Thoughts on writing in first person
I normally write, and read, novels in the third person. Writing my collaborative writing project in first person was hard. Often I would write a scene in third person then go back to rewrite it in first. Eventually, when I really got into the book and was writing daily, it became habit.
Some books written in first person feel basic; you can’t get away from the voice of the point of view character, it feels like they’re telling you a story and every sentence seems to start with “I”, something I tried very hard to avoid. But when first person perspective is done well, I stop noticing. (Similarly with present tense which I’ve never even attempted to write because it seems almost impossible, but done well is great.)
The way third person perspective is written these days it feels like first person anyway; you follow one character, have access to their thoughts and feelings. Occasionally there are multiple point of view characters (which honestly can get really confusing, so much so that authors put the characters name on each of their chapters).
The way that Austen writes is so complex, so skilled, it’s difficult to pick apart the nuance. In Emma for example, we see things from the title characters perspective but Emma is an unreliable narrator; what she sees is not necessarily the truth – we believe it however, because it’s told to the reader as though it is fact. But somehow little bits of knowledge unknown to Emma creep into the narrative. Mrs Weston and Mr Knightley discuss Emma when she isn’t there so it can’t all be coming from her. The voice of another narrator, the author, may hint what Emma is missing.
Austen is well known for being one of the pioneers (she didn’t create it, but she was an early adopter) of free indirect discourse which is a fancy way of saying first and third person are blended. Austen is still narrating (third person) but she allows us to peek into the minds of her characters (first person), occasionally even the narrator seems to speak in the voice of a character. But, it takes a lot of skill to pull this off and isn’t really accepted in novels these days – you do first or third and that’s it.
Hmm, it appears I’ve wandered off from my original topic of first person narratives and landed in praise of Austen – not like that’s unexpected!