First person is a story told from the perspective of the narrator, who may or may not be the author, using the pronouns I and we.
Around 15% of all published fiction books are written in first person, so it is a very common selection for readers.
Based on the high popularity of the point of view, are you thinking about writing your novel in first person but not sure where to begin?
If so, read on…
How to Start a First Person Story
Before starting on your story in first person narrative, I recommend you consider two questions, then, follow four steps,
Is First Person the Best Point of View For Your Story?
First person point of view is great fun to write. It’s relatively easy to wrap your head around the concept, making it an ideal choice for new writers.
But before you go ahead and draft your novel, there’s a few points worth considering.
Significant limitations exist to only being able to enter the viewpoint and internal monologue of one single character in your story, in that you can only show the experiences and perceptions of this narrator.
Events at which your narrator wasn’t present can only be shown through dialogue and reported speech.
The other characters in the story will remain somewhat mysterious and unknown to your reader.
If your story is about a community or group, or even a pair of people, rather than the growth and development of just one person, then sticking with one single point of view can be limiting.
You can, of course, opt to have two or more first-person narratives within your story, with each different narrator being named at the start of the chapter and referring to themselves as ‘I’, but this can be disorienting for the reader. If you don’t have two very different narrative voices it can be hard for the reader to remember who’s speaking.
Think through the impacts of showing only your narrator’s experiences and thoughts within your story before committing to first person narrative.
Consider which scenes you will be able to write from this perspective, and which scenes you may have to omit. Can you be sure to show all the scenes required for your story to work?
If so, move on to the next point.
Will Your Narrator Be Reliable?
One of the great advantages of first person narration is the potential the form offers for unreliable narration.
Arguably, all first person narrators are unreliable because no one individual can ever be truly independent or objective.
However, there are plenty of stories told by a first person narrator who makes no obvious attempt to manipulate the narrative and who, therefore, the reader is inclined to trust. This is common in present tense narratives, where the protagonist reports their actions and thoughts as they occur.
This form of narration is popular in Young Adult novels, where readers often seek a strong connection with the narrator.
Past tense narratives lean more towards unreliability, as the narrator has an overview of their entire experience, and more motivation to manipulate their narrative to show themselves in a particular light.
Unreliable narrators are particularly popular in postmodern Literary Fiction, where the author may ask the reader to question the validity of accepted cultural narratives.
Next, let’s examine how to write a first person narrative well.
How to Write a Story in First Person
Develop Your Narrator’s Voice
Your first person narrator’s voice should not just be your own authorial writing voice.
In order to ensure you’ve developed this narrative voice, you want to first know your character inside-out.
Spend time developing the narrator’s backstory, goals and motivations. Once you understand them deeply, practice writing in their voice, until you can write it as easily as if it were your own–without forgetting which is which!
Write Your First Draft
It’s your call whether you free-write your first draft, or plan it first and then write with full knowledge of how events play out.
As you write your first draft, consider the advantages and limitations you’re experiencing within the first person narration.
Structurally Edit and Rewrite
Read your draft, objectively analysing how well first person narration has worked for your story.
Take note of the limitations you’ve experienced.
Are there other characters who need further development, or whose motivations remain problematically unclear to the reader?
Think about how you might deal with these limitations within the first person narrative:
- Can you expand the dialogue and body language of other characters to bring out their motivations and thoughts?
- Might the story work better if you change some scenes to allow these other characters more chances to show themselves to the reader through dialogue or action?
- Or can you use the lack of clarity around other characters’ motivations for the story’s benefit? This is often the case in murder mysteries and thrillers.
- Or must you consider re-writing the entire story from a different point of view?
It may help to get a trusted reader to peruse your draft to let you know how well your chosen narrative form is currently working.
Copy Edit
Once you’ve completed your structural edit and rewritten as necessary, it’s time to look at the nitty-gritty of the prose.
Writers can fall into certain common traps when writing first person narration, and I advise checking carefully to ensure you’ve avoided these.
Firstly, look at whether you’ve balanced out action, thought, description, narration and dialogue as appropriate for each scene.
First person narrative is rich with opportunities to expose the speaker’s thoughts to the reader. However, take care: it’s easy to fall into the trap of writing too much thought and narration, with insufficient action and description.
You’ll have to ensure your narrator gives the readers the descriptions they need to visualise and feel immersed in the scene, even though it may not naturally enter the character’s head to think these descriptive thoughts. Be creative in how you approach this; look at your favourite novels for inspiration.
Secondly, if you’re writing in past tense, have you created an effective separation between the character’s two roles as:
1) an actor in the story, and
2) as the narrator of the story?
This can be tricky to get your head around, so let’s next examine how to write first person thoughts well.
How To Write Thoughts in First Person
Past Tense
Your narrator will have both present-time thoughts within the action of the story (as an actor in the story), and reflective thoughts after the action as they narrate the story (as narrator of the story).
Don’t confuse these two roles.
For example, let’s look at an extract from Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch:
“I was thirteen. I hate to remember how awkward we were with each other that last morning, stiff enough for the doorman to notice; any other time we would have been talking companionably enough, but that morning we didn’t have much to say to each other because I’d been suspended from school. They’d called her at her office the day before; she’d come home silent and furious; and the awful thing was that I didn’t even know what I’d been suspended for, although I was about seventy-five percent sure that Mr Beeman… had looked out the window of the second-floor landing at exactly the wrong moment and seen me smoking on school property.”
The “I hate to remember” is a present-tense thought belonging to the narrator, whereas the “I was about seventy-five percent sure” thought belongs to the child actor within the story.
There’s a seamless transition within the prose. The narrator speaks with eloquent fluency, but as we travel deeper into the mind of the child actor, the language of the thoughts becomes younger and more juvenile.
Present Tense
If you’re writing first person narrative in present tense, it’s particularly important to balance action and sequel scenes.
Sequel scenes provide an opportunity for a break in the action. They allow for the narrator to have time to pause, reflect, and offer the reader their thoughts.
Without sufficient sequel scenes, you may be tempted to have your narrator unrealistically pause mid-action to tell us their thoughts and feelings. Try to avoid this where possible as it can disrupt the story’s flow.
Another risk is that by writing non-stop action scenes, your narrator may not speak enough about their thoughts and feelings, preventing the reader from establishing an emotional connection with them. This would be a fatal error when writing first person narratives.
Writing in First Person Examples
The best way to learn how to write in first person narration is to study your favourite writers and stories.
I’ll look at one example in detail, then highlight other texts you could examine further.
Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children
This Booker Prize Winning novel pushes the boundaries of first person narration.
It opens with an immediate demonstration of its narrator’s unreliability:
“I was born in the city of Bombay… once upon a time. No, that won’t do, there’s no getting away from the date.”
Within the same paragraph, the narrator plunges us into the scene of his birth:
“…at the precise instance of India’s arrival at independence, I tumbled forth into the world. There were gasps. And, outside the window, fireworks and crowds. A few seconds later, my father broke his big toe…”
Although he was technically present at the scene, as a new-born baby he couldn’t have remembered the gasps, the fireworks and his father’s broken toe. Still, it’s an immersive moment. But how far can we trust him?
Not very far at all, as the next paragraph suggests:
“I have been a swallower of lives; and to know me, just the one of me, you’ll have to swallow the lot as well. Consumed multitudes are jostling and shoving inside of me…”
Is our narrator an artist with words and images, or psychotic, or both? How many times will he claim to be able to tell the stories and lives and thoughts of other characters? How can he justify his claim to be exempt from the standard limitations of first person narration?
All these questions and more are asked by the opening page.
It’s a classic postmodern literary text, immediately making us question the reliability of its narrative form.
A word of caution: this is a risky example to follow if you aren’t writing Literary Fiction and don’t yet have full control over narrative tenses!
But it’s a beautiful demonstration of a skilled writer playing around with narrative conventions as a way to explore his key themes.
Other excellent first person narration examples include:
- The Secret History by Donna Tartt
- We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shrivener
- The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
- The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
- The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
- The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
- The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
- Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
- Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Tips for Writing in First Person:
- Develop your skills in writing body language so you can show the emotions of characters other than your narrator.
- By showing body language as you report dialogue, you can create subtext and subtlety within conversations. A character’s body language is more likely to report the truth than their words.
- Use your narrator’s knowledge gaps deliberately to create tension and suspense in your plot.
- Maximise the power of your first person narrative by taking the reader deep inside your narrator’s thoughts and feelings. If you keep the reader at a distance from your narrator’s most intimate emotions, you probably aren’t taking best advantage of your chosen narrative form.
First person narration can be a wonderful way to tell a story.
Once you’ve understood its limitations and strengths, you should be ready to get started writing your story using this powerful narrative form.