First Person Writing - Point of View advantages and disadvantages

The first person perspective is a piece of writing written from the point of view of "I". It is usually, but not always, a single character from whose point of view the world created in the narrative is experienced.

"I woke up this morning and every TV channel was reporting the same thing - aliens! At first I thought it was a joke, and then, slowly, I began to realise that it really wasn't, that we were under attack, that life would never be the same."

The plot usually revolves around one major character - the "I" - plus those people he or she interacts with. See my hub How to Write Convincing Dialogue to help with your interactions between your first person character and your other characters.

In a first person narrative, the reader is thrust immediately into the world you have created.

What they read is that "I saved the world", "I got the girl", "I was abducted by aliens and experimented upon". Everything is visceral and immediate, the reader becomes the character they are reading about. Good first person perspective can evoke real emotion in a reader who is willing to enter the mind of the character, to take on their persona:

"I saw him and thought my heart would stop in my chest, a lump of rock still warm from the touch of his fingers. He smiled at me and my palms moistened with sweat, my head swam and I knew, with startling clarity, that I was going to faint at his feet and humiliate myself. And then he looked away and my heart, my stone-heart, thumped with such intensity my vision pulsed with red. How dare he? I raged inside whilst I kept my face relaxed and indifferent against prying eyes. How bloody dare he?"

So what is the disadvantage to writing from a first person point of view?

This point of view can be quite narrow or limited for some types of writing. If you can only see the world through one pair of eyes, then you can't reveal the inner thoughts and monologues of any of your other characters. They can only reveal their thoughts and feelings through things that your narrator can see and experience - physical reactions and dialogue.

"He was scared, I could tell. The way he wiped his palms against his trousers, the wide eyes and slightly blown pupils, the sheen of sweat on his upper lip, nestled amongst the short bristles of a man who hadn't shaved this morning. He wouldn't admit it, but I knew I'd unnerved him. And I liked it."

Whilst this can effectively add to the tension or drama of any given scene, the writer must rely heavily on dialogue and/or description to move the plot along. This is fine for someone with some writing experience, but the novice novelist, the first person perspective can quickly degenerate into a rambling monologue that involves very few other characters or scenery.

A good way to overcome the disadvantages of first person writing is to make your narrator voluble and observant. They notice things about people and places, they interact heavily, they speak their mind and encourage others to do likewise.

"'Come on,' I wheedled, with my best ingratiating smile, 'tell me everything. I swear I won't repeat it.'

She sighed but the corner of her mouth twitched and I knew I had her. She stretched her neck out to one side and looked at me from a cocked head, brows drawn down in a mock frown.

'Alright, as long as you swear you won't repeat it?'

'I swear,' I confirmed, crossing my heart and placing my palms together. Alison shook her head at my theatrics and re-crossed her legs, fussing with her skirt for a long moment, collecting her thoughts, I guess.

'Well, his name's Martin,' she began, and I leaned forward eagerly for the secrets."

As your narrator may not have experienced parts of another character's past which are vital to the plot, another way of finding out about them must be found. This can be done by the secondary character relating a long tale to your narrator, who listens without interrupting.

If you use this approach, it is important to bracket the other character's story with your narrator's speech and thoughts, so that the reader knows the story is being told to the narrator. It is also vital that the secondary character has a distinct speech pattern from your narrator in order to prevent your reader from getting confused as to who is telling the story.

"I lay back in the darkness, hands beneath my head and the swish of the ceiling fan drying the sweat on my chest. I could hear her breathing next to me, a slight hitch to her inhalations as she fought for control.

'Alright,' she said eventually. 'I'll tell you, but it won't make for pleasant hearing.'

I reached out blindly in the dark and found a naked shoulder, squeezed it gently for a moment,and then relaxed again, let her words, her story, wash over me in the night."

For more help, please read my other hubs on the subject of writing, or check out my Amazon store for helpful publications, here: http://astore.amazon.co.uk/hubpages02d-21