First person writing

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FeatherThief
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First person writing

#1 Post by FeatherThief »

Does anyone have any tips for writing in first person? I can do second or third easily but my writing in first person comes out awkward.
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Re: First person writing

#2 Post by Lunethex »

Real writers use third person.

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Re: First person writing

#3 Post by curry nochi rice »

describe everything that happems or happened from your perspective...

i suggest you read some Haruki Murakami novels or any novel or author that uses the 1st person perspective...like

I saw her down range and shot her....

"I" is the keyword here...
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Re: First person writing

#4 Post by linkdragon0 »

Lunethex wrote:Real writers use third person.
I fail to see how this is true.

Also, most of the visual novels I've played have used first person for the story telling.

Anyway, my two cents is, describe things how you'd see them, a really quick overview, don't drag on and on and on with descriptions.

Also, if you need to tell someone else's story in the first person just have it so it fades to that person and explains it from their point of view, just make sure you tell everyone that it's a person different from before.

Just make sure you get your tense right in first person (this really applies to everything) or you could really confuse people.

Hope I helped.
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Re: First person writing

#5 Post by FeatherThief »

YEah, I have a problem with the tense. Hmm, guess it is time to go cosplaying and talk like my main character. I also have a problem with using as too much. Well thanks for your help.
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Re: First person writing

#6 Post by curry nochi rice »

omg, i'm also having a problem now...i just realized this..

I should I use "You as a substitute for the Characters name, or should i use, "player instead"

???:
You = Character Name = Player
or
Player = You = Character Name????

i've been using Character Name and You for the majority of the game plans.
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Re: First person writing

#7 Post by Lunethex »

linkdragon0 wrote:
Lunethex wrote:Real writers use third person.
I fail to see how this is true.
Think: Stephenie Meyer

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Re: First person writing

#8 Post by Tsuki-chan »

So, basically, what you're saying is that you're basing your statement off of your clearly very limited knowledge of the subject?

Dean Koontz is most certainly a 'real writer' and some of his novels are written in first-person. As is the classic 'Catcher in the Rye'.

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Re: First person writing

#9 Post by IonicMomo »

Lunethex wrote:
linkdragon0 wrote:
Lunethex wrote:Real writers use third person.
I fail to see how this is true.
Think: Stephenie Meyer
That's not true at all. What about William Faulkner, Mark Twain, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jack Kerouac, J.D. Salinger, and a slew of other "real writers" that employed first-person? It's not at all fair to discredit an entire style of writing based on one author of books for children. (And whether you personally like these writers or not is of no significance; they are all well-recognized, often-read, important, and influential writers. Your individual preferences are meaningless in that context.) Personally, I think that most VNs written in third-person, unless executed very skillfully, would be awkward and leave the player feeling detached from the story and characters.


To FeatherThief:

As for writing in first-person, it's really a matter of being aware of the limitations of that point-of-view. Your style of writing should reflect your character's view of the world. That means that the information you provide to the player won't be impartial, and the views you present won't be unbiased. In fact, they could be completely wrong at times. It is impossible to deliver complete information to the player (unless you use shifting viewpoints), but I think the limitations are a good thing in a game. In real life, you can't know everything when making important decisions, and you don't have access into the minds of others. I think that applying that mode of thinking to a game works very well to keep it a little more realistic and adds an extra challenge for the player to understand what is really going on, who's lying, who's trustworthy, etc. It's also okay to have an unreliable narrator, and to have what s/he thinks and reveals to the player be influenced by his/her personal beliefs and the limitations of his/her own knowledge of events in the game.

Keep in mind the advantages of first-person, and use them to your benefit: you have complete access to a character's mind, and you can use that character to shape the player's perception of the world you create.

But I'm impressed that you can write in second person! That's big a challenge for me, as I use it very rarely. It usually comes out very awkward sounding in my case, so you must be a pretty skillful writer to pull it off well. So I'm sure you'll get the hang of first-person in no time. :D
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Re: First person writing

#10 Post by LVUER »

Most Visual Novels uses first person view (using "I"), the reason is immersion since VN talks the life of one person, in present time too. While novels indeed use third person (and I never read novel using first person view).

Light novel is slightly different from novel. Light novel consist lots of conversation, just like a VN so it also uses first person view.
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Re: First person writing

#11 Post by iAsobu »

Lunethex wrote:
linkdragon0 wrote:
Lunethex wrote:Real writers use third person.
I fail to see how this is true.
Think: Stephenie Meyer
Aren't several of her books in first person?
But whatever perspective you're thinking of, please don't tell me you're not using sarcasm when you say Stephenie Meyer. *Shudders* Although maybe I don't know. Some her books that aren't about sparkly vampires could be good.

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Re: First person writing

#12 Post by Jake »

iAsobu wrote:
Think: Stephenie Meyer
Aren't several of her books in first person?
That's probably her point. :P
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Re: First person writing

#13 Post by Lunethex »

Ask Stephen King. He also put it succinctly on the Stephanie Meyer case. All first person writings are Stephanie Meyer-esque crap we don't need in the hobby.

First person writing shows a lack of real skill and imagination. Catcher in the Rye is nothing more than an egotistical man's boorish escapist fantasy. Its like narrative porn for the socially stunted or those whose intellect isn't quite high enough to grasp end-level crackpot fantasy like Ayn Rand.

Once again, go read every book written by King. All 3rd person. He's the most successful writer of the past 30 years. Fact.

First Person writing is a cop out. Sure, maybe some good novels may be written in it...But every single clueless, untalented hack uses first person. Stephanie Meyer, every fanfic writer that's ever posted a story online, all first person. It's lazy.

First person is what slope heads do. It is all they can do. Want to know why? It's because they create Mary Sues. They ARE their character, so they cant remove themselves from the story to do it Third Person.

Catcher in the Rye, funny you bring that up. That's only classic because your English teacher forces you to read it in 8th grade. It's drivel.

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Re: First person writing

#14 Post by linkdragon0 »

King also bores me to death with his, in my opinion at least, overly long descriptions of everything.

The people that create Mary Sues/Marty Stus don't not know how to write (some of them definitely can't) but some just don't know how to create correctly balanced characters.

Also, I haven't seen many good VNs written in third person, mainly because most VN's are about bonding with the characters, and when you're detached from the story in 3rd person it's hard to bond like you're truly there.

Certain stories, I admit, should be written third person, but some just don't feel right if you don't go through it like you're the character.

Also, Stephanie Meyer is trash, we all know it, lets leave her out of this, god it's like Godwins law for writers.
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Re: First person writing

#15 Post by Dark »

Personally, writing in either person works for me. It also depends on the tense of the subject.

For writing in first person, you could use much more monologue and thought processes that may be a bit harder to use when writing in third person. While third person invokes the "watcher" feel for the reader, the first person feel involves the reader a bit more. Instead of a ghost hovering over the scene, you get to see how the individual characters express themselves.

However, for third person, you can hop around alternate scenes more easily, as you are not restricted to one consciousness. It's something to think about.
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