Point Of View (And Why It Matters) - First Person

This post was sparked by a conversation I had with a Facebook friend. He's writing a sci-fi novel, and he's purposefully using third person omniscient for his POV. He made a very good case for why he's choosing to use that method, and it got me thinking. A lot of newbie authors don't really know why they're choosing a particular POV. They choose it based on gut instinct, or because they don't know how to write any other POV, or because they think their story "requires" a certain POV. But like most storytelling tools, there is a method to the madness of POV. Or at least, there should be.

So, let's go through the different types of POV, why they're good, why they're bad, and why you should consider those things before choosing which one to use for your story.

First Person - "I'm telling you my story. Here's what happened." 

First person is telling a story from an entirely personalized point of view. Observations and actions are entirely dependent on the perception and knowledge of an individual. There's both good and bad limitations on this type of POV.

Good News - Surprises, twists, and misconceptions are a lot easier to get away with in this type of storytelling. If the narrator is surprised, the reader will be surprised. If the narrator has formed an opinion about something, the reader will form the same opinion---which means the reader will be more likely to be surprised when it turns out to be wrong. Which means you can mislead the reader from the moment the narrator opens his/her mouth.

Why is that a good thing? Simple: stories are more entertaining when there's a surprise in the box.

Example: Say you're writing about a soldier who's been tasked with monitoring a border between two nations. Say the nations are on the edge of war. Your soldier is told that a secret spy mission has just been sent into the enemy's territory to find out if an attack is imminent. He's supposed to look out for a signal from the spy team. If he sees a red balloon rising from the other side of the wall, he's to tell his president to attack the enemy. If he sees a blue balloon, he's supposed to tell the president to pursue a course of peace. It's a big responsibility, but he feels he's up to the task. So he watches the border, agonizing about the consequences of war between two nations, and contemplating the consequences of starting a war based on a red balloon sighting. He waits, and waits, and waits. Finally, a balloon goes up. He goes to his president and declares the war is begun.

After the first attack, the narrator gets arrested for treason. The spy master demands to know why he told the president to attack. Your guy is outraged---after all, he saw the balloon go up. The spy master says, "It was a blue balloon! Blue means peace, not war!"

At which point your narrator realizes something for the very first time---he's colorblind. He started a war because he couldn't tell the color of the balloon.

That's how you get away with twists in first person. If the narrator doesn't realize something, the reader won't, either.

Bad News - First person is extremely limiting. You can only talk about the things the narrator actually knows. If you slip up and give the narrator more information than he/she should reasonably know, you'll break the fourth wall and ruin the whole thing for the reader. You're also limited by the fact that only one character gets to tell the story. Well, you can write a story with more than one first person narrator, but you have to do it very, very carefully. You can only do it through chapter breaks; it makes no sense to have a mid-chapter break that switches from one person to the next, since both parts of the chapter will be using "I" and therefore the narrator's identity won't be readily apparent.

Reasons to Use First Person POV

You get to tell an extremely personal story when you use first person. The emotional highs and lows are both immediate and poignant, which means you get to engage your reader on a visceral level. Whether you write in present tense or past tense, your narrator will come across as personable and realistic even in fictional circumstances. The narrator's perceptions, opinions, and limited experience provide a rich tapestry on which to weave your story. First person stories provide lots of opportunities for character studies, which means you don't have to try to break the mold with your plot. It's all about the character and how he grows and changes, rather than the journey itself.

Reasons NOT to Use First Person

As previously stated, first person is limiting. If you know how to take advantage of those limitations, you can tell a story with lots of surprising twists. If you fail to realize those limitations, you end up with an improbable tale of an omniscient individual who seems to have mind reading powers. I suppose you can always write a first person story about a mind-reader, but there's only so many times you can get away with that. You have to treat your narrator as if he's a witness in a murder trial; he can only testify to what he actually witnessed. If he starts talking about events he didn't personally see happen, you start asking your reader to suspend disbelief in a way that doesn't feel natural---and therefore won't be engaging. You can get around this limitation by having another character come in to tell the narrator about an event, but again, you have to do it carefully. If your entire story is about your narrator regurgitating events that other people are telling him about, you probably shouldn't be writing in first person.