The Air Up There — Third Person POV
I instinctively write in the third person; it never occurs to me to do otherwise.
Okay, once. I wrote a story, I think for a class in college, in first person where I conflated the events of my junior and senior prom into one story. That was [deleted] years ago, and I’ve never done it since.
When I write, third person is what comes naturally, and I rarely thought about why. Having given it some thought, I’ve come to the conclusions that a) I like the control and b) I’m an information junkie (that is to say, nosy).
They relate, in that I like to know what all my characters are doing and thinking and by writing in the third person, I can figure that out and (I hope) get it across to the reader. This is also the POV I prefer to read, although I have read many good first-person pieces.
I think this first hit home with a story I read (Home for the Holidays, by Wendy Stone) which was written in first person. In the story, two best friends — each harboring feelings for the other — decide to pretend to be a couple. As I read the story, as much as I enjoyed it, I kept wondering what the man was feeling and thinking. The narrator did describe the man’s action, and dialogue and expressions, but it wasn’t quite enough.
An English professor in college once told my class that if you didn’t like the story you’d read, then write the story you want. In this case, I did. I wrote a “best friends” story called Pretending, and wrote it in the third person. It could stand improvement, I’m sure. I’m not sure how “accurate” my male character is, although I don’t think he’s implausible. Still, it was a good experiment in writing my own story and in making my own characters.
I find third person a challenge, as it forces me to consider motives for all of my characters, male or female, good or bad. There is also the experience of trying to portray a character who is not me, although I’m sure there’s a little bit of me in nearly every character in my stories. To figure out why a person acts as they do, and then get that out in dialogue and description is something that might be difficult but I think is necessary as a writer, otherwise you will end up with the same characters, perhaps with different hairstyles or eye color.
To me, the drawback of third person is the flip side of the reasons I like it; that same control and nosiness make me feel like a voyeur with my characters. This makes writing sex scenes a little difficult, for example. However, I find it easier to write about other people having sex as I go along. The idea of writing in first person is intimidating; there’s a fear, perhaps irrational, that people will attribute the desires/fears/thoughts/wants of the narrator to me, even if they are the opposite of my thoughts. To write a sex scene in first person seems impossible and I haven’t tried it. Perhaps one day I will.
For now, I guess I’ll continue to be a voyeur.
Like Louis Friend, I’m the exact opposite. I’ve always written naturally in first person. And even when I write in third person, it’s almost always third person limited. But mostly, I think I choose the perspective that best fit the story. But third person definitely do give you a sense of being a voyeur.
I suffered a block from writing sex scenes in first person though. Like you said, it’s daunting to write about feelings that are so intimate from a first person point of view. What helped me get over it was just slipping into the character and let it play out…(Pun intended of course).