{"id":5595,"date":"2015-01-11T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-01-11T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/janetgover.com\/?p=5595"},"modified":"2015-01-11T07:00:00","modified_gmt":"2015-01-11T07:00:00","slug":"the-perils-of-the-first-person","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/janetgover.com\/?p=5595","title":{"rendered":"The perils of the first person."},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Rebecca\"<\/a>
Rebecca, possibly my favourite book ever!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Whenever you get a group of writers together, at some point the conversation is going to swing round to the eternal debate \u2013 whether it is best to write in the first person or the third.<\/p>\n

To explain\u2026.<\/p>\n

\u2018Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.\u2019 This is the opening line of Daphne Du Maurier\u2019s great novel Rebecca<\/em> \u2013 which is written from the point of view of the heroine – speaking in the first person.<\/p>\n

\u2018Bilbo woke with the early sun in his eyes.\u2019 Although we are seeing Middle Earth through Bilbo\u2019s eyes \u2013 the book is written in the third person i.e. Bilbo<\/strong> woke<\/strong>\u2013 not I<\/strong> woke<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

And the question \u2013 which is better?<\/p>\n

There are those who prefer the first person. They say it helps them to connect with the character. To get closer to them and understand them better.<\/p>\n

I see that \u2013 and there are first person books I really love \u2013 Rebecca among them.<\/p>\n

BUT\u2026 and it\u2019s a pretty big but for me\u2026 what if you don\u2019t like that person?<\/p>\n

It takes many hours to read a book. In the first person, you are constantly in close company with that character for the whole of the book. It\u2019s almost like living with them.<\/p>\n

I recently read Plum Island by Nelson DeMille. I had read his books before, and enjoyed them – but not for a long time. Plum Island a well written modern thriller\u2026 written in the first person POV (point of view) of the hero, detective John Corey.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
A recent read that I didn’t really enjoy<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The problem \u2013 I really didn\u2019t like him. I found him arrogant and sexist and his attempts at humour were patronising. On top of that, his behaviour towards some of the female characters was, quite frankly, insulting. I was enjoying the story \u2013 a well-developed plot and good writing \u2013 but\u2026 imagine going to the movies with someone you didn\u2019t like \u2013 who talked all the way through the film.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not saying Corey wasn\u2019t a good character and appropriate for the book. He was. His jaded New York detective was totally on point. Had the book been written in the third person, I would have enjoyed it \u2013 watching this awful but interesting character from the outside rather than being in his head.<\/p>\n

I have never written in the first person. I don\u2019t say I never will, but I think I would find it hard. As soon as I write \u201cI\u201d , I\u2019m in my own head \u2013 not the character\u2019s. This blog may well be the only first person writing I ever do.<\/p>\n

I like stories involving many characters. I like seeing the world and the events through many different eyes. That\u2019s not to say I won\u2019t read first person novels\u2026 I will. I may even read Nelson DeMille again \u2013 but only if the book has a POV character I find more likeable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Whenever you get a group of writers together, at some point the conversation is going to swing round to the eternal debate \u2013 whether it is best to write in the first…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reading","category-writing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7g6jm-1sf","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/janetgover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/janetgover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/janetgover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/janetgover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/janetgover.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/janetgover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5595\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/janetgover.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/janetgover.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/janetgover.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}