Young Writers Society

Okay, I'm writing a story (duh), and have been writing it in third person for the first ten or so chapters. I use scene changes a lot, and whenever I do it, I usually name who is at the scene.

I started to write chapter eleven in a notebook, and found that I had much more fun writing about my characters in first person than I ever had in third. In the notebook, I changed perspectives whenever there was a scene change, and I think that I could last the whole story this way. My only problem is that I'm not sure that I can pull this off efficiently.

A nickel for your thoughts? >.>

I like nickels...XD

Anyway, third person is a lot easier to pull off than first person if you're not one for emotion and/or your characters are really strange. But! If you don't have many problems dealing with emotion and/or do not have annoying characters, first person will work just fine.

The one thing you must make sure that you have when setting out to work with first person is equal love for all the characters whose perspectives you'll be writing from. If you like one more than the others, it'll really show. It's easier to regulate this in third person, for some reason...

Also, if you're looking to use a singular POV, you want the most neutral, observant, unbiased person. People with really strong personalities, fun as they are to compose, get annoying to the reader really quickly. This is because readers can see the circumstances beyond what the character does, and often want to slap the narrator upside the head- a very bad thing, yes?

If you can do first person properly, though, it's really engaging, no matter what your preference is. Most people simply don't like first person because they haven't read any good stories written in them.

Some really good first person point of views:

- Miles, in Looking For Alaska by John Green.

- Jacky, in Bloody Jack by L.A. Meyer

- Oskar Schell, in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Johnathan Safran Foer

- Salz, in Breath by Donna Jo Napoli

All of these characters are unique- and in Jacky's case, quite loud- but they're not annoying. Some characters just are, and that's okay. It doesn't mean they're bad characters; it simply means that they shouldn't narrate in first person or readers will use your book as a projectile.

((Okay, that's just weird. I have a character named Jacky, and she's pretty loud sometimes. <.< >.>))

Thanks for the thoughts, Sam. =3 *Gives you a nickel* =D