First person writing

[Djmac1031]

I tend to write first person. Because most of my stories are told through a male protagonist, and usually (not always) that male is a stand in for me.

I'm trying to get away from that though, and working on more third person stories.

The upside is Third Person allows a writer to get into various characters heads, not just one.

The downside is; it still doesn't come 100% naturally to me. But I'm working on it.

That said, I see absolutely nothing wrong with First Person stories.

If that's what's working for you, run with it.

 

[alohadave]

When you said “the upside is Third Person allows a writer to get into various characters heads, not just one,” you addressed the issue that I am having now. I just don’t feel that I can naturally, or logically, tell what another character was thinking (or doing outside of the first person narrator’s knowledge) without it being off.

You can alway head hop and go first person for each character that you want to get in there heads.

Some authors like mypenname3000 do it frequently.

 

[Voboy]

When you said “the upside is Third Person allows a writer to get into various characters heads, not just one,” you addressed the issue that I am having now. I just don’t feel that I can naturally, or logically, tell what another character was thinking (or doing outside of the first person narrator’s knowledge) without it being off.

This is the price you pay for using FP. I think it's often outweighed by the benefits of FP, though; depends on the story.

A perceptive first-person narrator can often tell what other people are thinking, much the way we do in our interpersonal lives. You can tell when someone's nervous, or faking, or brittle, or genuinely happy. If you know them well, you can get a sense of what's causing any distress they're feeling.

I would avoid head-hopping. It's a personal bias, though; I guess there are some that can do it well. But as soon as I detect it in a story, I'm out the door.

 

[Gamblnluck]

"Call me Ishmael."

Exactly.
I tend to write often in the first person. Emotions/ thoughts are far easier to express. What you give up is telling the 'other side of the story. You rely on somebody telling the story teller their perspective. The I have 2 novel length submissions. The first "Slave Camp" was a 36 chapter story told in the third person. Each chapter averages 8k words or more.
I did a semi- sequel, using some of the same characters. It is told in the first person. The reason was simply because i started the story from the point of a high functioning autistic (on the spectrum) who found himself being taken advantage of and facing his life being taken over in a conservatorship similar to how Britney Spears was. Now, 27 chapters into the story, it is a telling of how a group of people live in a unique society.

The 2nd person.. 'you' is one that personally grates. I cannot read sch a story. "You walked through the door and sat down." Hell, if I did that, I would know the story.

 

[Gamblnluck]

The one type of first person telling that I have NOT been able to do is have ME as the story teller be a complete bastard. Failings, yes, but not be the antagonist. I think that stems from the line "We are all the heroes of our our story."

 

[Voboy]

The one type of first person telling that I have NOT been able to do is have ME as the story teller be a complete bastard. Failings, yes, but not be the antagonist. I think that stems from the line "We are all the heroes of our our story."

Oh, but those stories are wicked fun to write.

I've found, though, that most of my lowest-scoring stories are the ones where the FP narrator is a dick. Regardless of how much fun I might have had telling those stories, or how carefully I tried to make the character more than just a caricature, the readers don't seem to enjoy being put in the position of relating to a bad person.

 

[TheRedChamber]

Oh, but those stories are wicked fun to write.

I've found, though, that most of my lowest-scoring stories are the ones where the FP narrator is a dick. Regardless of how much fun I might have had telling those stories, or how carefully I tried to make the character more than just a caricature, the readers don't seem to enjoy being put in the position of relating to a bad person.

There's something in this. Of my lowest 6 scoring stories (of 20 and scoring under 4.1) nearly all of them feature characters, not necessarily the MC, who are villanous in someway whereas my top rated stories all have nice normal characters having healthy (if occassionally kinky) sex before sitting down and talking through any remaining problems. Downer ending don't seem to fly either.

 

[KeithD]

If you are obsessed with responses from unknown strangers on an erotica site, I suppose you'd be swayed not to write complex or not-to-sterling characters. Otherwise . . .

 

[Rob_Royale]

My first 3rd person story just posted. I enjoyed using it much more. I think most of what I do from here on with be using that.

 

[SimonDoom]

I did a small survey just of the BDSM category a couple of months ago. I was mostly interested in whether it favoured dom or sub, male or female main characters but in order to classify these I had to look at whether it was first or third person as well.

The relevant data I found (limited to one category, relatively small sample size yadda yadda) was that 60% were written in first person, 18% in close third (what Simon calls free indirect) and 11% in omniscient third (an uninvolved narrator). In terms of score first averages 4.19 and third averaged 4.22, so basically no real difference (interestingly omniscient third when seperated out scored 4.45 but by that time the sample size really was getting small).

Bottom line, I don't think it matters much overall, but I'd say that the voice you choose is important for setting the tone of your own story.

This is good to know.

It's worth noting that among the top 3 stories in the recent Winter Holiday story contest, 2 were in 3d person POV and 1 was in 1st person. There's plenty of room at this Site for both.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

I did enjoy writing an Erotic Horror story from the POV of an immortal hellbeing who feeds on sexual thoughts, in between being sarcastic about London's development over the last few thousand years. They'll definitely get a sequel.

I'm a bit skewed to first person but have a bunch of third too - especially where there's multiple characters I want to show thoughts of.

 

[Voboy]

This is the point where I usually point out that I once wrote a story from the FP POV of a small dog. It was a surprisingly fun challenge. It's currently at 4.62 after about 31 months.

 

[Imstillfun]

The best writing style depends on the story content and the category.

If you are writing for Loving Wives, first-person perspective will rate very low if it's the husband's POV and its consensual sharing or swingers. They want husbands to burn-the-bitch in that perspective. And the LW crowd mostly hates swingers. The most vocal (commenters and raters) among LW readers are monogamous, jealous types, and can't appreciate sharing stories.

The Loving Wives swinger stories with first-person POV from the stud fucking the wife will rate higher, or if it's from the wife's POV.

The main advantage of posting to Loving Wives is your story will probably be read/viewed by twice as many readers than if posted to other categories. Just be prepared for the haters and generally lower ratings.

i write first person female and do pretty well In LW. I agree it’s the most popular.

Lots of haters in loving wives, also lots of fans. If the story is good enough they will outvote the haters.

In LW haters come in first and 1’ bomb you, then the real readers come in.

I have found that with the new format, readership is down in LW. I think my last story only got about 30,000 views. before the format chamge I would get over 100,000.

I think with the new format it pushes new stories off the front page too quickly.

 

[Lifestyle66]

i write first person female and do pretty well In LW. I agree it’s the most popular.

Lots of haters in loving wives, also lots of fans. If the story is good enough they will outvote the haters.

In LW haters come in first and 1’ bomb you, then the real readers come in.

I have found that with the new format, readership is down in LW. I think my last story only got about 30,000 views. before the format chamge I would get over 100,000.

I think with the new format it pushes new stories off the front page too quickly.

I mostly write first-person from the husband's POV.

I wrote the latest chapter 13 from a different guy's POV, so the husband and wife could discuss separately their reasons and rules for being swingers. That story still drew the 1-bombers (now at 3.29 with 97 votes), with two named commenters (regular haters) spewing their usual 'husband's a closet gay and she's a whore' comments.

 

[AWhoopsieDaisy]

I write in third person present tense by default. As an example I offer you Home Run Ch. 01

It's not getting a lot of views compared to the strokers in the category but it still has It's red H.

 

[harmonicks]

I understand the complexities of writing in first and third person but am more interested in the types of stories that readers here tend to prefer. Has anyone noticed if lit readers prefer to hear a story told from the perspective of one of the characters or from a completely uninvolved narrator?

I have not published yet but am working on a series that will either fall in the group sex or loving wives category.

Honestly I think what matters the most is whatever the writer is most comfortable doing, and what fits better within the narrative of the story.

I've only written one story, and it was one where a key part of the sexual tension was based around how both of the two characters felt, and third person allowed me to present the thoughts on both sides. I think I would have really struggled to write the story the way I really wanted to construct it if I had been restricted to the first person view of one of the characters, and just observations for the other character. In effect the third person perspective allowed me to cheat in terms of what could be directly shared to the reader by giving the feelings of both characters, without having to flip between perspectives in first person (which I generally dislike in stories, personally) or only getting slightly more than half of it.

If the story is good or well written, personally I don't really care what perspective it uses, and I'd be surprised if many readers did. If the author is exploiting the strengths of whichever perspective they choose, then it'll work.