Many novels are written in First Person Point of View, and that's for a good reason. Before we talk about why it's good, let's talk about what we mean when we talk about point of view in fiction - or POV as it's often known for short. Basically POV answers the question of which character is telling the story (or characters, in a multi-POV story). To put it another way, whose eyes will the reader be borrowing when they read the story? Or, if it was a movie, on whose shoulders would the camera be resting? In first person point of view, the reader is 'seeing' the action through one character's eyes, a character who describes what's going on by saying "I". This character is usually the protagonist or main character. It doesn't have to be though - Dr. Watson in the Sherlock Holmes stories was the first-person narrator, but was not the protagonist. This, however, is very much the exception. An example of how you might use First Person Point of View could be, "I woke that morning and wondered where the roof had gone". If you were writing the story in Third Person Point of View (which is essentially the only other option) you'd write, "Gary woke that morning and wondered where the roof had gone". The benefits of First Person Point of View are first of all that it's easier to write than Third Person Point of View - we live our own lives from our own first person point of view, so it comes naturally to use. Then there's the advantage that it is easy to engender intimacy betwen the character and the reader - it's easy for the reader to settle into the character's head so to speak, and be absorbed in the action easily. And another advantage is that it's easy to get a nice chatty tone which also lends itself to intimacy. However, there are disadvantages too. The first one is that it's challenging to naturally get the character to describe him- or herself. We don't go around thinking about what we look like, so it's not natural to do that for your characters. A classic solution is to get the character to look into the mirror and describe what he/she sees, but to be honest that has become such a cliche and even lazy writing, so you're advised to avoid this. Another problem with First Person Point of View is that it's too easy for your character to get too caught up in contemplation and thoughts and so on, rather than action. This is very easily done as it's easy to write. But while some of it is really good (leading to the intimacy we spoke of earlier), too much is just self-indulgent, and it slows the story down. So be aware of that and guard against it. The next issue is that it is impossible to include subplots that don't involve your point of view character. Your character can have a main plot and a subplot but you can't have another character's subplot. (Unless you do split point of view stories, which is a possibility. But then it wouldn't be strictly First Person Point of View, and so wouldn't fall into this category.) And finally, the fourth problem is that it's impossible to include scenes that your character isn't present for, and this limits what plot twists you can make, and/or means that you have to be very creative about giving your character a good reason to be at a scene he/she wouldn't automatically be at. Be careful not to cheat or be contrived about why the character is there - there has to be a better reason than you, as the writer need them to be there! Those disadvantages are very real, and need to be dealt with, but First Person Point of View is very much worth doing for the advantages. It's also a fun way to write!
Best-selling Irish author Tracy Culleton is passionate about helping writers achieve their dreams. You can learn more about first person point of view at her website, and also check out her website on novel writing software.
Article Source: http://www.writerspenarticledirectory.com
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