/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.17405891]

>It's written in first person

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » No.17405903]

>>17405891
>it’s well written in first person

[Anonymous No.17405940]

first person done right is the best perspective.

[Anonymous No.17405944]

First person past tense is the most ancient of all forms of story telling

[Anonymous No.17406023]

>>17405944
That doesn’t make it good. 3rd person past tense can’t be beat, and anyone who writes differently is just trying to stand out i may be exaggerating somewhat

[Anonymous No.17406098]

Unreliable narrators tho. Also tons of room to innovate in that - see faulkner's interior monologue of supernatural people, benjy from sound and the fury then there's gravity's rainbow written in first person omniscient. Obvs pynchon uses 2nd and mostly 3rd, but the narrator actually has a distinct personality and pov. Great perspective, just not natural when ots done bad.

[Anonymous No.17406128]

>you aren't going to write in second person future tense
You will literally never make it

[Anonymous No.17406136]

>>17406098
Basically this, what I like about the first perspective is that it allows you to really get into the narrators psychology. This is peak kino with unreliable narrators

[Anonymous No.17406155]

first person narrator with suicidal impulses in the midst of an emotional breakdown for best narrator

[Anonymous No.17406160]

>>17406098
Also beckett and joyce

[Anonymous No.17406245]

>>17405891
i click thread cause girl

[Anonymous No.17406962]

>>17405891
>its a frame story

[Anonymous No.17406969]

>>17406245
That's as good a reason as any.

[Anonymous No.17406971]

>/lit/ hates first person
>/lit/'s favorite book is lolita
>lolita is in first person

explain

[Anonymous No.17406972]

>>17406128
kek, based shitpost

[Anonymous No.17406973]

>OP is a faggot and makes a shit thread
>/lit/Chads enter the thread and he is instantly BTFO
Many such cases

[Anonymous No.17406975]

Based ally sheedy poster

[Anonymous No.17406978]

>>17406971
Its the exception that proves the rule

[Anonymous No.17406989]

polemical 2nd person

[Anonymous No.17406998]

>>17406098
Unreliable narrator really made The Arrest of Arsène Lupin something special.

[Anonymous No.17407087]

>>17405891
Hey wtf are you doing with a gif of my wife?

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » No.17407097]

>>17407087
How’s your son?

[Anonymous No.17407118]

First person present tense ...makes me put down the book.
...I can’t stand it at all.


Fuck.

[Anonymous No.17407133]

>>17406245
honesty is always appreciated

[Anonymous No.17407430]

>>17405891
second person is where it's at, plebs

[Anonymous No.17407657]

>>17406978
Exceptions don't prove rules.

Only the original meaning made sense.
>You can walk on the grass on sundays
The exception proved that there was a rule that you could not walk on the grass on any other day.

This does not work for the million times people use it to excuse evidence that goes against their false belief. There is no "the only good first person book is lolita" rule.

[Anonymous No.17407670]

>>17405891
quick, toss it in the trash!

[Anonymous No.17407675]

>refused to read the Hunger Games in high school due to it being written in first-person
>read War and Peace instead like an autist
>qt student-teacher didn't know what to do
>just let me not do the assigned readings
I think about this a lot

[Anonymous No.17407702]

>>17407430
This. Gene Wrote some great stories in the second person.

[Anonymous No.17408243]

A vaguely interesting question:

Has anyone here ever read a book and felt strongly it would have been better from a different viewpoint (first person instead of third, or vice versa; or narrated by a different character)?

I can't think of any really clearcut examples (in good books). A couple of possibles:

>Lord Jim
I don't really like the whole Marlowe-as-author-insert thing that Conrad keeps doing. Why not just ditch Marlowe altogether and tell it straight third-person omniscient? Lots of structuralists and post-structuralists and who-knows-what have burbled on about the subtle effect of all these layers of narration but it seems like bollocks to me which just muddies the waters.

>Absalom, Absalom!
This is the opposite — a third-person book which should be first-person. The whole wrapper story with Quentin Compson hearing stuff from people and discussing events with his roommate at Harvard is clunky. If it were in first-person from his perspective, it would seem more natural.

In tone and subject-matter and structure, AA is very like Wuthering Heights — grotesque three-generation Gothic family drama, retold in a series of very long flashbacks. WH has an overall "observer", called Lockwood, who gets told all these flashbacks by other characters. So he's the equivalent of Quentin. But WH is narrated by Lockwood in first-person and it feels more natural.

[Anonymous No.17408302]

>it was written in prison

[Anonymous No.17408419]

>>17408302
>it was written in third prison omniscient

[Anonymous No.17408590]

>>17407675
bitch are you telling me high schools are assigning hunger games

[Anonymous No.17408692]

>>17407430
>second person is where it's at, plebs

It can work, but it often feels a bit arch.

Bright Lights, Big City manages to pull it off with considerable style, but it's a one-off sort of book.

[Anonymous No.17408762]

>>17405891
The most based way is to write from a third person perspective on the story, but have the story be derailed by the narrator who is self-obsessed.

[Anonymous No.17408775]

>>17408762
based

[Anonymous No.17408798]

>it's all diary entries

[Anonymous No.17408855]

>Not going to write your whole book in the subjunctive mood.

[Anonymous No.17408877]

>>17408798
I couldn’t finish Dracula because I got sick of this

[Anonymous No.17408896]

>>17408877
I'm currently struggling through the middle portion of The Savage Detectives because it's all in interview format.Feels especially bad after reading the entire first chapter in one sitting and not wanting to put it down.

[Anonymous No.17409045]

>>17406975
ally sneedy

[Anonymous No.17409071]

>>17406023
usual midwit

[Anonymous No.17409197]

>>17408243
HoD also has an awkward POV setup that leaves the reader floating around-with who to identify with.

>>17408877
Agreed, technically it entered my ears. Minah, oh minah, die in a fire. Take Van Hellbitch with you.

[Anonymous No.17409208]

>>17405891
It's probably not the best way to go about writing if you're an inexperienced writer. It's not bad, it's just difficult.

[Anonymous No.17409331]

>>17407118
Brainlet with no mental imagery spotted

[Anonymous No.17409457]

>>17405944
first person is a person (and implied number), not a tense

[Anonymous No.17409461]

>>17405891
(｡･ω･｡)ﾉ

[Anonymous No.17409481]

>>17406128
nice

[Anonymous No.17409617]

>>17406971
I've never read Lolita and I'm /lit/

[Anonymous No.17409663]

Surely that's the hardest decision to make when coming up with an idea for a novel

[Anonymous No.17409680]

>>17409457
Past tense is obviously a tense, not a person.

[Anonymous No.17409705]

>>17408590
This qt student-teacher in my junior year of high school in like 2014 did.

[Anonymous No.17409862]

>>17406971
Fugg! I just wrote a 414 page book entirely in 1st person.