a Wallflower are all 1st person narratives. As a reader I find it a stunningly immersive experience, and if the narrator is unreliable or twisted or damaged then I enjoy it even more.

As a fanfic writer, obviously I'm not aiming for anything approaching those novels, but I find writing 1st person an easy way to make a connection, first with the character I'm writing, and then with the reader. I find writing other POVs distances me and the reader from the story that I'm telling. Maybe it's become a lazy habit and I should attempt to get that immediacy by other means, using 3rd person? I don't know. But I feel conflicted - I want to go on writing 1st person whenever it seems appropriate, but readers are telling me that they actively avoid 1st person fics.

Do people mistrust / dislike 1st person in original fic, or just in fanfic? Do you agree that 1st person fics are usually "stinkers"? If so, why? Do you enjoy reading 1st person? In fic? In original novels? Do you write it? Do you avoid it? I have all of the questions and none of the answers!

Comments

[nia_kantorka]

I love to read 1st person pov and even more shunned 2nd person pov as well. Both suck you directly into a person's head and that's often a way better reading experience than more tame 3rd person pov. I really love it as well when the person who speaks in the story addresses the reader every once in a while. Such a great way to shake somebody up. ;p

I try to not dissect each story I read in its parts, but I always remember how much a sorry made me feel.
When I write myself I let the character decide. I've even changed a person's voice from 3rd to 1st person pov to make them more pitiable, and the other way round to make them seem more detached (they weren't, but that should lure the reader in a false feeling of safety). :)

Long story short. I love to read all the narrative styles because they can serve this or that purpose. And more often than not an author needs all the help they can get.

To answer your question: no stinkers at all. LOL

[birdsofshore]

I like 2nd person as well! But I must admit I can be wary of reading that one. I have come across a few stinkers, now I come to think of it. But the writers here at LJ who use 2nd person all do it beautifully. I wrote it once myself and lost my nerve and changed to 1st. I'm still not sure it was the right move!

And more often than not an author needs all the help they can get.

Yes!

and I really love it as well when the person who speaks in the story addresses the reader every once in a while.

Yes! I like writing that! But my betas usually red line it, so I don't think I am doing it right.

[nia_kantorka]

I fell in love with 2nd person pov over taradiane's Not My Boyfriend (http://archiveofourown.org/works/1864809) from 2014's Smoochfest, still one of my all time favourites. It was that brilliant that I had to watch the movie and had to give this narrative a try in my first BDSM fic (kinks work well in that pov).

But I agree, if 1st and 2nd ppov aren't done well (the pov has to ring true in the reader's ears) one hits the back button sooner than while reading 3rd ppov. The latter is more forgiving.

It's interesting to see all the different reasons though why people like it or not. :)

Omniscient narrator. Had to google for examples because tbh I have problems to distinguish between pov switches, omniscient limited, and omniscient narration. Little Women by Alcott and Da Vinci Code by Brown. Had no problems with both of them.
JK Rowling used omniscient limited narrator with pov switches in HP and we probably all agree that she did it well. :)
(sources: http://literarydevices.net/omniscient/ and https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narration). And I still don't know if a pov switch always changes a narration to omniscient limited, but I'm not a linguist so I'll survive without this particular knowledge. ;)

[nia_kantorka]

I fell in love with 2nd person pov over taradiane's Not My Boyfriend (http://archiveofourown.org/works/1864809) from 2014's Smoochfest, still one of my all time favourites. It was that brilliant that I had to watch the movie and had to give this narrative a try in my first BDSM fic (kinks work well in that pov).

But I agree, if 1st and 2nd ppov aren't done well (the pov has to ring true in the reader's ears) one hits the back button sooner than while reading 3rd ppov. The latter is more forgiving.

It's interesting to see all the different reasons though why people like it or not. :)

Omniscient narrator. Had to google for examples because tbh I have problems to distinguish between pov switches, omniscient limited, and omniscient narration. Little Women by Alcott and Da Vinci Code by Brown. Had no problems with both of them.
JK Rowling used omniscient limited narrator with pov switches in HP and we probably all agree that she did it well. :)
(sources: http://literarydevices.net/omniscient/ and https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narration). And I still don't know if a pov switch always changes a narration to omniscient limited, but I'm not a linguist so I'll survive without this particular knowledge. ;)

[birdsofshore]

Thank you, those examples are very helpful to me, and the links!

I read a lovely Snarry yesterday which alternates between 2nd person POV. I thought it was used really effectively. The Chaos of His Stars, currently anon.