Ask an Author: What’s wrong with First Person?!
Oscar Grenfell asks: “I am a young aspiring author, and I find myself instinctively writing in the first person. Is this detrimental in any way, and are there any drawbacks to writing in this form?”
I got all excited when Oscar left this in my inbox the other week (sorry for taking so long – work’s a killer). I didn’t just get excited because someone bothered to ask me a question towards a feature of my blog that I thought was dead, but because it’s a question I was faced with myself and had to tackle. Though, I’m not sure I’ve completely solved it.
The reason the question came to me was because I found writing in First Person so natural and it flowed really well. After all, it’s the natural way of telling stories, long before pen and paper and books. But despite this, most books on the shelves are in Third Person. How can this be?
I asked this question on my forum as well as Louise Bohmer’s (far superior) forum. From my responses, practicing with my own writing and some further thought I’ve got two main points to make about First Person writing and why it’s frowned upon.
Firstly, First Person seems to drag writers into the old trap of telling versus showing. It has a lot to do with the fact that it’s the age old and natural way of telling stories. Think of the way you tell as story to your friend at the pub. Do you describe the detail? Do you show your mates, through articulate language skills, how it was cold/hot/scary/exciting? No, you say “It was fucking cold/hot/scary/exciting!” Then you take this natural voice to your story writing and forget about everything you were taught about the written craft. You still have to show the reader what’s going on and not tell them.
Secondly, and I’m not totally convinced about this as everyone else seems to be, the First Person voice is biased. The ‘problem’ is that you’re telling your story through the eyes of an individual involved in these actions and they’re biased and can’t see the whole picture, see the points of both sides, etc. Also, this Point Of View only sees what the characters sees, and doesn’t allow for outside scenes. In my opinion, multiple POVs deal with that just fine.
Personally, I don’t see the point with the biased Point of View. They argue that you can’t be impartial and you ‘take sides.’ What the hell is wrong with that? They especially make this argument for books with political messages. That’s an even greater reason to have your character actually have a fucking opinion, instead of being vague and wishy-washy. If your book has a message, there’s no point in holding back and you should make your point. Of course, the ideas of your character shouldn’t control it, but the actions as they see it should get your point across. Also, the bias makes the story interesting and you feel involved with the character.
So, I think the first point is clear: Keep to the rule of ‘Show, don’t tell.’ But I’m not convinced by the second point. I think it’s important to make a point, but it’s open for debate and I included it because it’s a common one worth knowing. So, what are your thoughts on it? It’d be good if we could have readers discussing what they think about writing in the First Person. So, I’ve closed the comments and moved the discussion to my forum.
What’s wrong with First Person?! – Benjamin Solah’s Writing Corner
Have you got something you want to ask a writer? I’m here to answer you! Just send your questions to benjamin@benjaminsolah.com with the subject line, ‘ask an author,’ or leave a comment in this post with your name, URL, and question, and you may well see your question answered here.
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