Person, person, who's got the person

[dorinda]

Lately I've been revisiting a story idea from the back burner, refreshing my memory from my notes and gently poking at my vague plans. There's something in this story idea that really touches me, though it'll need a bit of plotty-figuring to make it work.

A challenge of the darn thing, though, is that the canon is a book, and the book is written in the first person. I don't typically write in first person, because I don't typically prefer first person in general if I have a choice (whether in reading or writing). I haven't fully explored why that is, but it's a long-time preference of mine.

So I've been chewing over the options. Can a story based on a first-person book canon really capture the flavor and tone of the original without being in first person? Should I get past my vague misgivings about first person and give it a whirl? Should I work harder to figure out just what it is about first person that gives me my misgivings in the first place? (I mean, I obviously liked the original first person book canon well enough to feel like writing for it...)

Comments

[aerye]

Interesting question!

I guess my approach would be to attempt the first person and see how it goes, although like you I have a clear preference for something else. But yeah—my instinctual reaction is that you would be able to capture the true flavor of the book more effectively in first.

However, clearly a lot of writing is done in first person based on third person source, so—possibly this is a failure of my imagination? ::g::

[dorinda]

Yeah, I think in the end your approach is the best one, both for reasons of flavor/tone and also because, hey, might as well try it first (har) and see how it goes. It isn't like I couldn't change over later, if it turns out that the story absolutely requires it.

My guess about people writing first person for third person source would be (partly, as best I can tell) that that's how they get closer in to the psyche, decisions, emotions, etc.--whereas I prefer to do that with a close third person. Like, I often zoom my third person POVs in, from moderately to very tight/internal, using (explicit or suggested) emotion and 'voice' and whatnot, so it isn't like I'm a purist who always demands the POV stay outside the character's mind.

I think that's surely part of why I don't entirely understand my vague avoidance/antipathy of first person. I mean, how am I seeing first person as different from a tightly-focused/internal third person limited?

WHY DO I BAFFLE MYSELF SO?

[aerye]

Ha! I think for me it's that the minute I use "I", I (me, myself and I, and oh, boy is this sentence awkward!) intrudes on the character. I start to lose the voice and POV; I have a lot of trouble separating them.

But that is clearly a personal thing, not a lack inherent in the first person. It's just in my head, "I" becomes I.

[dorinda]

I see what you mean! (Maybe sort of like my instinctive response to second person? "You go down the stairs and into the darkened crypt..." NO I DON'T. :D )

I find myself wondering whether the demand that the reader enter the POV entirely is part of the problem I have with first person, in terms of my preference for leaning toward more-showing/less-telling. I'll have to give it more thought, but the first person just feels so...telly to me. Not that you can't then do unreliable-narrator things, where you're supposedly telling but really the telling is showing something... but still. Hmm.

[torch]

I think it really depends on what you're doing with the story. If you're writing from the pov of the same person that the book is written from, then yes, I'd say go for first person, because that's how close readers are used to being to that person, and also, that's the canon and style you have to work with, so I'd think it would just be easier. (This said as someone who doesn't like writing in first person.) But if what you're doing is from another perspective, then first person would just be confusing, because it would be a different person being the first person than the one book readers expect. Aaaand that's not staggeringly obvious or anything. Er. Anyway. Try a bit of the first person and see how it feels? If you're not comfortable with it, see if you can find the same type of voice and style when writing in third.

Oh, I'm so helpful. Sorry!

[dorinda]

No, I think this is certainly helpful! *snoof* Because the readers' expectations would definitely be for 1) first person, and 2) first person from only this character (no POV switches in this book). And that closeness to/knowledge of him is what they're used to.

Not that you or I are saying we can't change voice from the canon, of course, but I think I hadn't thought about how a POV change would make the voice here a step less intimate--and that could be useful for some stories, but my project here is to explore a deeper emotional thread that the novel left (cruelly) dangling, so less intimate does not seem to fit.

Seems to me that a third person limited POV, coming from the book's original first person character (either way, he's gonna be my POV guy) would introduce an unexplained distance from him and our knowledge of & habitation inside him. And there'd be a new and unfamiliar narrative voice, so to speak--his first person voice now filtered through this third person approach.

And when I think of it that way, I ask myself, is it crucial to insert that change/distance and add that new voice, and if so, why? If it were crucial to my angle, then it'd be something to consider. But when I think about the storyline itself, the answer seems to be, no it isn't.

So it seems clear I should tackle the story in first person--ideally write and finish it (even while whining), and only then if I were to find a compelling reason that it really needed to switch over, I could revise it. (While whining! :D )

[klia]

You know I share your dislike of first person, but this might at least be an interesting way of dipping your toe in the water and seeing how it feels. And I agree with torch -- if you're writing in the same character's POV as the book, it might be worth trying to mirror that, but if you're not, then don't feel obliged. Not that I think you should feel obliged in any case, because I think you should just open the neural pathways and let whatever's in your brain flow out, in whatever form it takes.

FWIW, I'm actually fine with first person POV in anything original. Some of my favorite books, that I've read multiple times, are first person (past tense; I'm never fond of present tense). My issue is really only with fanfic.

[dorinda]

It's true, this seems like a perfect opportunity to give it a try--and I like the book so much, in all its first person (past tense!) glory, that it would be a familiar and comfortable guide into the land of the different POV.

(I did do first person once in a short, off-the-cuff Pros piece on the CI5 list back in the day, I seem to recall. It might have ended up in the Hatstand or Circuit archive--it was mainly just to give a new Cowley-centric angle on a little piece someone else had posted. You know, like, a bit of a 'fic as a discussion' sort of back-and-forth. That of course makes it read a little strangely, when considered on its own. :D )