It seems like five or six years ago, almost every new novel
I read was written in first person. An example of first person writing is:
"I was walking to the store when
this gigantic purple and green dog jumped out of the alley onto the sidewalk. He stood
facing me as if to block my path. It stood its ground with its legs splayed.
"I
froze in place at the sight of this strange-looking creature. I tried to guess
its intent, not to mention its origin. Was I in danger?
"Drawing upon the limited
training I had received about how to behave around a potentially dangerous dog,
I slowly turned sideways and shifted my gaze so that I did not look directly into
its face. The thinking of that stance is, from what I have been told, to signal
non-aggression to the dog so that it does not sense danger and respond by
attacking.
"I studied the creature’s face
out of the corner of my eye. What I witnessed take place in its bright orange
eyes shocked me, prompting me to turn back and stare fully into its face."
In some ways, stories written in first person draw me in
so that I feel like I experience the scenes in the story as if I am the person
telling the story. In other ways, I feel it is limiting--sort of like real
life. I don’t know what the other characters are thinking or feeling
unless the character telling the story shares their observations with me. In my
opinion, some authors show more talent writing in first person than others and that can determine whether or not the story is a pleasure or a chore to read.
The preceding example demonstrates the first
person writing style using the past tense. The paragraph that follows is
an example of first person in the present tense. In my opinion, one of the
biggest challenges of writing a story in first person is to stay in the proper
tense.
Is the author telling a story from their point of view
that happened in the past? Is the author relating what is happening “on the fly”
as it is happening? It is so easy to get “was” and “is” mixed up in the
telling, but so important to keep them straight.
Perhaps one of the most popular styles in which to tell a
story--and the one that seems to be in vogue, as least in the genres I have
been reading lately--is that of third person. The writer is an observer, a fly
on the wall, so to speak. Or perhaps the writer is a revered storyteller
sharing with those gathered around the campfire a tale of the exploits of
others. However you want to view it, the writer is talking about people,
animals and things, as a know-all third party.
An advantage of third person is that the writer can share
more than one point of view in the story. (That is a whole different topic, so
I’m not going there too much now.) The author can share the thoughts, feelings
and intents of more than one character. I personally like to separate the
thoughts and feelings of different characters by at least a paragraph, if not a
chapter section or a chapter.
Swallowing in an effort to calm
her thrumming heart, she froze in place as she stared at his roughened,
manly lips surrounded by the bristle of two day’s worth of unshaven whiskers, a longing surging up within her to wrap her arms around his neck and kiss him senseless.
He froze at the sight of the
beautiful woman before him as visions of her as the pesky little brat that
had made his life miserable when he was still in short pants came crashing back
into the forefront of his memory, inspiring within him the childish urge to grab her by her shoulders and send her crashing to the ground.
In this third person example, we have two people standing
and looking at each other. We know what each character is thinking and feeling,
even if each of them are clueless about what is going on inside the other. What is going to happen next? I don't know. Write the story and we'll find out.
As in writing in first person, it is important to keep
track of the use of “was” and “is,” “did” and “do,” “will” and “won’t”
not to mention what the characters “would” do.
My novel Family Secrets was started at a time
that writing in first person was very much in vogue. I debated about how I
wanted it written. Keep in mind that this novel has an ongoing storyline of current-day
characters going through experiences in a present-day setting. In addition,
some of those older characters are telling about past events in their lives.
One of my first questions at the start centered around
whether I should write
Family Secrets all in first person,
all in third person or a combination of the two. I decided there was only one
way to find out. For the first few chapters of the book, I wrote the same
scenes both ways. Then, like mixing and baking a good bread dough from scratch,
I let those chapters “rest.” When I went back later to read what I had written, I made
my decision.
The current day scenes I wrote in third person. They were
mostly from Jennie’s point-of-view. Here is an example:
Jennie chatted with Garrett
and her parents through the meal. She waited towards the end to execute her
plan, but she knew she better catch her parents before they left the table if
she wanted some answers about the family. When she judged it to be just the right
moment, she fished the paper with her questions from her jeans pocket. Keeping
her tone light and casual, she asked her first question regarding the full,
legal names of her grandparents?
Christy glared at Jennie,
a frown creasing her face. “What brought this on?”
"Oh, I was sharing a
table in the library with our neighbor, Mrs. Moore, and we started talking
about what she does for a living. I told her I knew your full names, but I also
realized that I’m not sure of the first and middle names of my grandparents. So,
she helped me put together a list so I could learn more about my family.”
“What kind of
information about the family?” Christy demanded sharply.
Jennie hesitated as
she picked up on the concern in her mother’s voice. She looked up to see her
mother’s expression hard and forbidding as a high stone wall. Jennie realized
she needed to reassure her of her intentions.
“You know, like the
full, legal names of my grandparents, for starters,” I said. “Grandpa, Grandma,
Granddad and Nana are okay when I’m around them, but I know that’s not what is
on their birth certificates.”
Jennie waited, but
neither of her parents spoke. In the silence, broken only by Garrett making
airplane noises as he swooped his fork over his plate, Jennie noticed that her
father was not looking at her. He was intently watching her mother. Something
was going on, but Jennie could not guess what it might be.
“I guess that would be
okay,” Jennie’s mom finally said.
Jennie’s dad was the
next to speak. “My father’s full name is John Kevin and the last name is
Graves, of course. My mother’s name is Amy Renate Walding.”
Then Christy told Jennie
her parents’ full names, pausing as Jennie carefully recorded them.
“Okay, I know all
their birthdays, but I’m not sure of the years,” Jennie continued. She recorded
the birth years of her four grandparents.
“Okay, where were they
all born?” she asked next.
“Why do you need all
this information? What else is on that list of yours, anyway?” Christy
demanded.
Jennie’s senses went
on full alert. Her mother was definitely frowning, her voice hostile, her jaw
clenched and her body rigid. Jennie looked at her father. His eyes were darting
back and forth between her and her mother. At that point, she realized she was
somehow touching on a sensitive subject for her mother. What could it possibly
be?
The chapters that dealt with her mother’s and grandfather’s
historical stories I wrote in first person and the past tense. Here is an example from Christy’s
story:
What I sometimes found
strange about the woman in my dreams was how her eyes could change from one
extreme to another, almost instantly. Mostly her bright blue eyes were full of
laughter as they looked directly into my own. But then, sometimes her eyes
would take on a far-away look, as if I no longer existed for her. That
frightened me. I always wanted to stay with her when that happened because I
was afraid the rest of her would go away like her eyes did.
In some of my dreams,
when that happened, my angel was resting on a lush carpet of tall-bladed grass
sprinkled with tiny flowers in pastel shades. Her arms and legs were sprawled. I
sat next to her talking and playing. Sometimes her eyes were closed; sometimes
they were staring off into space. Sometimes she would not say anything, not
even when I shook her and jabbered into her ear. Other times she would
sing-song silly words that made me laugh. But I could tell she did not know I
was there.
When the pretty woman
in my dream was like that, I accepted this as part of her natural state. I
somehow knew that if I waited next to her, she would eventually come back to
me, her eyes once more connecting with mine and her smile shining only for me.
While I waited for her to return, I amused myself by picking small flowers or
blades of grass and scattering them like a veil over her arms and face,
watching as she sometimes shook them off to catch in her hair or create a floral
ring around her body.
Other times, when the
rain was pounding down upon our world, she would slip away into her other world
inside a house with lots of painted wood and faded wallpaper where there were
stacks of jars and boxes overflowing with beads and seashells. I often
separated the beads into piles by color, or placed them end to end to create
shapes. Sometimes I would pretend that the shells were people and animals and
flowers from our yard while I patiently waited for the vacant stare to end and
for my angel wearing her happy face to come back to me.
More and more, I had
to wait for my angel to come back to me.
Sometimes my dreams
ended while I was playing or just as the woman’s eyes returned to me laughing
and happy. Other times, strong arms scooped me up and carried me away while I
looked back with a sense of wonder at the motionless pretty angel with her
blank stare.
Whether a writer chooses to tell a story in first person
or third person, the important thing is to tell a good story. I hope all my
readers enjoy the story that crosses three
generations in Family Secrets with Jennie and her story told in third person while Grandpa Mike’s
Vietnam War experiences and mother Christy’s experiences as a child are told in
first person.
Robyn Echols writes using the
pen name, Zina Abbott. Her novel, Family Secrets, has been
published by Fire Star Press and is now available on Amazon HERE and on Barnes &
Nobel for Nook HERE.
Also available from Prairie Rose Publications:
Big Meadows
Valentine, on Amazon
Kindle HERE and on Nook HERE . The second
novella in the Eastern Sierra Brides 1884 series, A Resurrected Heart, is
scheduled to be released in April 2015.
A Christmas Promise
on Amazon Kindle HERE and Nook HERE.
