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

[nerakrose]

I'm generally more wary of 1st person POV than 3rd person (I see 2nd only very rarely), but I don't dislike it or hate it. I've read some really good fiction and fanfiction written in 1st person POV. I'm wary of it, though, because when the writing is mediocre or bad, it just reads like a never ending really dull and overly detailed blog post, and I just...can't be arsed with that. I just do not care about that sort of thing and never have. And sometimes it's really hard to see where the line between the author's lack of imagination and the intentional dullness of the character. Case in point: katniss' internal thought "the saltiness reminded me of my tears" about porridge she was eating. Author's lack of imagination or katniss' inherent dullness? who knows. Not me, but it doesn't matter as I'm not a fan either way. I don't read boring blog posts. <.<
so yeah, I'm wary. I'm reading the grisha trilogy atm and when I opened the first book and found out it was in 1st person, i had a "sigh, okay, let's see how this goes" moment because I really did not want to sit through a potentially very boring account of the plot. Sometimes, not always, I feel like if the POV switched from 1st to 3rd, the pitfalls of the 1st person POV choice that can make a book boring would be avoided. (I'm enjoying the trilogy btw, the writing isn't the most amazing I've ever seen, but the POV is fine and (so far) it's not boring.)

I prefer to write in 3rd person when I write, I think because I don't want to be in my characters' head. I want to see what they look like on the outside, and try to figure out who they are by observing them and what they do and say. If I'm in their head I feel claustrophobic and like I'm getting all the answers too fast, which then just ends up boring me. If I'm to write about confused characters or whatever, I really need to not be in their head.
(Side effect of being very introspective, perhaps. I know myself very well and am very attuned to my own feelings and inner workings at all times, and I find it hard to relate to/read about characters written in 1st person who don't, and even harder to write them. I get so frustrated! How do you not know how you're feeling??? I scream at characters who think "I didn't know how I felt when he touched me". Gah! Writing them is worse because I feel like I'm making them deliberately obtuse for no good reason at all. Meh.)

I know lots of people hate 1st person POV, but when I've talked to people about it they've all had different reasons that rarely boil down to the POV as the sole reason. 1st person POV doesn't deserve the bad rap it gets, because it can really be amazing when the writing is otherwise good, but the same thing can be said for 3rd person POV, really.

[birdsofshore]

How do you not know how you're feeling??? I scream at characters who think "I didn't know how I felt when he touched me". Gah!

HAHA I love this, it really made me laugh. Yes, I can imagine that would make 1st person very frustrating.

Your thoughts make a lot of sense. I think sometimes I have a short attention span, so a strong 1st person story helps to really grab my attention and root me into the fic. That's a plus for me. The more detached I feel from the characters, the harder I find it. And when I'm writing, I very much want to be in their heads. I don't usually know what my characters are thinking or feeling until I write myself into their headspace, and then it usually reveals itself without me putting much conscious thought into it. I really enjoy that sensation of surprise at something I've just written.

[nerakrose]

Yours do too! It's really just a matter of taste and different ways of working. I envy you a little, though, I have to say - I don't really get that kind of surprise when I try for 1st person POV(or generally in writing). I always think ahead, and if I write in 1st person POV, all the information comes out too soon, or there's too much information... I'm wordier in 1st person POV. Does that make sense? I was discussing this with a friend the other day (she writes 1st person POV always, and we used to roleplay together, also in 1st person POV), and the example I gave was this:

Actual quote from fic I wrote:
"Your beau?" Remus asked, lightly, eyebrow raised. Something in his stomach pinched, but he couldn't quite account for the feeling - not now, in this place, in this time.

"Entirely fictional, of course. Unless opportunity presents itself. What do you say?"

Remus eyed him. "In your dreams." The words fell so easily from his lips, it was a little like he was transported twenty years back in time, a time where everything was easier and at the same time, so much harder.

Same scene if I'd written it in 1st person POV:
"Your beau?" I asked, trying for a casual tone, raising my eyebrow just so. Something in my stomach pinched, a familiar feeling from interactions with Sirius in the past, when we were younger, bolder, more open with each other, but also more jealous, territorial and stupid. Always so stupid. It didn't mesh with the present and I was thrown off kilter for a second.

"Entirely fictional, of course. Unless opportunity presents itself. What do you say?"

I regarded him, weighing my options. I could say yes - I wanted to say yes, but I didn't say it twenty years ago, and I wasn't sure if I should, now. "In your dreams." I took the easy way out. And in that moment I was seventeen again, in love and afraid, but my heart was singing and I was smiling, because he was smiling. The twenty years that had passed between us were momentarily erased to make space for this. I had the odd feeling that we would always exist in this moment, as if this moment transcended time and space.

I wouldn't say one is better than the other. They serve different purposes, i think? If I'd written abovementioned fic in 1st person POV, it'd probably have been twice as long (50k instead of 26k) and more detailed (and would have been structured differently, that fic also has Teddy's POV in it, but not Sirius' and not Harry's either), and it would've been a different reading experience.
Generally I think I just prefer to be more economical with my words and leave more to the imagination by creating a bit of a distance. Leave just enough of a hint that the reader will wonder and keep wondering as the story progresses and I leave more hints. With 1st person POV, there's a lot more out in the open. It's no less tense, but there's a different kind of tension. Does that make sense? I've been thinking about this a lot since you made this post *headdesk*