On December 9, 2023, Kasie and Rex revisited Point of View (POV) with a discussion on the first person narrator. Here are the show notes:

Theme for the day

To First Person Narrator or Not?

Agenda

• Quick Catch Up
• What is a 1st person narrator
• Strengths and Weaknesses of the 1st POV
• How to decide if 1st POV is right for you

listen to the podcast

Segment 1

Couple of paired episodes this week and next. The 1st POV and the 3rd POV to finish off the craft part of the year. Then we’ll have a listener appreciation episode, with a very special patron of the show live in the studio. If you’ve got thoughts to share with us, fill out THIS FORM and tune in on the 23rd to see if we read your responses on the air.

Special thanks to the South Carolina Writers Association for supporting Write On SC all year long. We’re grateful to them and glad to promote the SCWA as the place to go to improve your own writing, learn more about the craft and publishing, and join a community of writers here in South Carolina. Learn more at myscwa.org.

Borrowing some from Episode 56 (can you believe it’s been that long ago?): There are basically three kinds of narrative perspective: first, second, and third person. Some of the more interesting versions include collective first (“we”) and epistle second person (letters) and omniscient third (all-knowing).

Segments 2 & 3

Strengths include intimate knowledge of the narrator and (presumably) the protagonist. First person means we’re in the narrator’s head and see things through his or her perspective. This means readers are acutely aware of decisions, risks, worries, and stakes.

From the beginning of the book, the reader builds a relationship with the narrator (this link) and that narrator is the only lens the reader can see the story through. This is a tremendous amount of power for the first person narrator. Clever authors will introduce bias, unreliability, and other quirks of individuals that shift the reader a little bit.

Weaknesses are of the same variety — because we’re so close to the narrator, we can get fatigued by the proximity, and a single person can only see a limited amount of the story. That limitation can be a deciding factor in a common alternative of the first person: multiple narrators.

Examples of great 1st person narrators (some from this link):

Holden Caulfield

Doctor Watson

Esther Greenwood (The Bell Jar)

Mark Watney (The Martian)

Wade Watts (Ready Player One)

Huckleberry Finn

And here’s another list.

What about the collective first person – that is, multiple people writing as one “we” narrator. It doesn’t specify how many there are – although Shakespeare’s Sisters we know is three daughters of the same literary professor – but the neighborhood boys in The Virgin Suicides could be three or nine.

Some examples:

Shakespeare’s Sisters

The Virgin Suicides

The Book Thief

Here’s an example story published in its entirety “Some of Us Had Been Threatening Our Friend Colby” by Donald Barthelme. And another blog about it (I found two in crime literature).

Advantages and disadvantages?

Segment 4

Borrowing again from Episode 56:

So how do you choose? Here’s one blog of advice. Highlights: Who’s carrying the camera? 

When we think about choosing who will tell the story we need to ask “Who’s story is it?”

Here’s another blog of 7 steps to choosing: choose the level of knowledge you want your narrator to have, choose what point in time you’re writing about, and how many narrators you will have.

Here’s another blog with 6 tips — except the blog doesn’t actually number the tips so that’s awkward. Highlight (spoiler): the closer the narrator, the less of the author should show.

What are some reasons you’ve chosen a first person POV?

What are some reasons you’ve rejected that?

Next week: Third Person POV.