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First Person or Third Person?

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Dresdenus Prime:
I've read his journal and even have a copy printed out  ;D Great material in there.

I'm almost wondering if I couldn't try a George R.R. Martin Approach. His Song of Ice and Fire series, while written in third person still only focus on one character per chapter; their journey, thoughts, activities of the moment.

I know for me myself it's a lot easier to read first person than third, although I read through Martins work fine, and I've read the Harry Potter series without any trouble (Of course most of the books are YA). If anyone here has ever read Lee Child's Jack Reacher novels; I read the first one, loved it, it was in first person. Moved to the second, in third person, and kept losing my place. It kept switching up characters and locations to quickly for me to keep up.

So on the one hand I feel first person are where my strengths are, but on the other I feel there's an overabundance of first person UF out there already, but maybe that's because 3rd POV UF sucks lol, I dunno.

Aw hell, I'll just write the book in both.....Coming to a book store near you!!!!..........................in 2017!!!  :-\

the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:

--- Quote from: Aminar on October 19, 2011, 04:09:09 PM ---Personally I can't write first person.  I find it uncomfortable, but my own thought processes don't work well for describing events in first person, I've always made up stories in my head as third.

--- End quote ---

I've always thought of first-person as a convenient narrative construct; the inside of my head does not work like a first-person singular narrative at all, most of the time, there are very very few circumstances in which things are happening in my mind one at a time and there are no standard ways of communicating the sort of parallelism that's more natural to me in text.  Third singular is equally alien, though, so from where I stand there's not that much of a difference.

Figging Mint:

--- Quote from: Aminar on October 19, 2011, 04:09:09 PM ---Personally I can't write first person.  I find it uncomfortable, but my own thought processes don't work well for describing events in first person, I've always made up stories in my head as third.

--- End quote ---

And I have to avoid omniscient third like every plague caused by the Shroud because it always comes out preachy.

the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:

--- Quote from: (FM) on October 19, 2011, 04:37:08 PM ---And I have to avoid omniscient third like every plague caused by the Shroud because it always comes out preachy.

--- End quote ---

But the fun thing about omniscient third is the opportunity to have a narrative voice that's another character.  Preachy's not a minus if you are doing it intentionally as characterisation, IMO.  (Best known contemporary example to come to mind is Lemony Snicket.)

Gruud:
Not necessarily related , or helpful, to your question, but I've found a new (to me) website, and he does a great job of describing what I think (hope) I'm doing ...

This guy calls it 3rd person narrative POV (as opposed to 3rd person limited and 3rd person omnisicient)

http://www.novel-writing-help.com/third-person-narrative.html

At any rate, I've had a real struggle in my head about what I seem to be doing, vs. the 3rd person "tight" or 3rd person "close" POV that everyone seems to recommend, because I thought I was writing somewhat in omnisicient, which everyone has told me is too 19th century and generally won't be published.

But given his examples and explanations, I'm not really doing omni, which is a huge relief, although I will still need to tighten up once I hit the first revision pass.

Somewhere else on the site, he does mention that most (all?) urban fantasy is written in 1st person POV ...

But he (and many others) also repeatedly say, "do whatever best serves the story being told".

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