The 3 Most Common Problems with First Person POV and How to Fix Them
Image by Alfonso Romero
By Marcy Kennedy (@MarcyKennedy)
Welcome back to my ongoing series on point of view in fiction writing. Today is the final installment for first person point of view.
So far we’ve talked about the nature of first person POV and how to write a successful first person POV story. Now it’s time to look at the three most common challenges in first person POV and potential ways of handling them.
Solving these problems is more about deciding on the best path for your story than it is about a right vs. wrong rule.
(1) The Time Problem
If you’re writing in first person past tense, you always have a time issue. The POV character is telling the story from a distance position. It’s already happened. Some of the tension is removed because we know the first person narrator survives the story being told.
There are ways around this. You could write in first person present tense (which many readers still find jarring even after the success of books like The Hunger Games). You could have someone else read the account left by the first person narrator, so until we reach the end of the story, we don’t know how long they survive the tale they’re telling.
Another way to handle this is to put your character in non-death jeopardy or in jeopardy where death is only one of the possible outcomes. A character can survive while still emerging horribly scarred either mentally, emotionally, or physically (e.g., in Stephen King’s Misery). A character can survive while still risking the possibility of losing someone they love and would have gladly given their life to save.
(2) The Withholding Information Problem
Because the first person POV narrator already knows what happens, we face the problem of why they don’t just tell us the ending right away. In most cases, as writers, we know that would kill our story by removing the tension.
You can withhold the ending as long as you play fair. In other words, you must have the first person narrator tell the reader everything they knew at that point in time where we are within the story. If you withhold it, you’re cheating the reader, and instead of feeling like we’re part of the story, we end up feeling the artificial constructs surrounding it.
In some genres, like cozy mysteries, you get one free pass. When the sleuth discovers the true identity of the murderer, you can (note I’m saying can, not should) withhold the identity of the murderer just long enough for the sleuth to set a trap for them (or bring them to justice in some way). There shouldn’t be a large gap between the sleuth discovering the identity of the killer and revealing it, though, or again, you risk the reader feeling like they’re being played with.
(3) The Melodrama vs. Cold Fish Problem
At some point in most books, your POV character is going to experience a particularly emotional event. How are you going to handle narrating that event?
If you haven’t asked yourself that question and you want to write in first person, you need to think about it. Think back to the last traumatic experience in your life. How clear are your memories of it? How clearly were you thinking at the time it happened?
Now how do you translate that to the page in a way that it doesn’t either come across as confusing for the reader, melodramatic, or cold and clinical?
Because if you allow your character to present it in all its chaotic, messy, heart-rendingly emotional glory, you risk confusion or melodrama. If you have your character present it factually and clearly, you risk them coming across as cold or unrealistic.
Experience is the only real teacher for finding the balance to these scenes. You’ll want to specifically ask your critique group, beta reader, or editor about these scenes and how they come across. Then tweak, seek advice, and repeat. It’s a lot like learning to balance on a bike or on ice skates. Once you have the feel for it, you’ll be able to stay upright.
What’s your biggest pet peeve about first person POV books?
If you’ve enjoyed this series of posts on POV, I hope you’ll consider signing up for my How to Master Point of View webinar running this Saturday. (If you can’t make it, sign up anyway. All registrants will receive a recording of the session.) Cost is $45! Sign up here. Or you can sign up for the WANA2Fer where you can get my POV webinar and Lisa Hall-Wilson’s webinar on How to Write Effective Inner Dialogue for only $70. That’s a $20 savings. Sign up for the 2Fer here.
I hope you’ll check out the books in my Busy Writer’s Guides series, including Strong Female Characters and How to Write Dialogue.
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Mar 06, 2014 @ 13:28:14
Hi Marcy,
Two points: (1) Mixed first person and third person POVs solve some of your listed problems. The character in first person relates a story, but secondary characters he or she doesn’t know about can continue it. I’ve been using this a lot. (2) Even though the first person POV is past tense (or past perfect in order to go a wee bit farther back in time), the character is relating events as they unfold. This is ideal for mystery writing, as your protagonist stumbles across clues leading him to solve the case…or misdirects, as the case might be. The reader participates directly in the sleuthing.
I find that the most limiting thing about first person POV is informing the reader how other characters see the character in the first person. I suppose that’s another advantage of mixing in third person from another character, but it can become a tricky business.
In my content editing (an integral part of my writing), I often have to go back over large sections of prose and change POVs because the initial one I chose just doesn’t work. That’s no crime (ignore the pun) either, as long as the writer is consistent.
One of my early reviewers made me super-paranoid about POV. Consequently, I work hard at getting it right…in my mind’s eye, at least. I still mess it up sometimes. 🙂
All the best,
Steve
Mar 07, 2014 @ 17:57:42
You brought up another challenge that’s a bigger issue in first person POV than it is in any of the others–knowing how other characters see the protagonist. And by extension, showing how the protagonist looks without resorting to awkward tactics.
Mar 06, 2014 @ 22:28:26
Another big problem I’ve seen is the POV character relates something he/she can’t possibly see. (NOTE TO SELF: My character does not have eyes in the back of her head.)
Mar 07, 2014 @ 17:58:53
Hehe. So true, Marilynn. In my own work, I have to watch for a character who has turned away or has covered her face, and then sees something she couldn’t possibly have seen 🙂
Jul 14, 2014 @ 19:05:20
Good notes on first person POV. In my case I studied how to write third person limited POV because it was the ‘accepted’ format. However I never really liked it. When I began to write in first person I suddenly realised I had been set free! However, I did discover that in the SF genre, for some weird reason, a lot of people dislike first person. I’ve no idea why. And my first SF novel, Rebody, though it got some good reviews, was hated by some just because I used first person present tense (which is incredibly difficult to use consistently, by the way.)
Jul 14, 2014 @ 19:52:34
My books are all done in first person present, POV. Thus, you (the reader), find out what’s happening along w/ the Protagonist (narrator).
Sometimes the ending is abrupt, which my editor finds irritating, if I kill him/her off to end the book.
First person present come natural to me.