||31.|she/her|grey-a|hella gay|bipolar ii || “We will try again tomorrow – I know you've got a bone to pick with tomorrow, but it's coming anyway.” Post-Panic Attack – Ashe Vernon (Wrong Side of a Fistfight) ||
For those interested, you can check out the film, now through the 21st! Just go to https://cbff.sparqfest.live/, register using either your Gmail or AppleID, and you’ll receive simple instructions on how to watch! (For free!)
The visuals are stunning, the CGI is really well done, and Alba…well, she crushes it as per usual. 15 minutes wasn’t enough!
G̴͛͟OͤT̘ ̛̘̉̕͟Sͪ͏̴̠̙T́ͨǓ̳͔̆͢C̀K̘̀ ̰͈͓͟I̮̩ͮ̏N̫̫̑͢ ̧̆AΙ ̨͕̺̮̆ḺO͊O̶̥̣ͤ͒P̛ ̼͍̉͝ ^EVILHAIKU^bot^2. Most of you are welcome, friendly Human®. | PayPal | Patreon
The reason 1st Person POV is so derided in fanfic is because of characterization. In 3rd Person POV, you just have to convince us that the character would say or do that thing, and if not we’re sometimes willing to overlook it for the sake of the plot. In 1st Person, every single line of the story needs to feel In-Character, and OOC moments become grating faster because by sheer statistics they feel like they happen more often.
You basically have to find an author who perfectly vibes with your interpretation of that character and who’s a good enough writer that it doesn’t feel clunky. Original fiction doesn’t have this problem nearly so much, because there’s no pre-built expectations. “Ah, so this is what this character thinks when confronted with this thing? Good to know.” As opposed to fanfic, where the reader will often find themselves going,
“No, that’s not what they’d think if they saw that. No, that’s not how
they’d feel if someone said that. No, this narration is incorrect.”
After being burned like that a certain number of times, lots of readers end up with a Pavlovian response. They see 1st Person POV, they see that first “I,” and they’re immediately annoyed because 1st Person POV stories have so often annoyed them in the past. They start avoiding them out of principle.
(This is not dissimilar to the problem with 2nd Person POV in any format, outside of maybe Choose Your Own Adventure novels. The author directly tells you, the reader, how you think/feel/react, and you, the reader, go, “WTF, no I don’t!” Which then jerks you out of the immersion & makes the story less enjoyable.)
None of which is to say don’t use those formats if you enjoy them. Just… I saw some people expressing frustration over the general distaste fandom culture seems to have for 1st Person POV, and while I don’t want to get involved in that argument, I did want to explain. For general information, I guess.
This is a really good insight, and I’m wondering now if this is why I’m so much more tolerant of 1st person pov in fanfic for novels written in 1st person - if you can convincingly mimic the author’s voice, most of the characterization will pass.
I suspect this is also why Self Insert/Original Character fics can get away with 1st person so easily, because there’s no established character to contradict. If anything, this makes it a superior tool for the purpose of connecting the reader with this character who’s new to the canon.
it’s useful to keep in mind that every story has at least four agents: the narrator, the character(s), the audience, and the author. the agents here have greater and lesser power as well as greater or lesser control over one another, and their roles can also overlap or even swap.
the narrator isn’t necessarily the author: think of how daniel handler isn’t the same guy as lemony snickett. the author has set it up so that the narrator of A Series Of Unfortunate Events who tells the story is also a peripheral character in the story and also stands with his audience, helpless to do anything but witness the tragedy unfolding.
Y/N stories also abridge the role of audience, character, and narrator: the author is pretending to be you to help you pretend to be a character. the narrator isn’t the author herself, it’s a mutual cooperation.
in some third person stories, the narrator and author are almost indistinguishable, but they’re still never quite the same, and sometimes that subtle distinction is really fun to examine; in lord of the rings, for instance, tolkein presents the story as a translation from an earlier era. tolkein the author hides very slyly behind tolkein the translator; playing himself playing himself. the princess bride does this more blatantly, almost bombasically, with goldman the author piously reminding you at every turn that he’s only abridging the original princess bride which was written by s morgenstern.
in first person stories, the narrator is one specific character, so the distance between the narrator and the author is wide and explicit, while the distance between the narrator and the audience is much more fluid and obscure.
no conclusion, just that keeping in mind these positions can really help you understand what you do, and don’t, like from a story. and more intentionally work out how you want to frame the stories you yourself are writing.
getting back in contact with people after a depressive episode is so wild because it’s like hey sorry i dropped off the face of the earth and never responded to your attempts to reach out for months i was six feet deep in a grave of my own making when i suddenly realized i didn’t want to die down there and had to claw my way to the surface inch by inch on my belly like a worm until i felt the sunlight on my face again. anyway how have you been? how are things? but you can’t SAY that so you’re just like. um. hi. do you still like me 👉👈