By my calculations I have read or listened to (Pod Casts) 143 short stories since January of this year. Give or take a dozen.
This count is from the genres SF, Fantasy, and Horror. Of these many stories, my guestimation is that close to 35 percent were first person narratives. I think this estimate is a little low, and I may actually delve into the scientific method to establish some precise figures. Also the percentage in Horror seemed much higher, perhaps over fifty percent.

So to the point I am trying to make here. There is definately a trend for 1st person. I have read great good, not-so-good, and terrible, but there is no doubt that it is a large percentage of published stories. So I feel that we are essentially handicapping ourselves by limiting our work to third person.

I am not saying write every story in first. I am simply encouraging you all to explore this if you are comfortable in doing so, and don't limit yourself out of an opportunity due to extraneous advice which, to me, seems to have no meritable origins.

Practice it, if you are so inclined. It could offer you more pub potential, and at the very least can be an excercise in creativity.

-The End-

Yeah, bent. I just red yer post and wrote me up a flash fiction piece usin "I" alot. You wouldn't believe it, but I got a response almost befer I got back to me mail box. It said they wanted to consign my story.

I've just had trouble conveying necessary information and creating empathy with the central character without doing first person of late.

1--the risk of bragging, or appearing to brag, which can be avoided if the "I" narrator takes the approach of "this is what I learned through sad experience" instead of "this is the wonderful thing I did" (of course, not all first person stories do either).

quote:

---

I've noticed this as well, however there is a difference between listening and reading a short story.
I think 1st person fits well with spoken word because it is like listening to a person's account of an event.

---

You're right about that. All the podcasts as skewed even more in that direction.

June Analog
3-first
3-third
April Analog
2-first
4-third
March Asimov's
3-first
5-third
October Intergalactic Medicine Show
0-first
7-third
January Intergalactic Medicine Show
3-first
4-third

As mentioned this is spoken and horror so I am sure they are biased towards 1st person which shows. I didn't toil through every MS, but I got enough to give an accurate portrayal, I think.

Also consider the fact that they buy first audio rights and for the most part accept only stories which have been previously published. Most of these are pro and semi-pro pubs. I could not find a "previouly publicated" in a publication that I did not consider reputable.

1-first
4-third

I didn't count novlettes or novellas

I've been toying with making my novella 1st person because it's all from Wyatt's POV. I have even caught myself slipping into 1st person and then changing it to 3rd to match what I've already written.

Volume One

Hell-Horror
2-1st
1-3rd

Uranus-SF (With one being a story from our very own Skadder)
2-1st
3-3rd

Woody End-Fantasy
1-1st
0-3rd

Volume Two

Woody End-Fantasy

I've heard that more new writers tend to write in first. So maybe what we're seeing is the result that more submissions are in first. Assuming, of course, that there are more submissions. Or at least each magazine is getting proportionally more submissions, which may be logical considering many publications have disappeared (less venues = more submissions per venue, assuming number of submissions hasn't decreased.).

63-1st
66-3rd

That is pretty close and more than a handful of 1st person accounts.

3-1st
1-3rd

I'll come back and edit this to include a link to the post once I've posted it.

Okay, the Writers Reality Check topic is here.

I just think perhaps it has become almost taboo to many of us new writers.

Here is the Count from the 24th Annual edition of "The Years Best Science Fiction"

If you take out the podcast and lower tier publications, you come up with very different statistics.

I'm not saying not to write in 1st person if that's what you want to do or if you think that's what the story calls for. But I think advocating doing so is questionable advise as is telling people not to.

First person point of view when done well is great, but it isn't as easy as some new writers may think. I guess it looks easy, though.

One thing writers might want to try is writing the first draft in first person, then going through and editing it so that the second draft is in third person, and see which you like.

quote:

---

I said that I had seen only a handful,

---

Oops, I didn't mean to flay with my comment. I think it was subconcious. Truth be told. The fact that you don't recall that many raise questions in my mind about "Is this a matter of preference" Did you peruse intros and read what you are interested in?

Not to speculate, which I seem to be doing alot of this morning. But could this be the very conditioning of which I speak. I don't mean to make you a case study, but I only have you in this thread to compare notes with currently.

I used to be set against it. In fact many of the counts in these publications, I ignored for the fact that they wer in 1st person. I of course, was even greener than I am now, but that aspect set the wheels of thought in motion. It is were I first noticed how many were in this style.

Now, I read, and sometimes toil through stories that I am not interested in, because I find that it has helped me improve my craft. I tend to go about it in a more analytical fashion now.

I read previous Nebula and Hugo winners and a few top tier Pro publications. I don't edit my reading choices for person. Some are first person--but these are writers who choose first person because they think it's best for that story not because it looks easy.

I'm going to post a little "lecture" from Eric Flint from the JBU slush on the subject. I can't link to it because that's a password protected site. I think this is as good a discussion as I've seen from someone who is not only a top writer but also a top editor. I take his advice very seriously.

quote:

---

From: "Eric Flint"

I've noticed that a lot of the stories that Paula and the editorial board have been sending me to look at are written in the first person instead of the more common third person narrative style. The phenomenon has gotten pronounced enough that I figured I ought to give everyone some general advice.

The main piece of advice is that it's usually a bad idea to use the first person. There are a few authors, like Keith Laumer, for whom that voice came naturally; and a few others, like Robert Heinlein, who could move back and forth with perfect ease from first to third.

Most authors can't and don't. I'm talking about very well-established authors, mind you. If you take a quick look at the writings of any of the following current authors, you will find few instances where they chose to write in the first person:

David Weber
David Drake
Lois Bujold
Misty Lackey

-- or me, for that matter. I've published over twenty novels and only one of them was written in the first person, with a second switching back and forth between a first person and a third person viewpoint.

If you look back through the history of SF -- or most forms of fiction except possibly mystery stories -- you'll find exactly the same thing. Tolkien, Clarke, Asimov, Poul Anderson, you name it. Yes, there are _some_ authors who handle the first person superbly well. But not many.

There's are several reasons for that. Newbies tend to think that first person is easier to write in, but it actually limits your viewpoint quite sharply -- and very few newbies can handle that limit well. For that matter, very few authors can, period, newbies or not. The sort of mild blurring of viewpoint that is not a big problem with third person narrative sticks out like a sore thumb in first person. It's a very unforgiving narrative voice.

The second problem is that, in the nature of things, a first person narrative sticks the _narrator_ directly in the eye of the reader. Whereas, with the third person, the narrator tends to fade into the background and is far less obtrusive.

That's fine -- IF your narrator is intrinsically a very interesting narrator. But, being blunt, most aren't. Most are just generic protagonists, with enough in the way of distinctive traits to make them stand out but not enough to make their constant narrative ruminations very interesting. In most stories, with most protagonists, what the reader is really interested in is what they DO and what they SAY -- not what they think, except from time to time.

And that leads me to the third problem, which is that using a first person narrative voice almost invariably (especially with inexperienced authors) leads down a steep and slippery slope called "the clever quips" and/or "the pointless asides."

Shakespeare could pull off asides to the audience in his sleep. You are probably not Shakespeare. What usually happens is that the writer gets wordy and starts peppering his narrative with all sorts of extraneous material that, even if it's mildly witty or interesting in its own right, just gets in the way of the STORY.

This is just a piece of advice on my part, that's all. It is in no sense a "Rule." I have and will buy stories written in the first person, if they're good enough. But, most times, I think authors are saddling themselves with an extra burden by choosing that narrative voice.

Here's a general rule of thumb that I recommend everyone use if you're trying to decide whether to use the first or third person narrative voice.

If you've written the story in the first person, go through it line by line. If you discover, over and over again, that the story works perfectly well just by changing "I" to "he" or "she"...

Then rewrite it in the third person. The first person voice is simply cumbersome and extraneous -- and pointless.

I'll end by discussing the one major exception in my own career where I deliberately chose the first person. That was THE PHILOSOPHICAL STRANGLER. I chose the first person because in that story, Ignace's thoughts and ruminations and grouses and commentary _is_ central to the story. If you were to do a line-by-line dissection of that novel, you'd see that I _couldn't_ simply swamp "he" for "I" and have it work.

But most times, you can -- and, that being so, why are you screwing around with this intrinsically intrusive and risky narrative voice?

Eric

Copyright Eric Flint

---

Edit: Blech--hope posting that is all right, Kathleen. If not I'll delete it. I don't think it violates any copyrights since it was a post in a news group.

The comment that I thought was the most important and most telling in his comments was this one: It's a very unforgiving narrative voice.

[This message has been edited by JeanneT (edited July 16, 2008).]

Chronicles of Amber are all written in first person... Not sure if anyone mentioned that, yet.

quote:

---

If you take out the podcast and lower tier publications, you come up with very different statistics{

---

Yeah, you are right.

19-1st
33-3rd

But with the exeption of the podcasts, these all offer pro rates so I wouldn't consider them a lower tier. In fact, most of those on Podcasts aren't paid pro rates, but have been published in pro markets. Escape pod runs all the Hugo Nominees as well.Getting your work in those markets is also very beneficial to writing careers. Look what it has done for ;Cat Rambo, Mcleod, Renyolds, and Scott Seigler

quote:

---

Take a look at what I said I read (and what I read I also study, Bent Tree).

---

I think you are taking me the wrong way. I am more wondering out loud and questioning. I didn't mean to imply anything about your reading habits. Sorry again if I came across that way. I was mainly asking the question if you read by preference or out of diligence. I understand now that you go about it much in the same way as I do. In fact your scope is a little higher,which I admire. It means that you are intently focused on honing your craft.

You make valid points that I won't contest, and this link is a very good example of "Getting it straight from the mouth" of someone in the big leagues.

I don't dislike 1st person stories if they're well done. Now take Niven's Inconstant Moon which is a story I like very much. It won the 1972 Hugo Award for best short story.

Later today I think I'll give this story another read and think about how it would have been different in another PoV. But Niven when he does 1st person does it very well. That is certainly the case in that story. But it is a PoV that puts huge limitations on the writer.

In 3rd person limited, you can have all kinds of shades of "closeness." As a slush reader pointed out to me just a few days ago, you can have all kinds of shades and degrees of closeness in that without violating PoV and it can and does change within even the same paragraph. This is not true of first. The limitations are extreme and it stands up and shouts if you violate PoV.

Edit: I didn't mean to be defensive, Bent Tree. I think this is a suject well worth discussing.

quote:

---

About 90% of my reading these days is for professional reasons. I read and study what are considered the best stories to try to learn from them. I severely deconstruct them.

---

This is a very good aproach. As you may have noticed I read more quantity than quality. But now that I have a pretty broad base, it might not be a bad idea to hone my scope.

I have only been writing since Feb of this year, so I am still very green. I guess as part of my evolution, I just got brave enought to begin to write in the first and wanted to point out trends I noticed so people would perhaps bypass their fears and begin to sharpen their skills without preconceptions.

quote:

---

hope posting that is all right, Kathleen.

---

It might be all right, JeanneT, except for your mention that it's in a password protected site. I would prefer that you email Eric Flint and tell him that you've quoted him. Give him the link to this page, so he can see what you did and why, and if he has a problem with such a long quote of his words, we can delete it.

Edit: I actually asked Sam Hidaka who runs the JBU Slush pile. I felt that if I emailed Mr. Flint it might well be buried in heaven knows what pile of email he gets between being a busy writer and editor. Sam is in a position to let me know if I've created a problem. They may well have had this come up before or he can check with Mr. Flint.

2nd Edit: Happily, I got an answer back from my inquiry approving this being posted here. According to Paula Goodlett, Mr. Flint has no problems with this being re-posted and it has been many times. She says that it comes well under any reasonable definition of Fair Use (a loose paraphrase of her comments) besides which Mr. Flint's rather liberal attitude toward copyright issues are well-known. He thinks that anything that educates possible reader about who he is can only benefit his sales. And he does not consider that material copyrighted anyway since he considers that to apply to something that might reasonably be sold.

However, for ANYONE who considers quoting it be sure that it is properly attributed.

[This message has been edited by JeanneT (edited July 16, 2008).]

quote:

---

I'll add my bit about this, do what's right for the story. If it should be in first write it in first. I prefer third, I'm trying to get good at third limited, but if the story needs to be in first I will do it without hesitation.

---

Sherlock Holmes stories were first person, but not from Holmes's POV. They were told from Watson's POV. This is because Holmes is a superhero, Watson is an everyman. The same goes for The Great Gatsby, where Gatsby is the superhero and narrator Nick Carroway is an everyman.

First-person person works well when it works. Writing it is easy; figuring out the "when" is the hard part. And, it is most likely easier to publish first-person in creative non-fiction than in fiction. So, although I vigorously defend the use of first-person in creative non-fiction, I am well aware that each genre has its own rules on what is acceptable.

quote:

---

Well, here are a couple of reasons for not using first person:

...

2--the lack of suspense, because if the person has lived to tell the tale, then all the life-threatening stuff doesn't come across as very life-threatening ...

---

I beg to differ. If the author is writing the first-person well, and if the event they are writing was suspenseful at the time, then the suspense they endured at the time is also endured by the reader.

Think about it; how many novels have you read in which the protagonist died, without a significant gain? Were you put off by the fact that you knew (almost beyond a shadow of the doubt) when you started reading that the protagonist would survive?

No, you weren't. You read on anyway, and if the protagonist suffered enough, and persevered and the conclusion met your emotional needs, you read to the very end.

mikemunsil, I think there is more to the suspense problem than that. Sometimes a character learns something in a non-action scene that you want to reveal in an action scene. Consider the problem of the classic first person detective novel. It works fine if you want the reader to learn who the killer is at the same moment when the detective does, but what about when you want to have a tense, action-packed climax?

Suddenly it all made sense to me. "Let's get all the suspects together in a locked room tomorrow night," I said. "Then I'll reveal who the killer is!"