{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/4141", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 4141, "subject": "For Marc, on POV", "messages": 3, "voices": 2, "first": "2003-08-01T17:41:40+00:00", "last": "2003-08-04T00:19:30+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "katbarx at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2003-08-01T17:41:40+00:00", "subject": "(urth) For Marc, on POV", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I believe that most writers who write about writing -- I mean people who are\nactually _good_ at writing fiction and choose to write about the process --\nagree that first person PoV is not only the hardest of the three \"basic\" \npoints-\nof-view to handle, it's generally the weakest. In the hands of someone who\ncan create a really individual voice, it's incredibly powerful. Otherwise, \nit tends\nto clunk.\n\nFirst-person seems like it should be easy, because it seems like it will \ncreate in a\nmore explicit way the kind of limitation a writer chooses by writing in the \nthird\nperson limited point of view: we only know what the character knows or\nperceives. But in fact, it complicates that issue. When you put things into \nthe\nfirst person, you encounter some issues that the third-person writer can, if \nnot\nignore, at least finesse.\n\nWhen is the story being told? And to whom? And why? Third-person narrative\nallows you to kind of ignore these questions (though Wolfe, to his credit,\nprefers to confront them head-on even in his third-person narratives), but \nthe\nwriter of the explicit first-person narrative _must_ answer them, at least \nto the\nextent that _she_ knows the answer -- she doesn't have to tell the reader. \nThe\nanswers to these questions conditions a whole variety of other things -- \nsuch as,\nfor example, how much the narrator explains about what; whether the narrator\nwill drop in remarks about \"What I did not know then was ...\" or stick to \nthe\nlinear narration of what he saw and knew and when he saw and knew it.\n\nWhat I mean is, if \"I'm\" telling \"you\" a story, I have to take into account \nwhat\n\"you\" know -- so I have to know who \"you\" are. Furthermore, when \"I\" talk\nabout something that \"I\" didn't understand when it happened, but \"I\" do now,\nit's often better narrative for \"me\" to tell you what \"I\" now know, instead \nof\nleaving the incident apparently mysterious and unmotivated. (Severian has \nthe\nslightly irritating habit of never explaining the events that happened to \nhim as\nthey happen.)\n\nThe third-person writer doesn't have this problem. Precisely because she is\n_not_ taking on the person of the character, reporting after the fact, she \ncan\nhide behind the pretense that her narrative voice is following along inside \nthe\ncharacter's consciousness. There's not only no need to explain things the\ncharacter won't understand till later, there's no _excuse_ to do so.\n\nCompounding this, the first-person writer to write every sentence (except\ndialog in other characters' mouths) as if it were the viewpoint character's\ndialog. In other words, for every sentence of the narrative, she not only \nhas\nto ask \"is this an effective sentence?\" but also \"Does this sentence sound \nas\nif Harry would actually say it?\" She has to remain with the character's \ndiction,\nsyntax, and other speech habits -- including any tendencies the character \nhas\nto repetition or omission.\n\nH'mm. Some examples and I'll shut up.\n\nRoger Zelazny handled first person with remarkable facility as, at times*, \ndid\nHeinlein. Both of them pulled off the trick of making you feel as if there \nwere\nsomeone sitting in the room telling you the story -- you sort of forget the\npaper artifact.\n\n\n-----\n* Those two words are very important.\n-----\nHowever, both writers used it too much, and in so doing, they blew it. One\nZelazny first-person narrator sounds pretty much like another. Ditto \nHeinlein,\nin spades, vulnerable and redoubled.\n\nI'm not a big fan of the Amber books, but if you go through the original\nseries, they're almost a textbook on how to handle the first person. \nCorwin's\nnarrative is always Corwin's; and -- from occasional brief side remarks -- \nyou\ngradually learn where and when he's telling his story, and why. This is only\nfully explained at the very end, but it's built up from the first book.\n\nA living writer who has pulled the trick of very well: \"Robin Hobb,\" whose\n\"Assassin\" trilogy has an extraordinarily attractive first-person voice. The\ncharacter isn't necessarily attractive, but the voice is; there's never a\nhesitation, never a doubt that it's Fitz talking to us.\n\nLe Guin's use of first person in THE LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS works as well as\nanything she writes; she's a master. I'd point out, though, that it works to \na\nvery great extent because of the context in which she embeds it -- all the\nthird-person \"documents\" sandwiched between the chapters from Henry Eye's\npoint of view. Without those, I honestly think she couldn't have made the\nstory work; and it's worth noting that the presence of the first-person \nnarrator\nactually provides the rationale for their inclusion in what is otherwise a\ncontinuous monologue, a nice bit of narrative jiu-jitsu.\n\nEnough." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Alice K. Turner", "address": "aturner6 at nyc.rr.com" }, "date": "2003-08-02T11:56:33+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) For Marc, on POV", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "For Dan'l, writing for Marc,\n\nA very nice summary of the pros and cons of first-person. For the record,\nwomen writers (and I use \"writers\" loosely, including students and\nwanna-bes) gravitate to it far more than men do, especially in present\ntense. The terrible draw-back is that it allows them endless introspection\nwith no action. In my classes, especially genre classes, I used a cheap\nthrowaway that nevertheless has some truth. I would say that none of the\nwomen writers in the class should use first-person-present for at least a\nyear, where as none of the men should use weapons (thereby making them think\ntheir way out of situations rather than blasting).\n\n-alga" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "katbarx at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2003-08-04T00:19:30+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) For Marc, on POV", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "A very nice summary of the pros and cons of first-person. For the record,\nwomen writers (and I use \"writers\" loosely, including students and\nwanna-bes) gravitate to it far more than men do, especially in present\ntense. The terrible draw-back is that it allows them endless introspection\nwith no action. In my classes, especially genre classes, I used a cheap\nthrowaway that nevertheless has some truth. I would say that none of the\nwomen writers in the class should use first-person-present for at least a\nyear, where as none of the men should use weapons (thereby making them \nthink\ntheir way out of situations rather than blasting)." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Interesting.\n\nOf the four short stories I've published in my adult life, three have female\nprotagonists who do not use any weapons - though two of the three face\nfairly violent male antagonists. One has a male protagonist, who kills\nsomeone with a sword.\n\nI'm going to have to watch this." } ] } ] }