We Call This Writing

Voice, Point of View, & You

VOICE, POINT OF VIEW & YOU

I'm gonna get into this now because someone asked. First person seems to be abound and that's a little scary for the third person writers of the world. Third person can threaten to be boring and distant compared to the immediate reader/character relationship offered by first person.

Let us begin with the benefits and downfalls of First Person narration. There are a ton of reasons why first person might be a good idea. The story might be best told from a single point of view.

There is a certain bias to the main character's perspective. They see the world a certain way, painting characters of traits they don't agree with as bad guys. They could have the wrong information fed to them. Characters can lie to them. The truth is not absolute. This can be both the glory and the downfall of the perspective. If you need what's happening to be crystal clear, then maybe first person isn't the way to go.

The limitation offered by that perspective might serve the story, as the reader discovering the story at the same time as the MC could be very advantageous. This is one of the reasons why Natalie's Diary is first person. It wasn't always, but I wanted the reader to learn all the hints and clues with Jane. The sense of confusion the reader gets is shared by Jane. She knows just as little about the mystery. Her memory isn't perfect. Things briefly mentioned in other chapters slip by her, just like they do readers.

That works for the story. The limitation doesn't work for all other stories, especially if there are multiple plotlines or important details the intended MC couldn't possibly discover. This is one of the reasons I think first person can be less common in action, in mystery, in fantasy. There are often so many things going on that the first person perspective becomes a fight to get information to the MC that doesn't come naturally to them.

Now, welcome Third Person. There are two different kinds. There's limited and omniscient. Omniscient is weird to me. It kills a lot of the strengths of limited. Knowing what everyone is thinking can get boring fast. There is intrigue in the unknown. I'll focus on limited because I think it's a far more dynamic tool.

Third person limited still relies on the perspective of a single character at a time, but frees you to switch perspective characters between scenes without getting really weird like if you attempt that in an unstructured way in first person. The benefits of third person are huge in the right context. When I think of third person being used effectively, I think of Michael Crichton and Jurassic Park. You get a great mix of characters and intentions and limitations with each character. The perspective allows Crichton to introduce the science through Dr. Grant, the conflict through the pudgy hacker guy and the stiff, ruthless competitor of InGen, and there's the vastly different perspectives from Ellie and the kids. And Ian Malcom's morphine fueled rants about Chaos Theory. The different perspectives serve specific purposes. Fear from a kid is different from the fear or an adult. You can feel the opinions working against each other out in the open. You know the villain's hand, you get the foreboding of knowing things are going to go terribly, terribly wrong before the characters do. That is the glory of third person.

But the sacrifice may be the connection to the character. Since third person hops around from different scenes and different plot threads, the emotional throughline is much harder to maintain then when your reader is sticking to your MC the entire time. It can feel dry and boring describing things from a more objective position.

And this is where Voice comes in.

I have written in both third person and first person and I like to think that I handle voice pretty well in both. The trick about creating a connection to character can often be in style.