Why you should not write your novel in first person perspective

I know this topic may cause some angst, but while most submissions I receive from new writers are drafted in first person, the majority of published novels are written in third. So authors should try dragging out those pesky narrators, even if they leave kicking and screaming. From the writer’s standpoint, first person is so popular because it’s a storyteller’s natural point of view, baked into our genes from prehistory when we huddled around fires recounting how we killed that giant woolly mammoth or escaped that hungry cave bear. So that’s simply the way many of us start writing. But natural doesn’t necessarily mean easier. A successful first-person narrative is actually harder to pull off. From a purely mechanical standpoint, for instance, agents have seen hundreds of submissions in which almost every paragraph, and sometimes half the sentences, start with the words I, me, or my. And since everything in the story is filtered through the perception of the narrator, they darn well better be interesting to spend time with. Interesting and likable. There are always exceptions, but generally the narrator should be someone with whom the reader can identify and sympathize. So the reader cares. So they keep turning pages. Even an antihero must have some admirable or remarkable traits that grant read-worthy status. Shock #1: The Biggest Problem With Many First-Person Novels Is the Personality of the Person Now, this may come as a surprise, but, unfortunately, many first-person examples will never get published because they’re … ahem … how to say this tactfully? Just plain annoying. Somehow, many authors unleash their most irritating, thinly disguised avatars on the page — judgmental, opinionated, and smarter than everyone else. They trot out every grudge they’ve ever held. In fact, they do everything but filter. OK, I hear ya! One reason we write is to explore what we think and feel about the world. If it’s important to us, it’ll be important to others. But there’s a difference between a story and a manifesto. And it can often be hard not to come off as the curmudgeonly uncle who no one wants to sit next to at Thanksgiving or the snarky slacker who’s overdosed on too many Kevin Smith flicks. This is the opportunity to apply Faulkner’s dictum about killing your little darlings. Shock #2: First-Person Reduces Your Choices as a Writer While some people consider first person to be more intimate, therefore making it easier to create a well-rounded character, as soon as you hit the I key, you reduce a variety of dramatic opportunities to flesh out your story and create an exciting plot. I’ve seen a lot of wild ways that first-person aficionados try to build suspense, when a shift in POV would have been the straightforward solution. Not to mention the 500-pound gorilla in the room: The reader knows, deep down, no matter what happens, the narrator must’ve been able to overcome all obstacles and challenges, or they wouldn’t have survived to write the book! Not quite true in third person, is it? A slim possibility exists that the protagonist will fail to achieve their goals or even live to see the end of the story, especially if you’re talking about a book by George R. R. Martin. And that iota of doubt adds important subliminal tension of which the reader is barely aware. So I’d argue you can accomplish anything in third-person close or, better yet, omniscient than you can in first person — and more. In an omniscient viewpoint, not only are you able to get inside the heads of multiple characters, you can jump between times and places, allowing the reader to see things the protagonist can’t, creating suspense, drama, irony, and foreshadowing in dozens of ways. The alternative is being imprisoned inside the claustrophobic confines of a single POV. Unless that’s what you want because your genre expects it, such as in hard-boiled detective novels, many YA categories, and the trendy unreliable-narrator story exemplified in Gone Girl because, I admit, it’s hard to have an unreliable narrator unless they’re narrating. As an example, let’s consider a few of the points I mentioned above that characterize so many manuscripts. We’ll call it first-person opinionated. And I’ll throw in present tense, which, if not handled properly, can also add to the annoyance factor (at least for me). “So, I’ve got the right of way through the intersection — me, right? — not the SUV. But it’s me who has to slam on my brakes because the idiot driving the big black Escalade can’t take the time to come to a full stop at the hexagonal red sign at the corner. You know — the one from the driver’s test that commands you to stop, halt, cease motion? Instead, he rolls casually into the street in front of me. Knows I have to brake for him; otherwise, I’ll pancake myself on his shiny chrome bumper. But he doesn’t care. Texting? Late to pick up the kiddos? The wife? The mistress? Whatever … a jerk is a jerk. Right? His Majesty is more important than everyone else on the road. I hate when people coast through stop signs like that. I think they all deserve tickets. Tickets? Heck, I’d take away their licenses and throw them in jail for a week. I wish I could be an instant cop, whip out my blue light and hit the siren. Make them feel that surge of adrenaline in their guts. Make them need to take a sudden bathroom break, if you know what I mean. Like they just ate a large bran muffin and threw back a double espresso at Starbucks! I’m about to roll down the window to give the driver the finger, let him know how careless he’s been with my life, when his brake lights flash. I smash down on my own brakes, just as an explosion blasts from my rear bumper — a force shoves me backward in my seat and the safety harness clutches my body, making me skew into the curb with my face planted into the nylon airbag that explodes from the steering wheel. I’m in shock as a gunman appears at the window and throws open the door.” Now, let’s analyze and reimagine the scene Every driver has encountered this situation countless times (well, maybe not the gunman!). The instant the Escalade pulls into the road, readers will have their own opinions and internal dialog about it. So maybe we don’t need so much commentary from the narrator. And even if it’s OK for a paragraph or two, can you take an entire novel like that? Yet many try it. But the prospective author will never know this is the problem, as the agent is unlikely to give such detailed feedback. And we also know the gunman doesn’t kill the narrator right then and there because, heck, that wouldn’t even make a short story, much less a novel. But imagine the same scene in third-person omniscient. For one thing, Scotty could be murdered in the first chapter, and we might continue with the gunman. Could happen. Oh? Didn’t know our protagonist’s name was Scotty, did ya? Scotty Blinken. That’s because he doesn’t think about his name when he’s the narrator. Or that he just reluctantly marked his 41st birthday, while his younger colleague, Carl, not only just got promoted to the corner office but also impressed the boss by sinking a hole-in-one at the country club; or that Scotty’s wife, Margot, just might be having an affair — he’s not sure. But if she is, it’s probably with that freakin’ golden boy, Carl. And what about Carl, anyway? Are all of his accounts even legit? Instead, we’re all wrapped up in who’s got the right of way at the stop sign. Sure, you could drop the same information in first person, too. But it won’t be as interesting with him explaining it all, having to tell the reader about it. ‘Splainin’, in fact, is one of the most difficult factors about first-person reads. In third person, we have to be careful about info dumps, too. But needless exposition is especially prevalent in first, where the narrator often feels free to ramble on and on, speaking directly to the reader, à la Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye, instead of building the story through a series of scenes. Now, back to Constitution Drive … For a fuller, more cinematic experience Let’s say we start with the Escalade parked near the crossroad … waiting. Waiting for something — we don’t know what. Two guys in the car are engaged in some witty Tarantino or Elmore Leonard style banter — but, you know, fresh stuff, your own take on it. We don’t know what they’re up to, but they’re obviously not Uber drivers waiting for a fare. They receive a cellphone call from a cohort saying “the mark” is almost at the destination. Shift to the tail behind Scotty now — two guys in a jacked-up Dodge Ram with oversized wheels. A couple more lines of witty dialog. All three vehicles converging on the intersection now. The writer is building suspense. The reader anticipates something terrible is about to occur and devours the paragraphs like a Doberman chomping on a sirloin. The guys in the Escalade observe the green minivan approaching — yep, a minivan. Yeah, a lovely Kermit green. You didn’t know that from Scotty’s POV, either. The driver of the oversized Ram sees a sticker reading “Watch out for the idiot behind me!” plastered on Scotty’s rear bumper just before he hits the gas … In the latter version, we learn much more about Scotty in third person. But no reason you can’t slip in a few of his opinions about stop sign scofflaws too. We’re in his head, too. But now we know more about the object of his ridicule. If only he knew what we know! This style presents a more encompassing cinematic experience. Shock #3: First Person Can Work Better When the Narrator Isn’t the Main Character Vintage artwork from Strand Magazine, 1892. Sherlock Holmes drawn by Sidney Paget. Public domain. But if, after careful consideration, writing in third person just isn’t your thing, think about ways to exorcise a majority of those problematic I, me, and my pronouns from your first-person narrative — either through imaginatively streamlined syntax or, better yet, by using what I’ll term an otherly or outwardly directed viewpoint, what author Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club) terms “pointing the camera elsewhere,” because first person often shines brightest when the narrator is a secondary character. Think Arthur Conan Doyle’s Dr. Watson writing about Sherlock Holmes, Fitzgerald’s Nick Carraway story about Gatsby, Melville’s Ishmael describing Ahab — big personalities who affect everyone around them but people who’d be difficult to write from inside their heads because they are, in fact, the biggest mystery in the story that you can reveal layer by layer, instead of describing them from the inside, which is like stripping all of Salome’s seven veils at once.