First person or third person?

[HareBrain]

First person present tense? "I go..." instead of "I went..." Sounds fascinating actually, though that particular form doesn't always work.

You're telling me. Actually I tried never to use phrases like "I go," rather using stuff like "The gravel crunches under my feet" to give the impression of movement. I tried to get rid of "I" altogether except in passages of reflection. It was a really interesting experience to write. Action scenes were particularly hard, since I had to try to get them to happen in "real time". And it was very difficult to satisfactorily compress time. What is an effective present-tense version of "For ten days we travelled through the Hindu Kush", where you're almost writing stream-of-consciousness?

But when it worked, it was fantastic. There's a five-page section at the end of the present-tense narrator's half which is about the most tense, exciting thing I've ever written, and it's probably the only bit in the whole 250k that I really regret almost no one will ever read.

Could there be a market for present tense stuff? Answers on a postcode please...

I could give you the answer on the back of a stamp.

 

[Boneman]

By Teresa
(ask Boneman, he's a fan)

You said it quietly but I still heard it!!! Slap approaching, but what Patrick said was: in 3rd person he favoured a pov that was just over the left shoulder of the character in the third person who was effectively the narrator - a bit like a camera - he called it a 'window pov'. This was rather than seeing and feeling all the emotions through the third person narrator's eyes. This allowed him to distance himself from the character, but tell his story closely, from what happened to him/her.

Yes, I am a huge fan, (was before all the shenanigans, anyway!) but I will admit to finding that writing my character in 1st person gives me huge insights into what they're really going through, and then re-writing in 3rd person again.

It will be interesting to see how he handles the story when the 'taletelling' is over, and Kvothe swings into action again - not that I know this is going to happen, I hasten to add ( he only told me one thing about a character in upcoming books, and I promised I wouldn't tell...) so I'm in the dark as much as anyone!!

 

[The Judge]

*slaps Boneman* (It's a tough job, but someone has to do it...)

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Next time I'll try for a smaller, quieter font, Boneman. I hate to be the one to lead you into temptation.

However, it is an interesting point about that author-who-shall-be-nameless using a technique to distance himself from the character during the framing story. Whatever it's value, and I am sure that it does have some value or he wouldn't have done it and his editor wouldn't have let him, this may be why some of us have trouble getting into the story at that point. My other problem was that too much of that part was taken up with hints of things of things that had already happened and which would be revealed later. The equivalent of one of the worst traps in first person POV, the dread Had I But Known.

All the different ways of handling viewpoint have their strengths and their potential traps. The key, I think, is in figuring out which technique genuinely works best for a particular story, rather than choosing one simply because it is popular, or because it isn't popular and you'll look daring for trying it and probably reinvent the whole genre. And then, of course, realizing where the traps are so that you can avoid them.

 

[Faraway]

All the different ways of handling viewpoint have their strengths and their potential traps. The key, I think, is in figuring out which technique genuinely works best for a particular story, rather than choosing one simply because it is popular, or because it isn't popular and you'll look daring for trying it and probably reinvent the whole genre. And then, of course, realizing where the traps are so that you can avoid them.

If the original poster would like to go further on this theme, I suggest reading Hyperion by Dan Simmons. A collection of characters are gathered without knowing why, so they recount their life-stories to try to figure things out. Some of these stories are told in 3PV, two are told in 1PV. It works because the book has a main story acting as a framing story in the first part of the book, where it is intersected by these short stories.

I'm not saying this structure would be transferable to the book outlined in the original post, but it gives you the opportunity to study why a writer would choose different points-of-views for different stories.
Additionally, it's a very, very good book.

And first-person is relatively rare in SFF, as you say, and for very good reason IMO - because it's inherently limiting, which goes against what SFF should stand for.

I question this idea. I think it would be an interesting matter to discuss. I would argue that there are sci-fi writers (such as Gene Wolfe) that are able to use 1PV to build and present and give a feeling of their worlds (as well as very tangled plots and different characters) just as well as if they'd used 3PV.

How exactly do you find it inherently limiting to the story you want to tell and the world you have built along with their inhabiting characters? (I'm genuinely interested.) You might be free to do certain tricks in 3PV that you can not do in 1PV, but is the loss of these tricks really inherently limiting? Is it not just a question of style?

P.S. This is coming from someone who very rarely dabbles in 1PV, so I'm not defending my writing style or anything like that.

 

[Laustin]

"Is it not just a question of style?"

Very likely. Note my use of the phrase 'IMO'. The limitations of first-person perspective come from the notion that all interactions expressed within a story told in that style must be filtered through the personal perceptions of the character telling the story. In other words first-person is subjective and thus, in terms of pure storytelling, inherently limiting when compared to the much broader canvas available to the third-person writer. Having said that, third-person intimate as a style is very subjective too, but it can be widened out into almost omniscience which can offer a much more objective viewpoint. In fact third-person can be done in almost passive voice, in that a narrative can be told from no viewpoint at all, just as a series of facts or settings offered to the reader in order to establish a scene.

So I stick by what I say: first-person is inherently more limiting than third-person. But I also acknowledge that this is just my personal view. My particular 'voice' as a writer works better in third-person, and I prefer the freedom of being able to flick effortlessly between different characters' viewpoints in order to tell a more complete, well-rounded story.

 

[Faraway]

Oh I did note the "IMO". Maybe I came off a bit crass when I wrote "I question this idea" when I just meant I'd like to discuss it.

I actually think I misunderstood your first post. If I'm reading you right now, you're talking about 1PV being limiting to an individual writer's particular voice and creativity. I was thinking in terms of whether it would inherently limit any book's ability to paint a wondrous, breathing world by way of the 1PV protagonist's journey - this is what I first think about when I hear "broad canvas" in books.

Sheesh, communication can be difficult sometimes.

 

[Laustin]

"I'm guessing you mean inherently limiting from a the writer's standpoint..."

Yeah I did mean that, but I probably should have said 'from my own standpoint.' Some stories work really well in first-person - Julian May's Rampart Worlds series, for example - though I actually think that particular series could have worked just as well in third-person. Some other series could only work in first-person; I mentioned Robin Hobb's Farseer series before, which I think works brilliantly precisely because it's as much about what the author doesn't tell you - and so of course what Fitz doesn't know, or more likely is too stupid to figure out for himself - as it is about what Fitz thinks. Robin Hobb chose that style deliberately. She then chose to switch to third-person-multiple-viewpoint for the related Liveship Traders series, because she wanted to tell that story differently. She chose to remove the limitations of the first-person style she'd prevously embraced in order to massively expand her world.

 

[Faraway]

It's funny how people attribute different connotations to less defined concepts such as this. When I think of painting a canvas in a book, I just think about the writer's ability to give the reader a very real feeling of the world. I realize you attribute other things to the concept. I wasn't at all thinking of clarity or such.

 

[Laustin]

This subject is a real interest of mine (as you may have noticed Faraway...). In order to improve my own writing I like to study the mechanics of language. The considered use of both the viewpoints we talk about here can lead to very different outcomes depending on both the skill and the intent of the writer. Don't get me wrong, I'm no emotionless machine churning out technically proficient but ultimately soulless pieces of work. I passionately enjoy creating my worlds. But I also have a logical, scientific sort of mind, which I like to believe is a very useful thing to have in my writers' toolkit!

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I think the limitations depend on who the first person narrator is and how much they are willing to tell. He or she may, for instance, be a character with unique insights which are best expressed in his or her own words. If the character chosen as the narrator is the one with the keenest perceptions, then even though you miss out on the inner life of the other characters, if their company is less stimulating than that of the first person narrator that is no loss. Indeed, any moment spent away from the more fascinating narrator would have been a loss. And if the story is told in the past tense, then obviously the events are being described in retrospect, and the narrator can explain things that he or she learned later about events that were happening elsewhere and to different people.

Naturally, it is hard to do this well, but difficulty of execution and limitations are not exactly the same things.