Day 115

Writing in the first person or in the third person

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Writing in the first or third person is a matter of preference; the former can sometimes be limiting because only one point of view is generally available to the reader, while the latter enables the reader to get more than one point of view.

In the first instance, this is how we tell a story from one perspective that doesn’t necessarily require others.  In the second instance, it is useful for writing a murder mystery where different perspectives, attitudes, and characters, depending on circumstances, add to the story in ways a single perspective can not.

However, as I see it, when writing in the 3rd person, the author has to have multiple personalities in order to write different points of view.  To me, that’s difficult, but not impossible. It simply means you have to get into character so you can write their story.

That, in turn, takes more time and, to a certain degree, a lot more planning for character development.  It’s where a minor character can get to steal the show, as is known to happen in movies.  Sometimes, it’s a pleasant surprise; others are not so much.

A pitfall not to fall into is adopting the same persona type for all the characters.  You would need to sit down and plan each of the individual characters, no matter how small a role they play.