Post History
Third person is not just a grammatical category, it is the whole angle of attack on the subject matter. Most particularly, the third person brings the protagonist into the frame (assuming, of cours...
Answer
#4: Attribution notice removed
by
System
·
2020-01-03T20:41:51Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/25564 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added
by
System
·
2019-12-08T05:48:17Z (about 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/25564 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision
by
System
·
2019-12-08T05:48:17Z (about 5 years ago)
Third person is not just a grammatical category, it is the whole angle of attack on the subject matter. Most particularly, the third person brings the protagonist into the frame (assuming, of course, that your narrator is your protagonist, which is usually the case when people start off in first person and then find it doesn't work). Bringing the protagonist into the frame -- making them a subject of examination, rather than the conduit for a second-hand examination of other subjects, changes the entire shape of the story. Despite its popularity among aspiring writers (where it is much more common than in published works), first person is difficult. It is a cramped perspective, and one that is not natural to traditional storytelling. The fact that you have realized that it is not working for you is an indication that you have realized how cramped and confining it can be. So yes, take off the shackles. But you do have to realize that you are going to have to substantially rewrite and rework your shackled text, and that the changes you are going to have to make are probably at the block structure level, not just the textual level.
#1: Imported from external source
by
System
·
2016-12-17T17:57:35Z (about 8 years ago)
Original score: 6