First Person vs. Third Person

Suppose you have an idea for a story. Good for you. Ideas are a nice start, but the more important question is execution. You know what you want to write about, but how are you going to tell it?

There are a great number of ways to tell a story. Most of them can be described as either first person or third person narration. Whenever I get a story idea, I ask myself if I should write it in first or third person. I usually go with third person because I prefer it. But that's not a good enough reason for me. We have these two different ways to tell a story; there should be reasons to use one over the other.

For starters, first person narration should always be used when talking about yourself and your own experiences. Referring to yourself in the third person is tacky beyond words (except for when you need to write a professional bio for yourself). But in a fictional work, either method can be used.

So what's the difference between the two? In third person, you can look anywhere at any time, so if you have several simultaneous storylines going on, third person may be the way to go. Of course, since these sections have natural breaks, they could each be told in frst person as long as there are clear indicators of who is talking, so it's not necessarily about location or focus.

The third person narrator is an observer. They tell you what people are saying, doing, how they look. A narrator can't tell you how a person is feeling or thinking. Well, technically, they can, but that is called bad writing (show, don't tell), so let's just assume they aren't mind readers.

A first person narrator is a character. They are living through the story itself. They will still tell you how other people looked, what they said, and what they did. They still can't read other people's minds, but they can read their own mind, and that is a key difference. Here, the narrator is going to be acting and thinking. We learn about this character specifically, see the world through his or her eyes, feel the same emotions, ponder the same questions.

So what kind of story are you trying to tell? If your story is more about the actions and interactions of people, third person is the way to go. If your story is more about thoughts and motivations, first person makes more sense.