Some authors like to include a reason for why their narrator is telling the story. It can be mentioned in passing almost as an afterthought, like in Jill Paton Walsh's A Parcel of Patterns, where you discover at the end that (this is not a huge spoiler BTW but I know some people [me!] prefer to know as little as possible about books they'll read) the narrator wrote the story to help her move on. Other times the narrator's reasons for writing the story can be central to the plot, like in Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, where the narrator is very present and his motivations are one of the big mysteries from the get-go. But then other authors don't bother with explanations for a first-person narration. For instance, take all the first-person present-tense YA novels we're getting nowadays, e.g. The Hunger Games. There's no way the narrator could actually be writing as all those things are happening.

What do you think? Do you like to include the narrator's motivations as part of your story when you write in first-person? Would you choose differently for different stories?

Right now, myself, I'm going through a phase of being really interested in how a first-person narrator with distinct motivations can add layers to a story. So right now I'm working on a novel where a man looks at two different accounts of the same events, from different people and from different perspectives, and then tries to figure out what really happened. But he himself was very involved in the events and has some definite biases. I'm hoping that the motivations and perspectives of the various narrators will add depth to the story, and show how complicated things really were.

I've always considered first person to be just another way of telling a story, a stylistic option, but it is certain that it does give you a chance to have a story-aware narrator. (Though I will say, I'm currently experimenting with writing a present narrator in third person – pure third – not like a distant narrator is describing the happenings of people other than himself and interjects occasionally with his own thoughts – just, like a person is writing his own story in third person and interjects his own story awareness even though he's in third person.)

Getting the feeling that the first person narrator is actually writing the book would detract from some stories, I think – make you feel kind of self conscious on behalf of the narrator, as well as make you feel like they're a bit vain, perhaps, to be writing all about their life in such detail.

But I believe story-awareness in the narrator (and finding out why the narrator is telling the story) can certainly be interesting if it actually adds something. I've read several books where this was so.

Like I said in your introduction, that sounds like a kind of story I really like. I enjoy mind games and perspective complexity, especially if the primary point of view is biased. (I'd love to read it whenever you're finished if you want. )

Now I've been inspired by this topic, and my current short is going to be in story-aware first person.... And he'll be writing it because a character in the story bribed him to. * grins *

Using the first person narrator can be interesting for various reasons, but here are mine :

- Unreliability of the character ; as both of you said, this is linked to the subjective dimension of the story -the reader is not sure to be told the truth, yet the narrator is the only one he can rely on...when reaching its climax, this asset can be even more powerful : for exemple, in a ghost story (I am thinking about Maupassant's "fantastiques" short story or for instance "The turn of the Screw" by Henry James) it may lead the reader to question the sanity of the narrator : is he mad, or are the horrors he sees true ? This is a very effective way to keep the reader's attention for he has to be on his guards.

- The amount of twists : in the case of a first-person narrator the story is limited to only one character, point of vue, and situation : the reader only knows what the narrator knows...therefore, even though the storyline maybe a bit less developed than it would have been with, for instance, an omniscient narrator (who could, for instance, unveil for the reader the strategy of the Villain) or if skipping from the point of view of a character to another, this allows much more revelations and twists, keeping the reader much alert. I personally find this kind of stratagem very enjoyable (that's the major system of Dickens).

In my sense, if the 1st person narration does not fulfill one of those two goals, and is not justified besides by a precise intention of the narrator, as you said, this choice of narration is rather a question of style

Ah, but that's the thing - then you get the chance to come up with an interesting reason for why the narrator is writing the story! And maybe that would be because your narrator is vain...though that would get a bit wearing! But yes, as you said, this only works for some stories. Definitely not something you would want to do all the time. But it's an option I often consider these days when I'm thinking about a new story.


Now that sounds interesting! I had an idea for a story where two women go on a quest, and ultimately the heroine dies because the other woman betrays her. But then the heroine's husband/love interest/not sure who he would be captures the betrayer and forces her to write an account of what happened, because he really wants to know what happened to his beloved. So you could have the betrayer trying to justify herself, and perhaps you could also have a complex character in the husband/love interest/whoever if he's really angry with the betrayer and is trying to force her to tell the truth.

Sarai, I like your two reasons for why you would choose a first-person narrator! It hasn't occurred consciously to me before how such a narrator can increase the twists in a story because of their limited knowledge. It would be easier, for instance, to have a character misunderstand something and mislead the reader, too - a plot device I love when used successfully, but I find pretty annoying when the author doesn't manage to fool me! "Oh come on, you stupid character, can't you see that...?!"

I've also found that a first-person narrator can leave you guessing if they don't reveal much about themselves. With any other character in the story, you have to actually see them in the story for them to be part of it...and so you learn more about them than you would about a first-person narrator that's basically just a mysterious voice telling a story. You see some of the narrator's personality, but they can hide who they are if they want - their gender, their age, their place in life, their role in the story...you know? This was done quite nicely (though not to an extreme extent) in A Series of Unfortunate Events.

Also, have any of you read Code Name Verity? I wouldn't recommend it offhand - it has quite a bit of swearing, torture, references to sex, etc. - but the first part was one of the best examples of a self-aware first-person narrator, not to mention an unreliable narrator (always fun!), I've read.

And, by the way, I'm sorry if my use of "they" as a singular gender-neutral pronoun annoys anybody...to me the use of "they" as a singular gender-neutral pronoun is just an instance of perfectly reasonable and normal linguistic change, and so I have no problem using it...

I've always thought that if any book that didn't have an explanation (journal entry titles, or what-have-you) that it was simply putting you in the head of the character. They aren't physically writing the stuff down, but it's happening to them and the author has decided to give you a deeper glimpse. (Sometimes because it's simply easier to write that way, especially in action-motivated YA books. Although, along those lines, a lot of my favorite YA books are third person, because it's almost unusual in the genre, but that's another beast.)

I do love doing things with perspective. (I have the germs of an entire series called the Perspective books, which tell the stories of four different people but each book happens at roughly the same time. However, at the moment those are all third person, because it's adult suspense and that's hard to pull off accurately in third pov)
But I have another tale where the first person pov is explained as an account of the adventure by the MC--and because it happens after the fact, I can interject all sorts of fun foreshadowing and rants from the character himself. XD
In yet another, it's first person and present tense. I don't actually explain this in the book, but because that story is about stories themselves (think "wardrobe fiction breaking the fourth wall and then building it back up again") and I want the reader to feel so far flung into the story, that they almost ARE the MC. Obviously, my MC is a character all of her own and drives the story that way. But it's a story of stories and I want the reader as involved as I can get them.
Lastly, I have the beginnings of a tale in first person where it breaks back and forth between what's happening in the present, and what happened in the past to bring things to where they are. Right now, I'm writing that one in first person too. But I haven't actually said why, and it's subject to change.

So I guess my answer to your question, Sheesania, is that it depends on the MC and the character of the story itself.

Yes, I think this is the most common use of first-person, and it definitely works best for some types of books. Sometimes it will just distract from a story to have some kind of metanarrative going on with a story-aware first-person narrator.


Cool! I want to write a pair of books where in the first book a hero goes on a quest and then eventually dies killing the antagonist in a heroic sacrifice. Then in the second book you see the antagonist going on a quest and eventually dying killing his antagonist (the hero of the first book) in a heroic sacrifice. It could be quite interesting...


Ah yes! My favorite. I love how this was done in Brandon Sanderson's Alcatraz series - though many people find it a bit over the top! I found it particularly amusing when the narrator keeps poking fun at a character in his account that later turns out to be his wife. You can just imagine her reading the manuscript and their cracking up together over it.


Wow! That sounds really neat! Just the sort of thing I would read.

So yeah, as you said...
Often it would be very distracting to have another story layered on top of the central one in the form of an explanation for first-person narration. But sometimes it can come off beautifully and really add to a story. So it's something that's nice to keep in mind.

((First of all, apologies for all the typos. )



=*series


=*accurately in first pov

And I love the Alcatraz books! XD