Which Perspective Do You Prefer, 1st Person or 3rd?

Which Prespective Do You Prefer, 1st person or 3rd?

Personally I prefer third person as it allows the writer to shift from one character to another or from one place to another and many writers use this to great effect, eg Maggie Furey. I think that first person books can be limited in their point of veiw, but the characters thoughts are conveyed more clearly, perhaps making a book easier to understand, there are some great first-person books out there such as the Farseer Series.

i like the first person actually, it makes you feel more connected with the main character and if you read mysteries you can figure things out on your own. But last night i read a book with a totally new style for me. She used first person and everytime she met someone different the main character or the narrator changed, so for example when she meets her boyfriend, you know what she thought and in this moment you shift to him and can read his thoughts, which was kinda amazing.

I like 3rd...first gets a little old. I especially like Omniscient (s/p?); tells you the thoughts of many of the characters instead of just one...

Both of them

I think i actually like 1st and 3rd, I agree honeydevil you do "connect" with the main character I forgot how good across the nightingale floor was

Both can be good. Depends on a lot of factors. I think some stories call for first and others for third. It also depends on the style and the ability of the writer.

I agree with Wabbit, though I do have a small preference for third person narratives. Somehow I got it into my head that first person narratives are easier to write.

i like it in first person....i like getting into the head of the main character..

At first I thought I was going to say first person. I was going to say that third person is removed, cold, lonely.

But then I thought of Virginia Woolf, for example, whose third-person narrators go so deep into the minds of the characters that it doesn't feel removed at all.

I don't think anyone has mentioned second person yet, so I'll just add that I think it is a gimmick that tries to force the reader's involvement when the rest of the writing doesn't do it.

Mari said:

I don't think anyone has mentioned second person yet, so I'll just add that I think it is a gimmick that tries to force the reader's involvement when the rest of the writing doesn't do it.

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It depends whether the author can pull it off or not. I'm guessing you read something that the author had just decided to write in second person for no particular reason. However, there are a couple of works that use second person very effectively and the style comments significantly on the characters or themes.

Personnally, in the first / third person debate I'd have to say that it doesn't really matter. There are brilliant first person authors and brilliant third person authors, and of course there will always be rubbish authors in every style.

This is a lot more complicated than just a choice between first person and third person. There is first person minor, which is how The Great Gatsby is written, from the first person POV of Nick Caraway, though with more of the feel of third person because he is not the protagonist, just the narrator.

The most marketable and popular fiction is written in third person limited or third person privileged POV, in which the reader is 'with' one character at a time, though that character may change from chapter to chapter or scene to scene. And while the reader is 'with' a particular character (the privileged POV), the narrative has no knowledge of the other characters' thoughts and feelings and unseen actions. But you might go there later in another scene or chapter. So it is not truly omiscient, and it's really important for the author to stay with each POV and not leave to give unprivileged information.

True omniscience is not at all common or popular because it rarely engages the reader in characters' lives well.

As for second person, it's hardly used for obvious reasons. It just doesn't work in telling a story.

Back in primary school I was given a book that was written in 2nd person, and by gum if you're not right. It was really freaking annoying, is what. Admittedly there was nothing else good about the book either.

It did sort of make sense to use the 2nd person in that novel though, as it was one of those hideous "make your own adventure" books (a time machine story, to be more exact) where you, the reader, had to make a choice every few pages, where for each choice you were asked to turn to a particular page.
Sort of like the lousy Dragon's Lair/Space Ace games, except without even the cool cartoon animation to make up for everything else being garbage! But that's a whole 'nother thread.

I felt that Calvino made good use of the 2nd in "If on a winter's night a traveller", though, so while it's rare, even that can be used well. Mind you, I've seen people complain about it in regards to that novel as well.

I've never thought about whether I prefer first or third person, so I shouldn't think I have any preference. But then I suppose things like this might work at a deeper level, so perhaps if I looked at all my favorite books, I'd find that most of them are in one camp, even though I'm not conscious about preferring either.

That being said, my favorite first paragraph in a novel is in the first person:

I am a sick man. ... I am a spiteful man. I am an unattractive man. I believe my liver is diseased. However, I know nothing at all about my disease, and do not know for certain what ails me. I don’t consult a doctor for it, and never have, though I have a respect for medicine and doctors. Besides, I am extremely superstitious, sufficiently so to respect medicine, anyway (I am well-educated enough not to be superstitious, but I am superstitious). No, I refuse to consult a doctor from spite. That you probably will not understand. Well, I understand it, though. Of course, I can’t explain who it is precisely that I am mortifying in this case by my spite: I am perfectly well aware that I cannot “pay out” the doctors by not consulting them; I know better than anyone that by all this I am only injuring myself and no one else. But still, if I don’t consult a doctor it is from spite. My liver is bad, well—let it get worse!

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Øystein said:

That being said, my favorite first paragraph in a novel is in the first person:

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wow, you wanted to confuse me? you did it. He is superstitious and then he isn't, doesn'tmake much sense to me. sorry

ummm, i like both a lot, but i think i prefer 1st. I love books which alternate. so it starts in 1st with the main character and then in 3rd, something big is happening that the main character doesnt know about!! yay, gotta love it

lani

honeydevil said:

wow, you wanted to confuse me? you did it. He is superstitious and then he isn't, doesn'tmake much sense to me. sorry

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Ah, well, that's basically why I feel it works so wonderfully well in first person. It shows the thoughts and how the protagonists emotions fluxuate. One moment he's worried as hell about something, the next he throws it aside as nothing, then quickly starts worrying again.
In case anyone's curious, the quote was from Dostojevskij's Notes From The Underground

Fourth person?

Yes, that's where you read it either before or after you actually read it in the present!

I like the Royal We POV.

"And so We proceed with our story, in which the poisoned tea cakes are eaten by a greedy mouse . . ."

I'm a sucker for an unreliable narrator - think Patrick McGrath, Kazuo Ishiguro - so that calls for first person. But I think the poster who said that first person is easier to write was also correct - in my limited experience of trying, anyway. It's much easier to develop a distinctive voice in first person narrative.

Agree too that second person narrative is usually a gimmick, as in Jay McInerney's Bright Lights, Big City or Iain Banks's Complicity. Then there's Jeffrey Eugenides's The Virgin Suicides, which had a collective narrator - tricksy again, and in all but a few details indistinguishable from an omniscient third person narrative.

For artful third person narrative, I love Evelyn Waugh particularly in early stuff like Decline and Fall and A Handful of Dust - he has a wonderful detached tone, wry and amused but not above a little sensitivity towards the characters.

For me, it depends entirely on the skill of the writer. I don't really have a preference and don't take immediate notice unless it's poorly done and sounds jarring.

Another old one but a good one.

I prefer 1st person, even with the bias of the given character. There are other elements that can clue the reader in as to whether or not the character's perspective is as they truly see it.