Thursday 2 February 2012

On the Inside Looking Out - Writing in the First Person

The first person is a difficult gift for a writer, it's a complex knot of challenges and benefits that can sometimes take several attempts to untangle.  It's a brilliant conduit right to the heart of the narrator of your story -- you can monitor every breath she takes (should you want to), every thought that flickers through her mind, her joys, her pain, her preoccupations -- all of them are up for grabs. It's a chance to build an intense, absorbing relationship between the narrator and reader, offering unparalleled intimacy.

All this comes at a price, of course, as today's shed analogy will show...

One day soon, I hope, this will be the view I'll look out on when I'm working: the remains of an old orchard  sloping away to some houses further down the hill.  I'm sure it's an outlook I will come to love, in spite of the fact that it is rather restricted -  I can't see round the corner, or up the hill behind me.  The same is true of the first person -- if you're using it, you'll find it's very difficult to leap into the interior world of another character, so you can only reveal what other people in your story are thinking and feeling through what they say, what others say about them, and how they behave -- useful, but limiting tools.

Another thing that strikes me about this interior perspective is that it is a little dark, a little claustrophobic, possibly even a little oppressive, and you may find that when you are writing in the first person, the inside of your narrator's head may start to feel that way as well. So when you are deciding how to tell your story and from which point of view, weigh your options carefully, so that you know exactly what you're letting yourself in for.

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