An Alphabet of Better Writing - # F

F is for...First Person

Should writing in the first person be your first port of call? All of us experience life in the first person -- obviously -- so in many ways the logical point from which to tell a story should be just that, the first person, or "I".

You'd think so, wouldn't you?  But it isn't quite as easy as that. There a few pitfalls associated with going down this route -- mainly that it is easy to sound gauche.  I think often people assume that the intimacy afforded by writing as "I" can be a substitute for fully realised characterisation.  You need to inhabit every nook and cranny of the character you are creating; your chief tools for bringing them to life will be their thoughts and actions and words, everything has to originate from the character themselves.  You won't be able to view them from the outside, so will be denied useful additions such as what other people think about them (unless this is conveyed to them in speech). This means you have to work harder and in a more concentrated way.

Not only is it easy to skimp on characterisation, assuming that just by using the first person it is automatically done for you, there are structural challenges to contend with too. An omniscient narrator telling the story from the point of view of "he" or "she" can describe events from any point of view, flitting from hero to heroine to bit part player, so that each one has their moment in the spotlight and the plot can be related in a flexible and  varied way.  The first person narrative doesn't have that luxury, you are confined to a single viewpoint.  This can raise all sorts of issues - how does your heroine describe something unless she is there when it happens,  or it is described to her, (but here you risk losing immediacy). There may be moments in the plot which actively demand that she isn't present - then what?

The first person is (weirdly) both liberating and constraining to use.  If you are writing a character-based, reflective book, then the opportunity to go ever deeper into somebody's psyche is probably hard to resist.  If you are writing a pacy action thriller, then you might find that the flexibility of the third person is easier to handle.  Either way, don't underestimate the difficulty of writing as "I" - it isn't a short cut to anywhere at all, if anything it makes you go the long way round.

I haven't shared a door with you for ages, so here's a particularly beautiful one to make up for it ...