Every writer has defaults when it comes to storytelling. Mine include writing in third person, outlining my novel ahead of time, and setting my story in a fantasy world. However, when I came up with the idea for my current work-in-progress, it demanded that I forego all of these.
The past year has been challenging to say the least. Sometimes, it feels like words won’t stop flowing from my fingers, but most of the time I struggle with this new writing style I’ve never tried before.
Today, I wanted to put down my thoughts about writing first person. These are simply challenges I faced writing in a POV that I’m not used to, and I don’t really have solutions for any of them. I’d love to hear what works for you.
When I started my current WIP, I had only written very short pieces in first person—all of them responses to prompts and less than three pages. My understanding was that first person is the most natural and intimate way to tell a story. In some ways, this is true, but for me, it presented a few challenges that I didn’t encounter writing third person.
Incorporating Setting in First Person
The first thing I discovered was how difficult it is for me to incorporate setting when I write in first person. Setting details don’t come naturally to me. When I write in third person I have to pause every few pages and consciously work them in, but it wasn’t terribly difficult to do. In first person, however, I get so caught up in the flow of the character’s thoughts that I can’t “see” outside of their head.
This got me to thinking: In real life, don’t we notice our surroundings? When we walk into a room, don’t we take a moment to scope things out?
I think the answer is no.
Previously, I assumed that people don’t think anything of places that are familiar to us, but after observing myself and other people, I think this is true for any place we go to. And I believe this comes from schema, or “biases” in common, modern terminology.
Schemas function basically like this. Since the day we’re born, our brain collects information and tries to organize it into narratives that we can understand. If a piece of information can fit into an already existing narrative, then we don’t think about it. This also means that when we are given a small piece of information, we fill in the rest of the narrative automatically. For example, if I say the word “classroom,” I don’t need to explain to a western audience what that means. So when my first person character enters a classroom, she feels no need to describe it, yet as a reader, I need some detail to ground myself in the scene.
I need to sneak details in there somehow. Perhaps this is where using the other senses comes in.
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First Person Telling
This is a challenge that I was aware of before starting, and it was the main reason why I was hesitant to try. I call it “first person telling” instead of just “telling” because it’s really easy to miss. Regular telling consists of paragraphs of information with nothing actually happening. In first person telling, action happens, the story moves forward, but as readers we don’t experience it.
First person telling is what we use in real life when talking to each other.
“Yesterday I was supposed to work in the garden, but it rained and got really cold. You know how we’ve been talking about global warming for decades, but we’re finally feeling the effects of it now because it’s not supposed to be this cold in June, and I really don’t want to pull out my sweaters…”
You know it’s cold, but you don’t feel the cold. You probably get my frustration at it being cold, but do you really want to feel frustrated? If I continue with my story, I’ll include all of the right details, but I’m still just explaining (telling) things to you. You’re still disconnected from the story; you’re hearing about it second hand instead of experiencing it yourself.
One thing I have realize, which feels counterintuitive, is that good writing has quite a bit more telling than we assume. Show, don’t tell is the first rule we learn as fiction writers that I assumed every word in a published book was showing. But the more I read, the more I realized this wasn’t true.
Chapter one needs action, but readers also need to understand why the characters are doing what they’re doing and what’s at stakes. After analyzing multiple chapter ones, I began to notice that there are, in fact, a couple paragraphs of telling. What’s important was that each chunk of exposition focused on a single topic before allowing action to resume.
Recently, I read a bunch of submitted first chapters, and where they went wrong with their exposition is that they tried to explain everything when they began giving exposition. And as I mentioned before, this is how real-life conversations go. We drift from topic to topic, jumping, circling back. Writing first person, I had to make sure I brought the action to the forefront once my character has her say.
Making my First Person Protagonist Likable
Finally, I struggle with making my protagonist likable when writing in first person. With third person narration, it’s easy to show the character doing something good and leave it at that. But my first person character keeps making comments about her actions. She keeps insisting that her motivations are selfish, and the feedback I get is that she comes across as bitter and unlikable.
I believe this is due to the human tendency to think negatively of ourselves. We tend to see goodness in others, while focusing on our own mistakes and flaws. First person is supposed to most closely represent what goes on in a person’s mind, and even when we project a positive outlook to the world, doubts and fears plague us nearly every moment of the day.
I have not yet figured out how to deal with this challenge. One thing I’m trying is to delete repetitions; not every piece of dialogue needs commentary attached to it. And I’m trying to sneak in small actions to show that she is likable. My first chapter consists of an argument between my protagonist and her parents, which inevitably comes across as negative. To offset this a little bit, I have her choose to go say hello to them when they come home. It’s not much, and I’m not quite sure if it’s effective, but I’m going to keep chipping away at this.
What are your experiences writing first person? What are the things love about it? Do you face any of the challenges I do; and if so, do you have advice? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.