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/lit/ - Literature

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7032337 No.7032337 [Reply] [Original]

Hello /lit/

Can I make as a writer who only writes in first person? I've tried and tried to write in third person but it just doesn't come to me like first person does.

>> No.7032350

>>7032337
You can but you'll probably always be a hack if you only use one style throughout your entire career.

>> No.7032351

If you want to write YA books sure.
I never really felt comfortable writing in first person, I don't know why it always feels silly to me when I try it.

>> No.7032357

Third person > first person

Prove me wrong

>> No.7032375

Writing in first person requires more skill IMO

>> No.7032395

>>7032357
Prove yourself right first

Both can be as good, 3rd person just makes it easier for the writer to ramble on about life and shit without the reader asking himself wtf is wrong with the protagonist.

But 1st person can be more intimate, stronger bonds with characters

>> No.7032439

>>7032357
Karamazov was written in first person. C&P was written in the third person.

>> No.7032452

>>7032337
I had an English professor who told me he had colleagues that found writing in first person was easier, and that they would rewrite it all in third person afterwards.

There are some good first person writers, though. Glen Cook comes to mind as an author who can write a character in first person, while still making the story not about them.

>> No.7032461

>>7032439
To add on:

Karamazov was written with a first person narrator narrating many third-person events. So third-person can be a subset of first-person, but you can never find first-person being the subset of third-person. Once you place the 'I' in the narration, its stuck to a viewpoint. Therefore first-person > third-person.

>> No.7032513

>>7032461
>you can never find first-person being the subset of third-person
This isn't true. I'm thinking right now about the short story "O Espelho" by Machado de Assis. It's written in third person, but most of the text features a character telling a personal story in first person.

>> No.7032885

>>7032461
>but you can never find first-person being the subset of third-person.

Off the top of my head, Heart of Darkness

>> No.7032892

First-person is good if done right. Wolfe does it pretty well.

>> No.7032913

Can anyone name some books written in the SECOND person? All I can think of is "Bright Lights, Big City" by Jay McInerney.

>> No.7032926

>>7032913
The Cave of Time

>> No.7032931

>>7032337
First person is only for Lovecraft and shootan.

>> No.7032939
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7032939

>>7032926
Hmmm... I think pic attached did more interesting things with the ambiguities of the second person tense.

>> No.7032946

>>7032337
Of course, just look at Stephenie Meyer.

>> No.7033900

>21st century
>not writing in second-person
You're a faggot.

>>7032913
How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia by Mohsin Hamid
There's a great chapter of A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan in second-person
It's used in Absalom Absalom by William Faulkner
If on a winter's night a traveler, by Italo Calvino
A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid
A Man Asleep by Georges Perec

>> No.7033912

>>7032913
If on a winter's night a traveler, it's a masterpiece

>> No.7033959

If you can't write in third person, you're probably shit at writing about things other than what's happening in that moment.