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i notice in looking around stories here and on similar places [like AwesomeDude] there's a looot of first-person so i've just grown kinda curious haha
[Updated on: Thu, 28 August 2025 19:22] |
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13806
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Different writers write different stories with different voices
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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cole parker
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Toe is in the water |
Location: California
Registered: July 2018
Messages: 45
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As Tim suggests, it's up to the story content. Some stories are more immediate in first person, and some need a wider scope. It's always somelthing a writer considers when facing that challenging blank page.
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Oh perhaps i wasn't clear: this isnt a debate of the quality of either perspective, I think first person is totally capable of it's own interest, a more personal touch for instance, I am just curous now to ~know of~ writing from this other perspective.
[Updated on: Fri, 29 August 2025 21:16] |
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13806
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It depends how much the authior wishes us to know about the thoughts of other cast members
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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Kitzyma
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Likes it here |
Registered: March 2012
Messages: 237
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"BlackSwan wrote on Fri, 29 August 2025 21:12"I am just curous now to ~know of~ writing from this other perspective.
--
Despite this follow-up post, I'm still not sure what you mean.
Are you asking for examples of stories on here that are not first person?
Or are you saying that of the stories you've selected to read there are disproprtionately more first person than third person?
Or are you wondering why there might be more more first person than third person on the site?
There are certainly plenty of third person stories.
Take just one author, Nico Grey.
He has 5 short stories on the site, three of which are third person.
He has two multichapter stories on the site, one of which is third person.
Of my own thirteen short stories, six are third person.
Some authors who like to get inside the thoughts of a protagonist will prefer first person as a more efficient way to do that. If that's the sort of story that they prefer to write, then many of their stories might be first person.
If an author is writing a story that brings together different threads with more than one main character, then that may be more efficiently done with a third person narration. This is especially true when the main charcters are not in the same place at the same time.
If there are significantly more first person stories on the site, maybe that's because teen gay romance stories tend to examine the inner thoughts of the protagonist and so are better suited to a first person voice.
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Mark
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Likes it here |
Location: Earth
Registered: April 2013
Messages: 284
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Going off of the original post, I think that BlackSwan means that he has found a disproportionate amount of the stories that he's read to be written in the first person. I may be wrong in my interpretation, of course, and hope that BlackSwan will clarify things if my understanding was incorrect.
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lol yeah i was just saying i am curious to know of third-person ones, here or elsewhere, because of seeing mostly first person. again not a dismissal.
that's also an interesting point you make about the genre Kitzyma
[Updated on: Sat, 30 August 2025 07:38] |
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Nico Grey
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Getting started |
Location: Vermont
Registered: January 2024
Messages: 9
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As Tim and Cole point out, there are many reasons for choosing a perspective from which to write a story. Each perspective- first person, third person, even second person- as well as the voice chosen, affects readers' perceptions of the same events differently. And each perspective can tell what is essentially the same story in a different way.
Purists may insist that the gold standard for writing fiction is to use third person narration. But a story told first person can sometimes be more engaging and have more impact on readers, depending on the author's intent, than would be possible if it were told in the third person.
Kit offers a couple of examples that may influence the author's decision about perspective. It's possible to tell a story third person and still spend a lot of time inside characters' heads. But it's often more effective, certainly more intimate, if those thoughts are shared with the reader from a first-person narrator's perspective.
On the other hand, trying to bring together threads of a story that involves many characters is difficult to do with first-person narration. Shifting first-person perspectives may be an option, but it can be quite confusing for readers. A third person perspective generally works best, even if the author also wants to include many of their characters' internal processes in the narration. It isn't quite as intimate as having a first-person narrator share their thoughts, but it can be an interesting challenge to find different ways to share with readers what characters are thinking, even without using a third-person omniscient voice to simply tell readers. It's even possible to show readers a reasonably clear picture of what characters are thinking and what motivates them simply through description of their actions.
I can't speak for other authors. Some probably have a careful and methodical process for making these sorts of decisions. I tend to keep a journal that I fill with ideas- themes, scenes, dialogue, and 'what the heck was that all about?' thoughts- that might inspire a story. Over time, I add to these story kernels. Eventually, I may get to the point where I feel that a story is ready to be told. And then I make decisions about how to tell that story, including perspective, based on what "feels" best. Quite often those decisions are made for the best way certain key moments in the story can be shared with readers. Then I have to tell the surrounding story in a way that works with that voice.
Last year, I wrote a story called "The Incident at Chastity Falls" and knew that there were important elements in the main story that needed to be told first person. But the first couple of chapters- the setup- would probably have worked better if told third person. My first drafts of those chapters sounded rather "clunky". Fortunately, I had a very experienced author named Cole Parker to help guide me through the process of bringing that story together, and I think it worked out well. Those are the sorts of challenges that authors- or at least this author- face when making, and then living with, decisions like choosing the perspective from which to tell a story.
Apologies to Tim for taking up so much space in this forum, but perhaps other authors might have some insights or experiences they're willing to share about the decisions they have to make when creating a story? It's always helpful to hear how others solve problems that I'm still trying to wrap my mind around.
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13806
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Take as much space as you need!
You may have read this, a part of our Writing Masterclass.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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joecasey
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Toe is in the water |
Location: American Midwest
Registered: December 2017
Messages: 45
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Some of my stories here are first person, some are third person. I don't know if I have a preference for either; I like first-person because it lets me get inside my protagonist's head and root around. I figure that other characters will make their thoughts and opinions known if and when they need to. Third person, for me, allows for a kind of formal distance, but even most of those stories are told primarily from the viewpoint of one character.
I've written two second-person stories for this site. That's supposed to be something that one isn't supposed to do, but they were fun exercises. I used second-person because I liked the informality of it, as well as giving a kind of stream-of-consciousness feeling to the story.
I've also experimented with verb tenses, too: writing a story in the present tense rather than the imperfect. Writing in present tense is a bit more difficult when trying to juggle the timing of events, but it can be made to work; one uses a present/perfect sequence of tenses in lieu of an imperfect/pluperfect one. Using the present tense lends a sense of immediacy to the story: that it is happening right now.
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Nico Grey
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Getting started |
Location: Vermont
Registered: January 2024
Messages: 9
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I doubt that I'd dare to try to write a story from the second person perspective... although maybe a flash fiction.
Fifteen or twenty years ago, I read a novel called "War Child" by Karin Lowachee. The first several chapters were written from the second person perspective, before the story shifted perspective to first person. The initial portion of narrative described the boarding and looting of a ship on which the protagonist was a young passenger. The second person perspective lent both urgency and an oddly dissociative quality to that action that was actually rather interesting.
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cole parker
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Toe is in the water |
Location: California
Registered: July 2018
Messages: 45
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Both Nico and Joe make some excellent and wise points, but that's to be expected of two excellent writers. They also make a point without saying it that is germane to this discussion and needs to be said. That is: writing is fun! It's a major reason we do it, in my opinion.
I find it fun because of the challenges it presents, and I love intellectual challenges. One example of a challenges we face is the one we've been discussing: choosing between first and third person. You're really not supposed to switch which person is narrating the story in first person, but I've done that a couple of times because it seemed having seaprate voices reporting the same events from different persepectives gave those events more vitality, and, I admit it, the challenge of doing so without being confusing, and without pissing off the reader, was in my mind as I did it. I love this kind of challenge.
I did this in my story Dust. It woudn't be the same if it had been told by a single narrator. I think it was well presented using two voices, but still in first person. It could have been written in third, but as pointed out earlier, that causes a separation between charcters and the reader, and I like to keep that separation as tiny as I can. Third person would have robbed this story of some of its excitement.
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Nico Grey
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Getting started |
Location: Vermont
Registered: January 2024
Messages: 9
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The switch of first-person narrators in Cole Parker's "Dust" worked quite well. Briar's voice was necessary to tell the first part of the story- and I enjoyed the flavor of his narration, it had a bit of 1950s Amercian Noir feel to it- but the second half of the story really belonged to Dustin.
"Dust" is one of Cole's best stories... and that's saying a lot! I'd recommend that story to anyone.
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There are a lot of first person narratives because there are a lot of first time amateur writers. When you learn to write the teacher might give you a task to complete, write two hundred words on what you did during your summer holidays. You sit down in front of a blank sheet of paper or an empty screen, then you decide to write something... "We went to the airport and spent a long time waiting, I did this... I did that.
When you decide to write as an amateur writer that's how you are most likely to begin. It's like writing at school. That's what we learn, unless you happen to be an avid reader of published authors, where you will find the vast majority of books are written in the third person.
I'm not saying all first person novels are amateur and rubbish, far from it, there are some classic first person novels, Catcher in the Rye is just one example.
Often first written amateur stories include a lot of the author him or herself, episodes from their life, or what they think about things, how they've experienced life, their relationships, almost autobiographical, also easier to write, a first person narrative that's you or a fantasy of yourself and you sort of know what happens!
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13806
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"William King wrote on Tue, 09 September 2025 17:36"
I'm not saying all first person novels are amateur and rubbish, far from it, there are some classic first person novels, Catcher in the Rye is just one example.
--
You kind of are, though.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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cole parker
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Toe is in the water |
Location: California
Registered: July 2018
Messages: 45
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You're suggesting first person is amateurish writing at least.
I've read tons of stories, many in thrid, many in first. There are solid reasons for writing it either voice. The reasons many of my stories are in first is because of what that does for the story. It accomplishes things that aren't captured as well in third.
In first we get things in the protagoinist's perspective, and of course that brings the reader closer to that character than happens in third. We don't get other characters' perspectives, but that's another reason to write in first: we don't always want different perspectives. Those perspectives are illuminated by those characters' actions and can be complete surprises coming through in the story.
The type of story it is demands the voice. That choice has nothing to do with how experienced the writer is.
C
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Nico Grey
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Getting started |
Location: Vermont
Registered: January 2024
Messages: 9
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"William King wrote on Tue, 09 September 2025 12:36" there are some classic first person novel
Another good example is "Moby Dick". A few years have passed since I read it, but iirc the story could have easily been told third person. But Melville's choice of a first-person narrative gave the story a sense of something being shared by an old sea salt, which just gave the entire reading experience a different feel from what could have been created in a third person voice.
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Mark
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Likes it here |
Location: Earth
Registered: April 2013
Messages: 284
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I find it odd that first person writing is somehow amateurish, especially when the whole arguement for that seems to be "It has to be because there's so much less written in the first person than in the third!" Are quantity and quality linked that much in anyone's viewpoint that, alone, a large amount of one equals professional and a smaller amoun of the other equals amateur? I may be wrong here, but saying "But everyone's doing it!" is not a valid arguement in my viewpoint.
First person, as others have pointed out, presents the story in a certain very specific way. When writing in the first person, I am writing from the perspective of a single character, and I have to maintain that same style of storytelling throughout the ensire story (as one character is doing the talking, and I can't just go and change perspectives and start telling things differntlly). That means that information that I want the reader to know has to be presented in a certain way, because the main character isn't going to know everything on their own (for example, they aren't going to normally know what other are thinking or are going out-of-sight unless told in some way). Therefore, sometimes presenting information in the first person actually takes more skill because you have to find a different way of presenting it that simply writing it out ("While Cole was off dancing with his friends in the night club, Timmy was 500 miles away preparing to deliver a package to his son...").
Simiarly, you also have to maintain a certain style of writing. When I was working to prepare "An Apprentice's Adventures" for the AwesomeDude website, they did make the reasonable request of having an editor go over the story first, and as a part of my conversation with the editor was to the effect that while I could understand certain changes being made, the story was being told in the first person by a character who was 13 years old, and as such had to still, in the end, sound like a 13 year old was relying the story to us, the readers (and that I was "simply" the one writing it down for them). Not impossible to do in the third person, granted, but it just made more sense (at least to me) to tell in the voice of the characfer (and therefore mandating a first person setup). And it's something that has to be maintained throughout the entire story, which trust me, isn't easy to do, because I had to write things out in a way that made it sound like a kid had just gone through those events and was essentially explaining what happed to others as it happened.
I have written in both the first and third person in my day. At the same time, do I tend to put a bit of myself into the main character? Of course I do. I write what I know. Does that, in and of itself, make it amateurish? I don't see how. There's a well-known author named John Grisham (who's written quite a few novels and even had several of them adapted into major Hollywood movies starring some pretty big name actors). He writes novels that are "law novels" (novels that have at least one lawyer as a prominent character and involve the U.S. legal system). And why is that? It's really very simple - he's actually a lawyer by training, yet no one is accusing him of being an amateur, even though I don't think anyone would be surprised if most of the lawyer characthers bore more than a bit of similarities to the author.
[Updated on: Sat, 13 September 2025 15:45] |
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cole parker
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Toe is in the water |
Location: California
Registered: July 2018
Messages: 45
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Just a quick note to thank Mark for his wonderful and fun An Apprentice's Adventures. If anyone has missed this, it's available at AD and is highly recommended.
C
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To make one thing clear, all the writing on this site is amateur, meaning you don't get paid for it and most of it doesn't get edited. Amateur is the opposite of professional when the author gets published and paid for their writing. Amateur does not equal amateurish. Same root, but completely different meaning.
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Bisexual_Guy
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Likes it here |
Location: USA Midwest
Registered: September 2015
Messages: 160
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Thank you, Mark Friedman, Cole Parker, and William King, for excellent analyses of writing and pointing out the story writing styles. Well done.
Also, the story "An Apprentice's Adventures" is here on IOMfAtS. Just go to Home -- Story Shelf -- Scroll down to Mark Friedman, and select "An Apprentice's Adventures. And yes, the story is also available on AD and on ao3.org.
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