First Person POV

[Orrex]

In college, I took a number of fiction-writing workshop classes and was fortunate enough to have a series of excellent instructors. One of the profs in particular stands out as the one who most helped me to grow as a writer, but he expressed a view that baffles me to this day.

He argued that in the first-person narrative POV it is essential that the reader know who the narrator is addressing. He said that this gives the necessary grounding and context so that the narrator's commentary can be understood.

The main thing that's baffling about this is that I've read hundreds of first-person stories in which there's no indication whatsoever that the narrator is addressing anyone in particular. Most of Hemingway's work, for example. Or Carver's. Or Bukowski's. In fact, it seems to me that first-person stories with a clear narrative audience are very much in the minority. I can only think of a handful, in fact, though I could easily be missing out on a great many.

The point is that even if some (or even a lot of) first-person narratives do identify an audience, it is absolutely not the case that this is essential.

Additionally baffling is that my other instructors steadfastly maintained that the audience certainly doesn't need to be specified. If it weren't for that one prof's insistence on the matter, I wouldn't have given it a second thought.

Except...


I was reading the submission guidelines for a current anthology publication, and the editor repeated the claim that the audience must be specified in any first-person narrative. I was so surprised that I had to confirm that the editor wasn't my prof (she wasn't).

It's rather like a weird claim that you might have heard in your youth that always seemed bogus to you, but you were never able to dismiss it because you encountered just enough anecdotal support to make it seem credible.


So what's the deal? What's your perspective on perspective?

[ThatPoetGuy]

1. Treating a preference as a rule.

I can see where it gets started. Logic dictates that if someone is telling a story, there should be some reason the teller is speaking, and a reason the story is being told in this particular way. It doesn't make logical sense to recount events in detail, including vivid descriptions and every word of dialogue, if there isn't a specific reason to give those details. That reason would depend on why the story is being told, and to whom.

Makes sense, right? And yet, like you, I've read dozens or hundreds of first-person fictions, and few of them conform to that rule.

It's like the difference between prescriptive and descriptive grammar. One is a set of generalized rules, the other is based on careful observation of the ways people communicate.

As a writer who reads, it's up to you to decide whether violations of that rule offend you enough to impose it upon yourself. We both know that fiction can be rewarding and profound without observing that convention.

[SheilaT]

2. Sounds to me like a prof

who was making his own personal preference into an inviolable rule.

I have read I don't know how many thousands of novels and short stories in my lifetime, and the few first person narratives that actually specify who is being addressed are no better and no worse than the others that don't specify the audience. In fact, I seem to recall that specifying the audience can be a little awkward.

I wonder if the editor of the anthology didn't have the misfortune to study under your professor.

I'm also reminded of certain rules, such as the one about no incomplete sentences, which are commonly violated in good writing.

[krispos42]

3. Isn't the narrator addressing the reader? At least, usually?

Some are in the form of diaries, so presumebly the "writer" (protaganist) is addressing his/her future self.

Others that I've read are in the form of simply telling a long story.

[fadedrose]

4. Lots of times I'm not paying attention, so they're addressing nobody (eom)

[Orrex]

5. In the hugely overwhelming majority of 1st POV stories I've read, yes.

My prof IIRC seemed to espouse the idea that the narrator is speaking to someone and the reader is a "third party" listening in on this conversation.

[fadedrose]

6. Am just a dummy, but this 3rd party way makes more sense...

When the author provides a lot of information that, if he knew his audience and what they knew, he would not be providing a duplication. So he must be providing cultural, directional, climatic and other descriptions for that 3rd party he is not acquainted with.

Like I said, am just a dummy, but does this make any sense to you?

[vixengrl]

7. While the idea that the audience should be named is logical, story-telling isn't, always.

It seems to me that I've read first-person narratives that were just kind of written to me, the reader (or any other person privileged to find the story) and it never bothered me that it was in first person--so long as the author gave the narrator a distinctive voice or recognizable character. It might have been like stumbling across a diary or a very personal blog.

I think there might be a "fourth wall" issue with the style. On one hand, let's say I'm just telling you, who might be anybody, about some stuff that happened to me because I'm open like that. You know I'm talking to you--and depending on my story, you mind not even care why. But on the other hand, does a kind of fourth wall get introduced the moment you find that your narrator is really addressing some inquisitive police detectives, or writing a memoir for his progeny? The "you" that the author makes up for the purposes of addressing then become at least sketchy characters in the narrative. Sometimes that might serve the story--but other times it might not: there just might not be a plausible audience. And then you go for first person anyway because you can hear this voice of your narrator in your head, or you get out the pages with a blue pen and rewrite the whole damn lead-in in third person because omniscient view-point serves what you want to accomplish better.

I think the rule as is is arbitrary. What best serves the story, and what the author chooses to reveal....or withhold, should determine the perspective. I've written stories where I slowly reveal my first person narrator is basically unreliable, self-involved, prone to romanticizing, and the unreliability was the point. And she's rambling on because her mind just works that way--she confesses, almost to herself, almost in real-time as she figures out what she wants to believe. Her audience might as well have been herself. And trying to negotiate a third-party between her internal monologue and the reader would just intrude.

Edit: Speeeeled badly.

[fadedrose]

8. Knowing your reader..

If you wrote directing your story to the one you've intended, then you would have to have apologies sprinkled all throughout the novel, i.e., "as you well know;'" "I know your are aware;" and it makes the reader look somewhat of a dummy with a poor memory for forgetting the geograpy of Seattle, the details of Catholocism, which politician you are pushing, etc., that you have to remind him of these key points in the story.

[LearnedHand]

9. I remember reading a short story

don't remember by whom, that contained dialog EXCLUSIVELY with no attribution and no exposition. It was quite experimental, but also quite easy to determine the dialogers were a man, a woman, and a therapist (unknown gender). Anyone remember the story? I agree with the responder above: In fiction writing, there's almost no such thing as to "never" or "always" do something. Except for what one of my fiction-writing instructors said: "You've got to kill your darlings."

[McCamy Taylor]

10. Depends upon the story you are trying to tell.

Are you choosing first person because you want to paint a character sketch? Because you want a certain POV in a story? Because you want to explore a relationship? Because you want to show a character in conflict? In the first two cases, an audience is not usually defined. In the second two, it is.



If the first person narrator is "talking to himself", i.e. Faulkner style stream of consciousness, then you would not indicate an audience. For instance, you might choose first person because you are trying to get inside the head of an interesting character such as Benjamin from "Sound and the Fury". Or, maybe you want to tell a story from an unusual point of view. For instance, a tale of Alexander as told by a Persian eunuch, one of the conquered people who happens to love Alexander rather than hating him. That would be Mary Renault's "The Persian Boy." Or "To Kill a Mockingbird". Voice is all important in both of those novels, and yet neither narrator has a defined audience.

If the audience is defined then you change the seemingly artless narration above into a calculated narration. The main characters' story suddenly becomes suspect. Is he telling "the truth" or is he trying to 1) get inside some woman's pants, 2) prove himself innocent of a crime etc? If you want the reader to doubt the veracity of the narrator, define an audience. The subject in this kind of story is the relationship of two characters or (sometimes) the relationship between two conflicting ideas. You often see this kind of narration in horror stories and existential fiction.

[pitohui]

11. you're right and your old prof is wrong

there are many great first person POV stories where it is not clear who the person might be talking to, it might be that they're talking to their future self (which is what writing a diary is) or even just thinking things over in an organized manner to their current self (we usually think in the first person when we think about our own lives!)

it is possible that the first person POV is addressing someone else and it might or might not have meaning to know who that person might be but it is hardly mandatory or even all that important...

if i think about my life and consider the story of my life to myself, i'm thinking in first person, but i'm not telling the story to anyone...and that's perfectly OK...and it's perfectly OK that a fictional person could think over their story in the same way