1st person vs. 3rd person

[Tx Tall Tales]

I write mostly 1st person, but have a few 3rd person stories as well. Actually I just checked and I believe I only have 1 published 3rd person - ouch.

It seems that each style has its own issues. I find it easier to write good dialogue from the 1st person, and that drives a lot of my writing. The more characters you have active in a scene, the more awkward it becomes to keep them differentiated.

Then again, it may just be that I like 1st person erotica better. All three of my NaNoWriMo efforts have been 3rd person.

Why? Heck if I know, but I have to do a whole lot more editing of my 3rd person stories, and they never seem to have the 'flow'. I have three stories on my HD that are at least 100k that are wallowing in plot and flow issues, and 3rd person.

It's probably just habit. Even my 3rd person stories tend to lean on one character a lot. Could be getting beaten up in my writing classes for my sloppy handling of 3rd person omniscient vs 3rd person objective is partially to blame.

 

[__Lisa__]

With third person you get to use he/she and his/her. That's why I find it easier. More variety than just 'I'.

 

[impressive]

As a reader, I prefer 3rd for longer work -- or, sometimes, a mixture of 3rd & 1st (alternating by chapter, for example).

1st for short stroke.

 

[Jenny_Jackson]

I have very limited experience, but I understand the "I" problem. Don't you think a 3rd person story can fall into the she, she, she/he, he, he problem?

It could be there are a lot more options. He, She, They, We, Gwendoline, Rodger, the two of them or some other such.

 

[freshface]

It could be there are a lot more options. He, She, They, We, Gwendoline, Rodger, the two of them or some other such.

But aren't all of those options out there for first person too? Nothing says every sentence has to be about me in first person.

 

[Kev H]

I have composed several stories that are in notebooks in longhand. I recently decided to type up and submit them to Literotica. I'm nearly through the first and i've been thinkinking about the appropriate voice / person for my stories.

As a reader do you prefer first or third person?

I prefer first person when a powerfully intimate view is needed--I want to know everything from the storyteller's point of view (experience this bit of life through his/her "eyes").

For all else, I prefer third person perspective, since it best reveals the vast scope of storytelling ability (limited only by the writer's imagination/skill).

I suggest analyzing your pieces like this: If it's a small, intimate story, tell it with a clever and crisp first person view. If it incorporates concepts (happenings, viewpoints, etc.) outside that narrow perspective, use third person. How you make the reader feel should be a piece of this consideration.

Happy revising.

 

[sr71plt]

With third person you get to use he/she and his/her. That's why I find it easier. More variety than just 'I'.

I/me/mine. No different from he/him/his, she/her/hers.

I'm not against 3rd person (or even 2nd person when it seems specifically appropriate). Whatever fits that specific circumstance. It's just that most of this "ya gotta do one" backs into that statement. First the decision (usually based on superficially understood personal preference) and then trying to find (usually not distinguishing) reasoning for it.

 

[sr71plt]

I prefer first person when a powerfully intimate view is needed--I want to know everything from the storyteller's point of view (experience this bit of life through his/her "eyes").

For erotica isn't it more to important what you can help the reader experience with, ahem, something more sensorially intimate than the eye--touch, feel, emotion? Which, again, would favor the 1st person.

 

[elfin_odalisque]

Wow, I hadn't thought about the porn vs. erotica angle.

Because it's crap. No-one can define the diference but we all claim that DVDs are porn and anything written is erotica [read: literature]

It's good to write your characters so well you can be inside them no matter what voice you write in.

Yes, I entirely agree with you. It's just that most of us can't write our characters so well we can be inside them - neither can a bundle of NYT top list authors.

And in third person all of their sentences start with "he" or "she." If they are going to be minimally developed, they might as well have the enjoyment of narcissism.

No, the advice to us neophytes in creative writing is to take the all-seeing role to avoid narcissism.

But aren't all of those options out there for first person too? Nothing says every sentence has to be about me in first person.

The essential difference between first and third person narrative is 'omniscience'. In a 1st person story nothing can be related except what the protag experiences. It works very well when Patricia Cornwell or sr uses it, but it is an elephant trap for newbie writers her who begin with, 'Let me introduce myself. I am...

For erotica isn't it more to important what you can help the reader experience with, ahem, something more sensorially intimate than the eye--touch, feel, emotion? Which, again, would favor the 1st person.

No, I think that often in erotica writing writers fall into the safety zone of first person to avoid their inability to write convincing emotional and erotic couplings.

sr, we have had our run-ins but I seriously believe that with your talent for creative writing you are doing the guys who ask for advice here a great disservice by assuming they are at your level and understand the psuedo-crap you spout. Jenny's comment at the top of this thread prolly summed it up.

You spout first person, I'll give you a miasma of examples where you are talking chinese.

 

[sr71plt]

And, Elfin, I think you are doing them a disservice in telling them to do it one way only--your way--because "everybody does it" or "this is the way creative writing teaches it." Both of which are sweeping generalization lies by those who show no credentials for giving this "instruction."

Yes, an old argument. I'll keep trying to save new writers from the anal retentive who have more personal-prejudice opinion than training, though.

(And how many times do I have to flatly post that all three of the voices can be effectively used for you to stop saying I spout first person? You're spouting third person. I'm just trying to return to a balance.)

 

[freshface]

The essential difference between first and third person narrative is 'omniscience'. In a 1st person story nothing can be related except what the protag experiences. It works very well when Patricia Cornwell or sr uses it, but it is an elephant trap for newbie writers her who begin with, 'Let me introduce myself. I am...

sr, we have had our run-ins but I seriously believe that with your talent for creative writing you are doing the guys who ask for advice here a great disservice by assuming they are at your level and understand the psuedo-crap you spout. Jenny's comment at the top of this thread prolly summed it up.

You spout first person, I'll give you a miasma of examples where you are talking chinese.

I do understand the difference between first and third person, and I do understand the trap for the new writer. However, there is nothing in first person that stops me from describing, at length, what is happening with/to other people who are in the room with me. "He, She, They, We, Gwendoline, Rodger, the two of them" are all options for me in first person. Just because it's in first person doesn't mean that every sentence has to be about me.

As a relatively newbie writer, I think you're doing new writers a disservice by trying to steer them down the path you think is best. Let them write the story. If every sentence starts with "I" and they ask for help, that's your chance to talk about sentence structure and how to make a sentence more interesting. Discussions such as this one are a valuable learning tool. Everyone sitting around and sagely agreeing that newbies don't have first person in them is just condescending. New writers are inexperienced. They aren't necessarily stupid.

 

[Stella_Omega]

FF, I think you've slightly misunderstood; "I" can talk about he/she et al, but "I" can't talk about them omnisciently.

"I" can't know what happened when "I" wasn't there. I can recount at second-hand what other people have communicated to me, that's about it.

First person omniscient-- that would be an interesting exercise, and I think the plot point would be when the narrator suddenly finds out that she isn't so omniscient after all!

 

[sr71plt]

"I" can't know what happened when "I" wasn't there. I can recount at second-hand what other people have communicated to me, that's about it.

True. For a early-development writer, this can aid them, can't it? One of the advantages of 1st person is this limiting of what they can logically perceive, isn't it? I find a lot of 3rd person work has the problem of straying needlessly from the focus simply because the pull of straying off to extraneous verbiage/description/dangling threads is harder to guard against.

Another frequent problem with 3rd person is in keeping straight when you are in omniscent mode and when you are in the perspective of a single character even if in 3rd person and erroneously flipping back and forth between them.

There's 3rd person omniscent (the narrator all-knowing, all revealing) and there's 3rd person specific/limited (the narrator referring to the protagonist in third person but remaining in the protagonist's perspective). It's not, I think, as easy for an early-development writer to understand these 3rd person options exist and to keep them separate (most often starting out in 3rd person limited and flipping unknowingly into and out of 3rd person omniscent) as it is to understand and keep straight the limitations of 1st person.

 

[SixtyMinuteMan]

Elfin, I'm not disagreeing with any particular point you've made, but you can't just apply them across the board. You're generalizing. Some of us can't write convincing erotica without putting ourselves and our readers inside our characters. And the advice in creative writing classes is to try to write both ways.

My limitations as a writer are manifest, but I think I write emotion and eroticism pretty well from first-person. Certainly far better than I do from third. Third-person smut always comes out like an encyclopedia entry for me.

You just can't make blanket statements about what voice a new writer should choose.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Plus, first-person seems to make motivation much easier, because "I" don't need to worry about other people's motives, only my own.

This is great for writing BDSM from the bottom's POV for instance. "I" get to just let myself feel.

But then we learn about the "unreliable narrator" and that easy crutch just collapses on us...

If you can write first person and still give your reader insight into the other characters, even though "I" might not have much insight on "my" own-- now you're getting somewhere!

 

[sr71plt]

Elfin (and one or two others here) always generalizes and then says it's what everyone does. That's why we are in this perpetual argument.

(the emphasis on "always" was an intentional pun, by the way--using a sweeping generalization to point to a sweeping generalization).

 

[sr71plt]

If you can write first person and still give your reader insight into the other characters, even though "I" might not have much insight on "my" own-- now you're getting somewhere!

This is where skilled (or naturally gifted) showing comes in.

 

[SixtyMinuteMan]

Stella, "I" can also recount what "I've" learned later, assuming the story is written in past tense. It's a pretty standard device, and doesn't require much artifice.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Stella, "I" can also recount what "I've" learned later, assuming the story is written in past tense. It's a pretty standard device, and doesn't require much artifice.

yes, quite true

I'm trying to find an example of that in my own writing, and not finding anything that jumps out at me. This might be closest;

My mistress is anything but cold. She does what she will, in malice or desire, but always in heat. And the trials that I undergo for her are, to her, no more than the games that a little girl had always played in the course of a protracted isolated childhood.

I don't say how I know that, but (hopefully) it's inferred that we've talked about it...

 

[sr71plt]

it's inferred that we've talked about it...

Seems more to me that the inference comes from having observed/experienced it (in the protagonist's perception) before, rather than talked about it. Either way it seems a good example.

 

[freshface]

FF, I think you've slightly misunderstood; "I" can talk about he/she et al, but "I" can't talk about them omnisciently.

"I" can't know what happened when "I" wasn't there. I can recount at second-hand what other people have communicated to me, that's about it.

First person omniscient-- that would be an interesting exercise, and I think the plot point would be when the narrator suddenly finds out that she isn't so omniscient after all!

Stella, did you miss the part where I said, "...what is happening with/to other people who are in the room with me?" An observation was made that third person allows you to talk about other people instead of always I/me. I continue to believe that first person does the same. I do understand the limitations and I don't believe it's appropriate for every story, but I grow tired of people patting the newcomer on the head and telling them what everyone does.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Freshface, yes-- I think we've been saying the exact same thing-- including elfin's original statement!

 

[sr71plt]

but I grow tired of people patting the newcomer on the head and telling them what everyone does.

Amen to that. People who actually do go to those creative writing class will see that, at some point, someone points to the word "creative" in the course title and notes that the greatest rewards are in doing something different and pulling it off.

The "pulling it" off is what comes from writing development (and/or having a natural gift for it). It can't come if you don't write it to begin with or if you write only in a well-dug trench. And if you continually look for the trench "everyone" is writing in, they are the ones who have already pulled it off--not you. (Note to those hundreds of thousands of folks peddling derivative YA Fantasy now.)

If you are a early-development writer here, write what's natural to you and either enjoy it as written or, if you want to hone it farther, start asking questions about what you've written. Whenever you hear the "everyone does" phrase, say "nuts" and move on to someone else for advice. It isn't the voice or tense that makes or breaks a story; it's a combination of all sorts of techniques and devices. Pick the voice/tense you feel is natural for a given story and work on getting all of the techniques and devices into synch--to what satisfies you.

 

[SixtyMinuteMan]

... or, if you want to hone it farther, start asking questions about what you've written...

Okay, that brings up another new writer point: Any advice on the best way to get those questions answered? I'm in the queue in the Circle, but given that I've already posted five stories, it would take until approx. 2576CE to get feedback on all of them. And my thread in the feedback section is getting almost no play.

I thought of asking very specific questions in Feedback, but the problem is that I don't know what questions to ask. I'd just really love to hear what some experienced writers think of my fumblings. It's great that some people are enjoying them, that's very awesome and is of course the point of the exercise, but I badly need to grow as a writer. I'm just not sure how.

 

[sr71plt]

the Circle is your best bet here, I think.

Having said that, I don't think Lit. is really the place to come for informed help with your story writing. I think this is more of a place to post what you like to write to match up with readers who like to read what you write. This isn't the New Yorker.

There was a short-lived movement suggested on the Editors forum a couple of years ago on "editors" going out into the story file, reading stories, and sending unsolicited critiques to the story posters. That would have been anathema for this site, I think. (Not to mention that most of the "editors" weren't likely any better credentialed for editing than the writers they wanted to critique.)