Alright, so say you sat down one evening while having dinner, with a notepad by your side. You started jotting down something that didn't make sense at first, but it started evolving into a "journal" of a fictional character. Everything experienced by this character is relayed in first person obivously... and even though thoughts can diverge and change, there is still one basic storyline. So how do you evoke? How do you make the reader believe the images this character is painting? What if your writing is great, but you are writing as if you are the character, and the character is only 10 or 12 years old? Does that really help evoke the scene or does it simply make the book more easy/difficult to read?
Now, OSC does some amazing things with this kind of writing -- Enchantment and Ender's Game both have dramatically evoking moments where the age and character of the person is reflected in the writing.
In third person, writing comments by a specific character (italicized or other such thing) only grants a temporary look into that character's specific feelings. Now, this isn't a debate really about what is better, first or third person, but rather how we can wield them effectively.
So all in all, this thread has a couple of purposes. Firstly, to recommend stories in first person (and perhaps 2nd?) and authors who write in such a way to get a feel for how this is accomplished, and secondly, to explore methods of writing in first person.
Any thoughts?
Posted by franc li (Member # 3850) on :
The other day I was wondering if I should rewrite my novel in 3rd person, and then I remembered A Farewell to Arms which is first person. I know I just mentioned this in the empathy masters thread, but that's probably because it has been on my mind lately.
With third person, the narrator can get away with knowing more about the forest, but there can be suprises from the trees. In the first person, you know all about the tree but the forest can present suprises.
Posted by Jeraliey (Member # 2147) on :
Your post made me think immediately of Flowers for Algernon.
Posted by Jaina (Member # 2387) on :
I find that, the shorter the story is that I'm writing, the more likely I am to put it in first person. Don't know what that tells you, but there it is.
Second person is really tough, but if you want an example of how it's done well (or at least passably... I'm not such a fan of the story myself, but the POV is well done), you can check out "How to Talk to a Hunter" by Pam Houston. It's short, but it's consistent 2nd person POV.
I find that a climax is harder to pull off in 2nd person for some reason... maybe I just read too many of those choose-your-own-adventure books when I was a kid.
[This message has been edited by Jaina (edited March 03, 2005).]
Posted by wbriggs (Member # 2267) on :
quote:Billy told me today about the people that live in the cellar. I know Billy tells lies. He thinks it's funny to scare little kids.
I'm not scared. I just don't go in the cellar any more, not since I saw the man with the knife.
That seems to work. I wouldn't make it a pretend journal from a 10-year-old -- what 10-year-old keeps a journal that tells a coherent story? -- but if it sounds like something spoken, I think the illusion holds.
Posted by Alynia (Member # 2358) on :
I know a few ten years olds that have some pretty good fictional journals.
However, if you're sitting at the table, jotting down notes and then finding them work their way into the semblance of a story, I think that's all you need right there. A character is speaking. Is it really a 10 year old? Is it someone who's mental age is 10? Is it someone who's remembering what it was like to be 10 when they're 60? Or is it an older sibling trying to frame a younger?
Character reaches depth when you put depth into it. "Go, Dick, go." Has a character, but not much depth.
I think you'll find as you flesh out the story from its draft form, it will take on depth. You're only looking at a rough draft now and those never have much but the promise of something greater.
Just my POV.
<grin>
Posted by VirulentShadow (Member # 2409) on :
Flowers for Algernon! Oh man it's been years since I read that. But ya, definitely, writing in the first person requires a "deeper" illusion of diction and thought processes to be believed... Flowers for Algernon is a great example.
Mmmm... choose-your-own-adventure Goosebumps
Ewww... Hemingway... hehehe I'll look into a Farwell to Arms... I have yet to read it.
Posted by Keeley (Member # 2088) on :
Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms is brilliant, but left me feeling empty about halfway through. It's still on my "I will finish this someday" list.
Also, I don't like the way he writes women, though the dialogue is well done.
Posted by dpatridge (Member # 2208) on :
i've never been able to get past the way he writes stylistically to ever notice anything else... he basically puts most other ramblers to shame on their rambling skills
of course... rambling seemed to be the thing to do back in his time...
Posted by Keeley (Member # 2088) on :
lol. Yeah, sometimes what he writes feels a little pointless. And those stretches of run-ons are a bit hard to read, even though they evoke just the right atmosphere.
What kept me going were the characters. If I hadn't started feeling depressed at the emptiness of the life he portrayed, I think I would have finished it.
Posted by keldon02 (Member # 2398) on :
Maybe lack of negative equals positive?
For Toni Morrison in "The Bluest Eye" her POV as a pre-teen girl worked. It was the only thing which allowed her to tell the story of bitter cultural self hatred without evoking such negative sentiment that the reader would throw the book down in anger. The naivete of POV allowed her to say things which would otherwise have been viewed as racist, sexist, bigoted and taboo.
So although POV may not have been a positive its preadolescent lack of guile toned down the negatives so much that she achieved brilliant success.
[This message has been edited by keldon02 (edited March 03, 2005).]
Posted by Jaina (Member # 2387) on :
Rambling is a pet peeve of mine, which is why it took me so long to get around to finishing Lord of the Rings. I would read a bit, get sick of Tolkien going on and on and on about something that I really didn't care about and end up in exactly the same spot he started, and give up for a week. It was torture, but I'm glad I forced myself to finish. They are good books, if you can look past the rambling.
Posted by VirulentShadow (Member # 2409) on :
You know Jaina... you need to stop being so much like me... lol... That's exactly what I did in high school with LotR. Now though, I have to read them for my class, so we'll see what happens.
Posted by Jaina (Member # 2387) on :
Here's another one for you: the first choose-your-own-adventure I ever read was Goosebumps, in third grade, and all I remember was something about rats and turning into them.
Good luck with LotR. They're good if you can get past the slow. And Tom Bombadil. But Shendülféa knows more about that than I do:
quote: "How typical. Yes, Tolkien, have us read forty pages of Elvish ramblings on the history of everything and then still not have anything decided. Thank you, thank you so very much."
It's fun like that.
[This message has been edited by Jaina (edited March 03, 2005).]
Posted by franc li (Member # 3850) on :
I found Tolkien to be much more readable than folks had led me to believe. I didn't have any trouble with Hemingway, but then I hadn't read any of my assigned reading all through high school.
Posted by Monolith (Member # 2034) on :
I have found an author that does 1st person really well, and to my astonishment, it is a woman. I found her books through the Sci-Fi Book Club.
Her name is Laurell K. Hamilton, and she writes about a vampire hunter named Anita Blake. It is graphic and she's pretty descriptive about violence, but it is part of the story and it helps put the reader in the alternate reality that she weaves so well.
Other than that, I have no idea about an author that does 2nd person well.
Those are my thoughts.
-Bryan-
Posted by Axi (Member # 2247) on :
I think I completely misunderstood this
quote: and to my astonishment, it is a woman
Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :
It could mean exactly what it says. I didn't know that Bujold was a woman for the longest time (it would be a stretch to say I was astonished or even surprised when I found out she was, I simply hadn't cared much). In the first of her works that I read, she used both male and female points of view to good effect. The only sexually explicit scene was from a female point of view, though, and was explicit in a manner fairly different from what that term usually means. But then, I can think of several male writers that have written similar scenes (female POV in an explicit depection of sex that was neither particularly erotic nor disturbing).
Andre Norton, on the other hand...if it weren't for the fact that I've known ("known" may be to strong a term--I had the information in my conscious mind, which is a bit different) she was a woman since before I can remember, I would've been astonished the first time I found out. She's one of the manliest writers of classic SF, possibly the manliest. Perhaps that's a clue, in a way. What man could portray a Norton hero so sincerly? I couldn't write a man that manly, and I'm a pretty darn manly man.
Posted by franc li (Member # 3850) on :
:snort:
Sorry, that just made me laugh.
Sadly, I realize that the only female writer I've read much of is my mom.
Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :
You laugh at my manliness? I'm not even hurt, just befuddled.
Posted by Jaina (Member # 2387) on :
I think it was more your wording that was funny; it made me laugh, too. Maybe it's the thought of "manly men," which led me back to a discussion we had a while back concerning Monty Python's "Lumberjack Song" and the "Dead Parrot" sketch...
[This message has been edited by Jaina (edited March 09, 2005).]
