First-person narration

[Gallio]

On rereading my WIP, I'm thinking it would work better with first-person narration.

What do you think of this approach?

Do you find it off-putting/ Inappropriate for fantasy? Outdatedly Dickensian? Too contrived?

 

[Jackarandajam]

Fight Club comes to mind as a great (and very popular) modern example of this.
Mr. Palahniuk is a fan of carefully mixing tenses and perspectives; he gives part of the last scene first, so 95% of the book is technically backstory but written mostly in present tense. The MC is "remembering," so occasionally the tense switches to past for information, then back to present for action.
He also throws in "you" occasionally, second person perspective, to mimic the way people really tell stories.
If you haven't read it it or haven't read it in a while, I recommend it as research.

Short answer: yeah, First Person Narration is fine if done well.

Remember to hide the "I" and "me" as often as possible too. The fewer those words are used, the better.

 

[Finchbearer]

On rereading my WIP, I'm thinking it would work better with first-person narration.

What do you think of this approach?

Do you find it off-putting/ Inappropriate for fantasy? Outdatedly Dickensian? Too contrived?

First person is very current. Not contrived at all…if done well. That’s the hard bit.

 

[Gallio]

Fight Club comes to mind as a great (and very popular) modern example of this.
Mr. Palahniuk is a fan of carefully mixing tenses and perspectives; he gives part of the last scene first, so 95% of the book is technically backstory but written mostly in present tense. The MC is "remembering," so occasionally the tense switches to past for information, then back to present for action.
He also throws in "you" occasionally, second person perspective, to mimic the way people really tell stories.
If you haven't read it it or haven't read it in a while, I recommend it as research.

Short answer: yeah, First Person Narration is fine if done well.

Remember to hide the "I" and "me" as often as possible too. The fewer those words are used, the better.

Thanks -- that's encouraging. I haven't read Fight club, but will seek it out now.

First person is very current. Not contrived at all…if done well. That’s the hard bit.

If, as you say, done well.

 

[The Dark One]

Two thirds of my novels are 1st person and I'm comfortable with it.

The challenge is that the reader is always privy to the innermost thoughts of the narrator, but there are two provisos... you can use 3rd person (or even alternative 1st person) if you want to portray scenes the narrator doesn't know about. And the narrator doesn't have to be reliable.

Lots of potential fun there.

 

[Gallio]

Or perhaps two different narrators, like in 'Left Hand of Darkness'.

But I think, if I do this, I'll stick to one narrator. He can report what other characters tell him about events he hasn't personally witnessed.

 

[Finchbearer]

Often in great 1st person books (Handmaid’s Tale l) you forget about the tense.

 

[The Dark One]

Or perhaps two different narrators, like in 'Left Hand of Darkness'.

But I think, if I do this, I'll stick to one narrator. He can report what other characters tell him about events he hasn't personally witnessed.

Or you can just switch to 3rd for scenes the narrator isn't present.

Works for me.

 

[Gallio]

Or you can just switch to 3rd for scenes the narrator isn't present.

Works for me.

Thanks, I'll keep this in mind as a possibility.

 

[The Dark One]

It's a really good way of letting the reader know stuff the MC doesn't.

 

[Incanus]

Or you can just switch to 3rd for scenes the narrator isn't present.

Works for me.

I may be old-school on something like this, but if done this way, the book would not technically be in First-person POV, it would be multiple POV.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Anything can work, and without seeing the work in question, it's hard to tell. I'm currently working on a head spinner for my editor where, from paragraph to paragraph, I'm switching between 1st, 2nd, 3rd Limited/Intimate, and 3rd Omniscient and varying present and past tense. So far, alpha readers have seemed to catch on pretty quickly and roll with it. But, the whole book doesn't do that. If that insanity works, then 1st is a cakewalk. The biggest question is if the story loses anything important from the change of presentation. Oftentimes, 3rd Intimate can damned near be swapped for 1st person, the main issue being that multiple POVs won't pass muster with many people, because it's tricky as hell to vary your 1st person narratives to sound like different people on a consistent basis.

 

[The Dark One]

My second completed novel (back in 2002) was very complex. The subtext was very much about identity and gender and there were multiple 1st POVs. It was so complex the POV could change mid-sentence.

My way of dealing with that was to write the different voices in different fonts, and on paper it worked.

Alas, the small ebook-only only publisher who took it on could only do two fonts - so all the careful editing went out the window once they uploaded. The publisher lasted about a year in business.

It had some great ideas but what a mess. A few people rated it 5 stars. God knows how they made sense of it.

 

[Finchbearer]

I’ve found it difficult to segue into another tense when writing in first person, it just feels felt like too much of a departure from the story. Not saying it can’t be done well, but when I read a books series not that long ago, where the first book was all first person, it then felt like it got messy when in subsequent books the tenses and perspectives were all changed up.

 

[Prince of Spires]

The POV you pick matters very little in my opinion. As, they can all work. Robin Hobb uses first person POV masterfully in the Farseer Trilogy.

In my opinion, the main things are that you need to stay true to the POV, and that you should use them to their strength. 1st person is very intimate. You're very much into the characters thoughts and feelings. If you don't dig into that, then pick a different POV.

3rd limited if done well is very close to first. You can in some instances change I for he/she and it works. 3rd limited is a bit more distant, but with that, it also offers you a chance to step away from the POV character a bit more. While technically you shouldn't do it, you can get away with showing something the character can't see or notice in third limited, which you can't in first person.

If you're going with multiple POV's, then I would personally stick to third, unless you really know what you're doing. Switching it up tends to jerk the reader out of the story. The charm of first person is that you're along for the ride with the protagonist. You're experiencing their story. Throwing in different POV's removes this facet.

 

[Gallio]

If that insanity works, then 1st is a cakewalk. The biggest question is if the story loses anything important from the change of presentation. Oftentimes, 3rd Intimate can damned near be swapped for 1st person, the main issue being that multiple POVs won't pass muster with many people, because it's tricky as hell to vary your 1st person narratives to sound like different people on a consistent basis.

First, thank you for your comments. They have helped me to understand why I think the change might work.

"If that insanity works, then 1st is a cakewalk." I can imagine! What is the title of your book? I'd like to read it.
"Oftentimes, 3rd Intimate can damned near be swapped for 1st person," This is exactly why I began to think I should change, though I hadn't verbalised it as clearly for myself. About 90% of the book is intimate 3rd person, focusing on a single MC.
"multiple POVs won't pass muster with many people," There will be three at most. I'm going to try to keep it to one, especially as the motives of characters 2 and 3 are meant to be obscure to Mc, and to the reader, until the reveals.

 

[Gallio]

I’ve found it difficult to segue into another tense when writing in first person, it just feels felt like too much of a departure from the story. Not saying it can’t be done well, but when I read a books series not that long ago, where the first book was all first person, it then felt like it got messy when in subsequent books the tenses and perspectives were all changed up.

Tense should not be a problem -- it's all reminiscence. But I see what you're saying.

 

[Gallio]

I may be old-school on something like this, but if done this way, the book would not technically be in First-person POV, it would be multiple POV.

Well, as I've said in my reply to Demesnedenoir above, at least 90% of it will be from a single character's POV.

 

[Finchbearer]

Tense should not be a problem -- it's all reminiscence. But I see what you're saying.

I’ll explain a bit better, or try to. First books was all first person. Subsequent books carried on the first person perspective of the main character but then there were some strange ad hoc chapters that were from the perspective of other characters taking me out of the narrative.

One example I often take note of is from Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan quartet. The entire four books are told from the perspective of the narrator, who tells a retrospective story of a life long friendship. We only ever hear about her friend from the narrators perspective and consequently her friend becomes this enigmatic person who you just want to know more about. I read in an interview with Ferrante that she had originally written entire sections of the books from the friend’s perspective, but throughout the editing process she found the books far more powerful by keeping to first person. Sometimes it’s about knowing what creative decisions to make for the sake of the story, which I find hard to do to be honesty especially when I’m so attached to various characters.

 

[Gallio]

My second completed novel (back in 2002) was very complex. The subtext was very much about identity and gender and there were multiple 1st POVs. It was so complex the POV could change mid-sentence.

My way of dealing with that was to write the different voices in different fonts, and on paper it worked.

Alas, the small ebook-only only publisher who took it on could only do two fonts - so all the careful editing went out the window once they uploaded. The publisher lasted about a year in business.

It had some great ideas but what a mess. A few people rated it 5 stars. God knows how they made sense of it.

I have no ambition to be as complex as that! A straightforward 1st-person narration like Brideshead Revisited or The King Must Die is what I'm aiming for.
(If I could write half as well as Waugh or Renault, I'd feel very proud of myself.)