[ SECRET POST #2223 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2223 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 06 pages, 127 secrets from Secret Submission Post #318.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

1st person is harder to keep "in-character". In original fic this isn't a problem because whatever the author writes is canon and you shape your expectations of the characters' thoughts around that. But in fic, the reader already has a pre-concieved idea of who the character is and what sort of things they're likely to be thinking, and even minor deviations from your own view of a character can seem wildly ooc.

Think of it as the difference between...
Loki: "Kneel to me, weakling!"
Stark: "Yeah, no."

And
Loki: "Kneel to me, weakling!"
Stark: *Oh god he is so handsome and mysterious mmmm mmm work that leather* "Yeah, no."

I'm sure there are people who'd see both of those as perfectly IC, but if you don't see Tony Stark as the kind of guy who's going to be mentally ogling bad guys during stand-offs the second is ridiculous. Basically, putting a fic in 1st person is like throwing up a magnifying glass. Any flaw in the writing of that character becomes much more noticeable and pronounced. Any authorial insertion that might go overlooked in a 3rd person fic becomes that much more obvious as well.

[making_excuses]

Thank you Anon!

Now I understand why people care about which perspective a story is written in. I've never thought about it that way, if an author gets an character wrong I just think bad writing, which perspective they use doesn't cross my mind.

[(Anonymous)]

I actually really like 1st person stories and I tend to prefer them for original fiction just because they CAN give you so much more perspective on a character.

But, yeah, I have to say I'm one of those people who thinks they've earned their crappy reputation in fanfic. But I don't think it's something 'new' at all. I've been reading fic for more than 15 years now and I remember even back then lots of fan writers looked askance at 1st person fics because of the OOC potential.

Another thing that crops up a lot more in 1st person writing as the 'extreme emotional empath' protagonist and the 'so many feels I'm bursting with them' protagonist. I think because a lot of writers are trying to shoe-horn in a more omniscient look at the rest of the cast without switching POVs, and so they wind up with really clumsy OOC writing for the MC. Like, I can't count how many times I've seen characters who are canonically pretty oblivious, like Thor, spending entire chapters admiring how attractive and tragic everyone else is.

[(Anonymous)]

Except that if a story is well-written, then one of those characters' perspectives is going to come across in a tight 3rd person POV anyway. Or, at least, it should. If you're not getting thoughts from a character, if it's a sterile "he did this and then he2 did that" with no inner dialog from either of them, then that's just sterile and ick.

And that passage could just as easily be written thus:

Loki said, "Kneel to me, weakling!"

Tony thought, Holy shit, he is so handsome and mysterious. Look at him work those leather pants. But what he actually said was, "Yeah, no."

in 3rd person.

[(Anonymous)]

Generally in 3rd person not every thought is going to be written out word for word. The majority of the prose will be focused on what the characters are doing and saying, with their thoughts and feelings being shown through more abstract wording like "X cleared his throat awkwardly" or "Y's knuckles were white around the handle of her coffee mug." The reader can fill in the blanks with whatever seems most IC to them. Thinking, like what you write, is much rarer because it's awkward and falls straight into 'show, don't tell.' Thoughts in 3rd person (closed and omniscient) are usually used for emphasis, not for every single line.

In 1st person nearly every thought is written out. And if those thoughts don't seem to line up neatly with what the reader thinks the character would sound like in their own head, it's jarring.

[(Anonymous)]

This is probably a function of me writing 3rd person so tightly that it might as well be first. Different styles, I guess.

[neurofancier]

What you describe is called 'deficient narrator'. Is a type of third person narrator (Although some writers use this narrator for first person stories). A third person omniscient can describe what every character is feeling, and it can go into as much detail as the writer desires.

[making_excuses]

Now I am going to sound so stupid and ehm uneducated*, but wouldn't most stories have to use more than one perspective (I think I figured out why I don't get this argument), because you can't have a story where everything is:

"John told me he liked apples, as I brushed my hand through my hair and looked up to the right I heard John sighing, he must be getting tired. He will soon start shuffling his feet, oh there it is the feet shuffling. I am getting a bit tired myself."

Versus:

"I like apples" John said sighing, Sherlock brushed his hand through his hair thinking "my Dear Watson must be tired, he is showing the signs he usually shows before he starts ranting about how tired he is, next comes the shuffling of his feet."

John shuffles his feet, turning to Sherlock

"Sherlock could we please wrap up this case so I can go to sleep soon?"

"You can't rush genius my Dear Watson, but go lie down for a moment, I wont set fire to the flat in the next hour or so"

As John lay down on the sofa to nap, Sherlock continued to solve the case "No it can't be the Teddy Bear that did it, there is no such thing as a terrorist Teddy Bear, I refuse to believe it! But where are the evidence of something else. I should wake John up and ask him! I'll just pretend to drop this book to the floor so John with his military training will wake up"

The loud sound of the book falling to the ground, shook John enough to wake him, turning to Sherlock and saying "She..."

Sherlock was back in his chair "I could hear John starting to tell me off, but the sound of his voice is already helping me solve this case! Oh I know it"

Sherlock suddenly stood up and shocked John to silence in the middle of his rant.

"John! I solved it! It was the Purple Elephant that did it!" Sherlock basically yelled

"Sherlock, how did you come to that conclusion?" John said, resigned to his fate as Sherlock's flat mate.

"It is all in the evidence, the Elephant almost had me fooled to think it was the Teddy Bear, but I see now that the Bear couldn't have done it because he is way to small to reach all the way up to the top of the shelves!" Sherlock said, barely taking a moment to breathe.

"That is great Sherlock! You finally solved the great mystery of whom stole our flour. Now can I please get back to sleep?" John said, before he finished his sentence he was halfway up the stairs to his bedroom

"John will soon see how briliant my deductions was, he was just too tired to understand them right now. Tomorrow when he wakes up he will be most grateful. Now where did I put my research on bees?"

Wow, that got a bit away from me... Anyway I guess sorry F!S and that is the first and only "fanfiction" you will ever see me write. For the obvious reasons.

*as usual I will blame the English isn't my first language thing.

[dreemyweird]

ILU and your story. It would take its well-deserved place beside "Holmes&Irene" by noodly.

But your example is third person.

See: first person is when the narrator refers to themselves as "I" in indirect speech; second is when they address somebody as "you"; third is when it's all "he", "she" and "they". The key part is that it must not be just the direct speech/thoughts, it should be the story itself.

[making_excuses]

Not enough porn for that...

Ah right, I will still blame English as a second language... Even if I should have known it, and everything. It is late and my brain is fried from doing 14 days of research in about 5 hours...

[(Anonymous)]

I think I might be misunderstanding this. Are you saying you don't think it's possible to have a story that has a strictly limited POV? I actually think that's the norm, particularly in mystery or romantic stories where having perfect knowledge of every character would ruin the suspense. Most stories are written in past tense, 3rd person subjective POV IIRC from high school english.

[making_excuses]

I didn't word myself that well, and I was thinking about this book I was reading last month and somehow my thought got slightly mixed and fanfiction happened... I dunno?

[(Anonymous)]

No worries, I find it really confusing myself. I think you've also jumped between past and present tense in your story, and the difference between those is a whole other level of confusing that people get just as wanky passionate about.
The wikipedia article on this is pretty good, if you're curious! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narrative_mode#Third-person_voices

[velvet_mace]

Amusingly enough all of the original Sherlock Holmes stories are written in first person from Watson's POV.

[velvet_mace]

Neither of those examples are in the first person. They are in script format.

A better way to do that would be like this:

Third person omniscient:

Loki entered the room and noticed, angrily, that Stark was there. Disgust of the puny human rose in his gorge. Did he not know he was in the presence of a god? "Kneel to me!" he cried out.

Stark looked up from his work and gazed at this new distraction. And what a distraction it was: it wasn't every day that you saw someone with shimmering silvery body paint dressed up in some sci-fi version fetish gear walk into your work space. Well, at least not without paying for them to be there. But here was this... person, looking -- was that outrage? How adorable.

"Yeah, no," he said, grinning.

Third person limited:

Loki entered the room and noticed, angrily, that Stark was there. Disgust of the puny human rose in his gorge. Did he not know he was in the presence of a god? "Kneel to me!" he cried out.

Stark stood still for a second, then his eyes rose and lowered as if assessing Loki, pausing longest on Loki's tight leather clad crotch. "Yeah. No," he said with a slight upturn of his lips.

First person:

At first I ignored the footsteps behind me. I wasn't expecting anyone, but when you own a company the size of mine, interruptions are just part of the sparkling ambiance. Usually if I ignore a peon long enough, they'll figure out how to go away without me having to do anything.

This time, though the steps didn't pause at the door, then go away. Instead a loud voice rang out. "Kneel to me!"

The fuck?

I turned around and saw him there. What's his name. Loki. Thor's brother. Right. He looked like he'd been dipped in silver paint and dressed in some Star Trek meets gay leather club number. I checked out his ass for a moment before responding to his words. "Yeah, no," I said. Kneel to him. Hilarious.

Now as you see, different kinds of information come to the fore depending on which POV you are using. The same scene and the same words have a different feel to them.

[(Anonymous)]

Excellent examples. And the last one made me grin all over my face.

[amanuensis1]

*fistbumps you* So glad someone took the time to respond with terrific examples like these (and so funny!).

[(Anonymous)]

Now this is more like it! Great examples, great writing.