Readers of oppo, what style do you prefer, first or third person?

"Anon" (tjsielsistneb) 08/14/2015 at 15:09 • Filed to: None

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Which form of narration do you prefer? I’m more of a first person man myself as I feel it lets me connect much better to the protagonist. Then again, third person offers up the ability to have much more dialogue and so secondary characters become more fleshed out. So what do yall prefer and why? Also don’t give me that second person bullshit, you “choose your own adventure” assholes!

TheHondaBro > Anon 08/14/2015 at 15:15

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First person omniscient.

Ash78, voting early and often > Anon 08/14/2015 at 15:15

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Second, a la Choose your own adventure.

EDIT: I see you already planned for my tomfoolery. I like third person, omniscient narrator. Limitless possibilities, but less mystery.

SVTyler > Anon 08/14/2015 at 15:19

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I like third because (like you mentioned) it gives a much more omniscient perspective of the story, 1st person always seemed too restrictive to me.

MontegoMan562 is a Capri RS Owner > Anon 08/14/2015 at 15:20

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First Person, always.

Sam > Anon 08/14/2015 at 15:20

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I prefer Smartass Fifth Person.

Smartass Fifth Person Narrative

This is how fancy, post-modern novels are written. The narrator is a self-aware character in the story, and the story is really about the creation of the story and the author is a real smartass about it. Example:

“The man is in the hallway,” I said to the reader of this book.

(Source: http://www.laserfarm.com/?p=570 )

T5Killer > Anon 08/14/2015 at 15:22

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Third person. I read a lot of military history and military novels so its all in 3rd for the most part.

55Buick, Oversteer Scientist > Anon 08/14/2015 at 15:37

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Definitely 3rd person. I feel like it gives the reader a more balanced perspective of the characters

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > Anon 08/14/2015 at 15:39

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I’ve typically preferred third-person in the past, but a number of the last few things I’ve read are first person. One of them, the Book of the Short Sun series by Gene Wolfe is much harder to read as a result, but more immersive, because the perspective character is writing for an audience to whom he wouldn’t normally have to explain things. Things that are worth a “wait, what?” like gods that may once have been AIs, vampires that aren’t exactly vampires, artificial life form prophetesses, and so on. He doesn’t bother making it obvious these things are going on. On the other hand, a very different series I read not long ago, John Ringo and David Weber’s Empire of Man series, would have been very different in first person, as it’s a strategic sort of Shipwrecked Soldiers In Space epic.

There’s another good example of first vs. third vs. limited omniscience narrator, and that’s P.G. Wodehouse. He’s written in *all* of them. All the Bertie Wooster/Jeeves stuff is first person, and work well because a lot of comedy comes from Bertie being a simp and not being aware of it at the time, and from things he doesn’t know. The Blandings Manor stories tend to follow the musings of an old man from a following perspective point that allows some distance from the (increasingly senile) subject, so that when he pulls off something clever it surprises you. There’s another short story called Hot Water which is so ridiculously overplotted that there is no way to follow all the story threads without third person perspective, but it still draws you in perfectly well...

There are a lot of ways to fail, though. I read a book called The Blue Sword in the last few months which despite being a Newberry Honors book (YA-ish, so sue me) put me off a bit because the third-person aspects were just enough to maintain a distance from the character and her emotions that critically needed not to be there. The story depended heavily on the insights, experiences and so on of the main character and skimped somewhat on *narrative* description, and no connection to the main character (who should by all rights have been interesting - c.f. I don’t know, maybe Anne of Green Gables) meant little connection to the story. On the other hand, I read Flashman At The Charge, which was first person narrated by a completely horrible person, but very compelling and entertaining.

So that’s how you fail at third person - don’t include enough moorings, and the big picture expands to include the big words “I don’t care”. On the other hand, I think the most common way to fail at first-person is for the character to be too self-aware. There are ways for a character to be genre aware, wry, and to address the reader. IF however that’s all that the character does, and the actual character clearly doesn’t believe in their own (supposedly) world, it’s the biggest break imaginable. Waving the “I AM FICTION! FICTION, I SAY!” flag.

Going too far the other way can make reading hard, though. The Name of the Wind (a really good book) isn’t quite as far out of the way as the Gene Wolfe book I mentioned, but both are hard to read because you need extra pressure to get into the character’s head. Good and easy or clear to read are often synonyms, but not always.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > T5Killer 08/14/2015 at 15:42

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Definitely the right choice for anything military contemporary, military sci-fi, or military history, with the exception of memoirs or notional memoirs/perspective pieces. My all time favorite WWII book is a memoir of a tank commander.

Autohaus Derp > Anon 08/14/2015 at 15:57

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I see what you did there.

jkm7680 > Anon 08/14/2015 at 16:06

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Jkm7680 likes to talk about himself.

Stephen the Canuck > Anon 08/14/2015 at 16:23

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I usually prefer third person. But I will read just about anything. I find sometimes that if the character that I’m reading about in first person is annoying then I have a harder time enjoying the book.

Rainbow > Anon 08/14/2015 at 17:37

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I actually DO enjoy second-person. It gives more opportunity for fun humor and stuff, I think. Somehow...

I dunno. Other than CYOA books, I think Homestuck is the only thing ever actually written that way. It works pretty well.