Bernadette Benda

(I GOT A NEW iPHONE GUYS!!! )

Ignore the above. It’s completely irrelevant.

So. 1st Person or 3rd???

I tend to write in 3rd person myself (not omniscient though.) Though sometimes I’ll write 1st. But usually I’ll write so deep into 3rd person that I’ll forget which I’m writing and accidentally start writing in 1st….

I didn’t come here to talk about myself. 

1st person or 3rd person? There is no right or wrong here. There may be a right or wrong for a specific story, but that’s up to you.

Which do you choose? Don’t look at me, but look at the pros and cons. That’s what I;m talking about today:

Pros and cons. 

1st Person

1st person is personal. The author gets to get right in the reader’s face: meaning, the reader is right there in the character’s head. They get to see everything. 

This is great. You can easily show the characters thoughts and emotions: since the character is narrating, all their thoughts are right there.

You can also use the character’s voice, which is so fun. You get to write quirky, snarky, melodramatic – how ever that character would tell the story.

Your in the character’s head, and that’s it. 

You are limited. You can only show what the character can see. You can’t show anything beyond their vision. You can only write what they would think about, what they would see, how they would see something. 

You are stuck in that person, and you want to be sure that you want to be stuck in that person.

3rd person

YOU CAN SEE EVERYTHING. 

(Yes, I like 3rd person the best.)

You have the opportunity for YOU to tell the story. While you can still stay close inside the character’s head – you can show things they can’t see, describe things how they are, not how the character sees them. You can give the whole picture of a scene without being restricted to that character.

You are outside the characters. Getting characters feelings and thoughts across is a little more difficult. You don’t have a direct line so to speak. 

You also have to rein yourself in. It’s easy to head-hop when you are writing in 3rd person, to go from the perspectives of three different people in one chapter. You really got to rein yourself in.

Um…there you go!!