First-Person Narrative, or Not?

[paulamcg]

I’ve just started writing two short stories simultaneously, one for Remus Fest and the other for HP Golden Age’s Salt and Pepper Fest. So far I’m using the third person in both – partly because I somehow enjoy this challenge, and partly because I remember (and saw in some sign-up comments at R/S Small Gifts) bias against the first person. I wonder how common the dislike of first-person narration is in the fandom.

I wrote my main fanfic, a long chaptered story, in the third person – but included letters in which the protagonist could narrate his backstory, and I allowed him to do it more and more in vivid scenes, using the present tense. In my short stories of the same period, too, I experimented with and developed my first-person-and-present-tense style.

That kind of first-person narration is still my favourite – particularly in slash fics with a lot of interaction between two characters of the same gender. But I want to also take the challenge of finding other ways to avoid clunkiness with pronouns and names. I doubt there’s much difference between my third-person and first-person short stories in how close I take the reader to the view-point character’s consciousness.

Having written this year mainly for my own indulgence, I at least pretend not to care too much whether the first person scares off readers. But now writing for fests, Ḯ’m more interested again in other writers’ and readers’ views.

Comments

[musyc]

I read both third and first person all the time! I do think it's a little harder for an author to get first person to attract my attention, but I'll click out of a fic for all sorts of reasons (failure to punctuate dialogue, anyone calling Hermione 'Mione, etc) so it's not a slam on the tense or POV itself, in general.

I think that when the canon is first person, like Rivers of London, it's a lot more accepted and often expected.

[paulamcg]

Thank you so much for commenting!

It’s reassuring to hear that people can read first-person fic, too, without thinking that choosing not to click out of it is something exceptional.

Even though I’ve known that first-person POV is often not preferred and certainly not expected in the HP fandom, I’ve used it in the majority of my fics. As I always choose a phrase straight from the text to be the title, I often also shamelessly reveal this technique immediately and might prevent some people from clicking in at all.

I haven’t read any Rivers of London, not even any of the canon. Would you recommend?

[musyc]

As I always choose a phrase straight from the text to be the title

Solidarity. XD I have so much trouble thinking of titles, that I either pick one word or take a line. Same with summaries. Most of the time it's just a paragraph from the fic.

For RoL, the canon is pretty good! There's also a comic series, if you have a more visual mind. I don't like it myself because I'm not fond of comics - something about the format makes it difficult for me to parse - but loads of people do. RoL is sometimes referred to as "Harry Potter, but cops" and ... while there's aspects of that in it, it's not really accurate. Peter Grant, the lead character, is a police officer in London, and he discovers that magic and wizards exist, and gets involved in it.

For fanfic, sixthlight is probably one of the most prolific and known. philomytha is one I enjoy. Give their "Birdcage" a try.

[paulamcg]

Thank you! I’m now eager to read RoL. I’ve immediately ordered the first book from my library, and I’ll save these RoL fanfic recs. I’m afraid I haven’t got a very visual mind, and I’ve never been fond of comics, either.

In my early fanfic years I was tempted to write longer summaries, but now I try to make it only one sentence – but never one directly from the story text. My summaries are always written in third-person POV and they reveal at least the protagonist’s name and usually the time and place, too (not the theme but perhaps rather the topic or the situation at the beginning). Now that I checked some of my latest stories – those I’ve posted on AO3 – I noticed that most of their titles, either, don’t reveal the first person, after all.

I don’t think we should feel sad about our picked-from-the text titles! (Well, you’ve seen that I’ve got unconventional tastes, and perhaps this doesn’t comfort you, but…) I consider some such titles the best possible. After completing a fic I look for a phrase – preferably an unusual, ambiguous combination of a few words – which somehow refers to the theme of (and perhaps to something else, too, like to a central concrete element in) the story. If I can’t find one, I’m not so happy with the story.