Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Post History

50%
+0 −0
Q&A Transfer from first person to third person

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...

posted 8y ago by Mark Baker‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Answer
#4: Attribution notice removed by user avatar 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 user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T05:48:17Z (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/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T05:48:17Z (almost 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 user avatar System‭ · 2016-12-17T17:57:35Z (almost 8 years ago)
Original score: 6