Who am I? My name is Christine, and I’m writing this because I’m full of opinions I like to share. I don’t even know if anyone’s out there listening, but right now I’m listening to soft, overly sentimental romantic rock music and pouring my heart into next week’s blog post. (Didn’t We Almost Have it All…Da da da da da da da da….Luckily, you can’t actually hear me sing along, because I truly am awful. I’m not even so bad I break glass, which would almost be better, because then I could own it. I’m more like that person who goes on America’s Got Talent because he sounds good in the shower, and then ends up on the blooper reel.)
A few weeks ago, I wrote about my opnions regarding first person and present tense. Today, I’m going to talk about another aspect of first person point of view that is, in my ever so humble opinion, essential: Attitude.
You see, first person has its disadvantages. There’s a distance in time, meaning that the reader expects everything that is happening to already have happened. The narrator has lived through it, and knows how it will end. Thanks to the popularity of third person limited omniscient, first person no longer has the advantage of being an emotionally closer perspective, because you can do it in third person without the trouble of distance in time. First person also creates difficulty when it comes to alternating viewpoints. Some people have written (even successfully) stories with alternating first person narrators, but this is risky, and will turn many readers off.
With all those disadvantages, if I read a first person story in which the “I” could become “he” or “she” without any other significant changes, I get annoyed. If you’re going to accept all those disadvantages, then the least you can do is bring the character of the narrator to life through his words and his attitude.
I think of first person stories as being fundamentally about the narrator, and that narrator needs to come to life. For example: Harry Dresden in Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files series. Mackayla Lane (Mack) in Karen Marie Moning’s Fever series. Sookie Stackhouse in Charlaine Harris’ Sookie Stackhouse series….
These are just a few examples of first person narrators that grabbed me by the heartstrings and wouldn’t let go. They’ve brought more than a style choice to the page. They’ve come alive.
So who am I? I’m the main character in the story of my life, and let me tell you…it’s been a doozy!