On The Other Hand: A Quick Note On Craft and Unlikely Choices

Whose Story Is It?

Let’s talk point of view [WHAT! AGAIN?]. Most fictional work, and most of my work, is in third person point of view. It’s so strong, so adaptable. You can have a separate narrative voice, one that knows more (or less) than the protagonist. You can play distance tricks to fit the book’s situation—move in closer to the main character or zoom out. You can treat the protagonist coldly, or in using informal indirect discourse, get right into her head with the writer’s own adjectives and adverbs. You can bring to bear great authenticity because, after all, the narrator isn’t as committed as the character and therefore not self-deluding. Third person, after all, comes straight out of Fairy Tales, and that’s what fiction entails, right? Once upon a time there was a little schmoe of a kid who lived in a castle ….

I’m in final edits of a historical novel, at least I think I am. Much to my surprise, after four years of work and several drafts, I admit I’ve placed it in First Person. What craft choice is this? When I started, my gut wrote through the first paragraphs, and with a great shock, I saw that my protagonist was telling his own story. Why was this, and why might it work?

I know this character Benjamin incredibly well by now. There’s little he would say that would shock an outside narrator. What is happening to him and by him, though, could unsettle the reader. He’s highly literate, having finished the Scots equivalent of three years of Oxford. How will the reader take to his voice if that voice is limited to quotes, or shoved off to an outside observer? He has a level of immaturity that needs explaining, since at an age of sixteen he is required to be a man, yet is not practiced at adulthood. Even his society is confused on this, since he can be a husband and a father, but cannot yet own land. Finally, how best can this author convey the vulnerability of the character, if the character cannot confess his inner insecurity and anxiety to the reader sotto voce, especially as he fakes confidence in a new place, among new people?

Finally, I guess, I was drawn to First Person because it is the voice we all use in our lives to explain ourselves. For instance: You will never guess what I got to do this morning, and how I broke my arm. Benjamin’s final scenes in the book have him committing to unexpected actions, to choices the reader is unlikely to ever make or to imagine. How best can he convince that reader that those choices are viable, except to take the reader along with him for a couple of hundred pages?

I’ll let you know how it works out, whether I succeed with First Person, or whether another year eats me up as I switch to Third.