First person vs third person

This is always something I've had conflict with: whose perspective to write from.
Both have their plus points but others also have their downfalls.

First Person
Good: It's easier for the audience (and often the writer) to connect with the character and understand them better. If you are the sort of reader who imagines themselves living the story it is easier to get in the mindset and you are seeing through the character's eyes. You can follow the character's thought processes easier and see more clearly how they come to some conclusions.
Bad: It can be harder to write as you have to keep including the character's opinions and thoughts instead of getting on with the story. Sometimes the audience can get annoyed with the character or just bored of the inner monologues. It's hard to take an objective view of the story if you're constantly being bombarded by opinions (though that may be what the writer intends to happen).

Personally I find first person is easier to write, but it tends to make the story a bit slow moving and I often end up writing pages and pages of nothing but thoughts. I am working on improving this.

Third Person
Good: Tends to keep the story moving faster. You can still use character's thoughts but only when you feel it's necessary. It allow you to use the points of view of all you characters, rather than just your protagonist. It can be better for a reader who just prefers to view the story objectively and not get too emotionally involved.
There is less chance of the audience getting sick of the inside of the character's head.
Bad: If badly done it can make the story read very dryly and not be as engaging, stopping readers from empathising as much.

This is slightly harder for me as I like to really get inside character's heads, but for some things it can work really well for me: it depends what sort of mood I'm in.


For my story I've come up with a compromise, taking a leaf from the book of one of my all time favourite authors. I'm going to switch between the two.
The half that centres mainly around my original protagonist will be in third person as I want to be able to view how other people perceive her rather than how she views the world. She is all about images and how people treat her differently compared with other characters.
My second protagonist - who, oddly enough, seems to be becoming slightly more of the main character than the original protagonist - will be written from the first person as hers is more of an internal struggle and how she reacts internally to what goes on around her.

Well then, that's my thoughts on perspectives.


I am feeling fairly proud of myself today: I have finished the prologue (for now - things will probably revised later) and have added a lot more the my first chapters of each section (the first and third person sections).
I am also hoping to get some more planning done tonight so I'm going to end this nice, long entry here.

See you
W-O