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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/30233
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/30233
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

First person vs third person narration does not really change what can be narrated. In both cases, the narrator is the narrator and it is their role to tell the story. You can tell a character's thoughts in third person or in first person, including the thoughts of characters other than the narrator, as Kerouac does in _On the Road_.

Don't confuse the first person/third person decision with a much more fundamental decision about the style of narration that we might call the distinction between the surface and the deeps. The great privilege of the writer is the freedom to look under the surface, to report things to the reader that cannot be seen on the surface alone. But many writers today, whether as a deliberate artistic choice or in heedless obedience to the show-don't-tell doctrine, choose not to plumb the depths, but to attempt to show what is below only by its effects on the surface. (Often this involves roiling the surface in a most unnatural way.)

The use of first person narration is often associated with this surface only style of narration, and third person with the licence to plumb the depths. But there is no necessary connection between the two. Third person narratives can choose to deal only with the surface and first person narratives can choose to plumb the depths.

The real function of the first person narrative, I would suggest, it to set up an alternative narrative persona. The personality of the narrator is always part of the substance of a story, part of its appeal. A third person narrative suggests that the narrator is the author themselves (though the narrator in a first person narrative can be the author themselves as well). A first person narrator is a mask that the writer assumes which allows them to tell the story in a voice other than their own. It is a kind of literary ventriloquism. But this literary ventriloquism can significantly change the mood and character of the story if carried out successfully.

The most obvious consequence of this is that writing in the first person (unless you are writing as yourself) creates an additional set of difficulties for the writer. That means it is probably something that beginning writers should try to avoid, unless they can't find a way to tell their story any other way.

And actually, the applies to any and all literary techniques. They all increase the complexity of the task and should probably be avoided unless they are essential to how the story must be told and unless the writer is confident and experienced enough to bring them off successfully.

Original score: 6