Narration: First Person vs. Third Person

I’m reading Val McDermid’s The Last Temptation and, wow, what a page turner.  It has two narrative strands:  the story of a team surrounding Tony Hill who is secretly tracking a serial killer who scalps his victim’s genitals; the undercover story of Carol Jordan who is the central figure in a sting of an exceedingly handsome Polish drug lord, Tadzio.  Interspersed are several love stories:  the lesbian one between two officers who know each other only in cyberspace—Marijke and Petra; the primary heterosexual narrative between the serial killer profiler Tony Hill and the female protagonist Carol Jordan; the dramatic semi-fake romance that takes place during the undercover sting operation between Carol Jordan and Tadzio.

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Whew.  That’s a lot of strands.  This burrito is stuffed with all sorts of goodness.  Not only is there a lot of plot, there are a lot of pages.  Each page is compelling.  I’m loving every minute of it and I totally understand why Val McDermid is award-winning and a bestseller.  Val McDermid does one thing in fiction that many mega-corporations aspire to do:  she gives you more for your money.

I think that the way she does in The Last Temptation is to employ third person narration—the voice of an omniscient narrator.  This way, the narrator can see all the situations and relate them in exhaustive detail.  There are no boundaries—no walls—in third person omniscient.  I’m writing first person and this is quite limiting.  You only see from the narrator’s point of view.  Even if my narrator walks into a room, he can’t describe all of the details—that the desk is burl oak, that the ship gleams because of a sadomasochistic relationship between grandfather and son, that the figures in the carpet are made by a thief in the night.  Robert, my protagonist, can only see what his psychology permits him to see.  You can’t have long, lavish descriptions.  Instead, you’re basically writing a dramatic monologue.

You know that another writer is doing some amazing work when you start thinking:  maybe I should switch point of view…yeah, it’s not too late to switch point of view…I want to write a big thick book filled with oozing goodness…maybe I should go for a burrito…or maybe I should get the whole enchilada.

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2 thoughts on “Narration: First Person vs. Third Person

  1. Khanh – I think every writer and reader has preferences when it comes to first/third person. I, personally, prefer third-person for exactly the reasons you’ve outlined. It allows the author to show the reader all sorts of different characters’ experiences, points of view and so on. On the other hand, first person lets the reader really understand the protagonist…

    • Too true, Margot. Point of view is like a finely tuned automobile–affording possibilities and limitations in each and every form. The Range Rover of omniscient can’t make it through the narrow tunnels that form the autobahn of the first person sports car…

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