McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft
First Person vs. Third Person
Paynesgrey:
I'm having fun with my current effort, it's in first person and I'm not having too much trouble compartentalizing my knowledge from the character's. The biggest thing is avoiding Infodumps, or at least keeping them toned down when they are absolutely necessary. I realize that as the work progresses, I can pluck some of the info out of the dump and salt it into another section where it's needed, thus thinning the original dump... but it still bugs me.
Marie August:
I like Third Person and First Person about the same. As long as it isn't in present tense! That gets on my nerves. It's very distracting.
I write in Close-Third Person. Which basically means that from scene to scene, it is in a single character's point of view. And nothing can be written into the scene that the POV character does not know.
First Person can be deceptively easy. But a lot of writers who write in first person just know how to write in one character's voice (which is really their own voice). If the voice is interesting, and there's only one POV that the author ever writes, they can get away with it. But if they write multiple books with new protagonists that always sound the same, it can get repetitive.
--- Quote from: Zuriel on May 31, 2012, 02:57:12 PM ---I'm not clear on what third person omniscient is. How is it different from plain ole third person?
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A lot of people who don't know anything about writing fall into a sloppy sort of Third Person Omnicient. There are no limitations in Omnicient. The author can be inserting observations in one paragraph that only they would know, and in the next paragraph be inserting thoughts of character A, and then in the same paragraph thoughts of character B. The fact that you have no limitations can make it challenging to write Omnicient in a good way. When done right, Omnicient POV can have have interesting comedic moments with the author narrating their ironic take on their characters (Like with JK Rowling and Georgette Heyer). A lot of fantasy authors, in my opinion, do Omnicient poorly. They use that writing style so that they can ocasionally dedicate a couple pages to information dumping about their fantasy world without worrying if this info actually would be something one of their characters would know, care, or think about.
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
To my mind the real joy of writing in first is when the POV character is totally and utterly wrong and does not know it but you want it to come across to the reader anyway, which is an extremely fun challenge to work with; an awful lot of people seem to take first-person narrators as both inherently sympathetic and inherently reliable, and like any other reader assumption that gives you something to work in contrast to. The Thing I Want to Work On is in one first-person POV, and I am enjoying it immensely. (The Thing I Should Be Working On is in two third-person POVs and I am finding that a bit more of a grind as a format.)
The thing about third-person omni is that the narrative voice becomes itself a character. This can be really effective, as in Alexandre Dumas and his modern avatar Paarfi of Roundwood - I incline to primarily blame Dickens for breaking third-omni as commonly used in English, and inspiring legions of sloppy multiple-third novels with hopping from head to head whenever the author feels like and no surrounding frame structure or actual omni voice. I have only one, way back-burnered project with an explicit omni narrator, and that voice is really something of a jerk, and difficult as heck to make work.
Quantus:
--- Quote from: the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh on June 11, 2012, 06:56:49 PM ---To my mind the real joy of writing in first is when the POV character is totally and utterly wrong and does not know it but you want it to come across to the reader anyway, which is an extremely fun challenge to work with; an awful lot of people seem to take first-person narrators as both inherently sympathetic and inherently reliable, and like any other reader assumption that gives you something to work in contrast to. The Thing I Want to Work On is in one first-person POV, and I am enjoying it immensely. (The Thing I Should Be Working On is in two third-person POVs and I am finding that a bit more of a grind as a format.)
The thing about third-person omni is that the narrative voice becomes itself a character. This can be really effective, as in Alexandre Dumas and his modern avatar Paarfi of Roundwood - I incline to primarily blame Dickens for breaking third-omni as commonly used in English, and inspiring legions of sloppy multiple-third novels with hopping from head to head whenever the author feels like and no surrounding frame structure or actual omni voice. I have only one, way back-burnered project with an explicit omni narrator, and that voice is really something of a jerk, and difficult as heck to make work.
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That sparks an interesting notion: imagine a story that is both. Make the narrator full character that happens to be an Omniscient being, but otherwise make it 1st POV. Like a story told from the POV of Death himself, who is just idly watching the story unfold as while waiting for "his moment"
Its probably been done somewhere, but it could still be a fun read
Marie August:
--- Quote from: the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh on June 11, 2012, 06:56:49 PM ---To my mind the real joy of writing in first is when the POV character is totally and utterly wrong and does not know it but you want it to come across to the reader anyway, which is an extremely fun challenge to work with; an awful lot of people seem to take first-person narrators as both inherently sympathetic and inherently reliable, and like any other reader assumption that gives you something to work in contrast to. The Thing I Want to Work On is in one first-person POV, and I am enjoying it immensely. (The Thing I Should Be Working On is in two third-person POVs and I am finding that a bit more of a grind as a format.)
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Whenever you're reading or writing something in the POV of a character (third or first), they should be an unreliable narrator. It can be a very good tactic in causing the readers to make a flawed assumption, which can then cause the readers to be surprised when a plot twist comes later on. You can foreshadow the plot twist, but have the readers miss it because the POV character did.
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