Do you ever feel like you think too much? I know I do. Lately I have been thinking too much about first person point of view. I've found it's really problematic in my story and I think I'm going to switch to third. I wonder if anyone else has similar issues?
It's partly because my narrator changes during the story, and I would expect those changes to be reflected in her 'voice' as the story progresses. I don't think I can handle that kind of technical challenge, and that's why I'm going to switch to third. But thinking about the voice issue lead me onto wondering about who is 'I' talking to? Is she talking to me or is someone writing it down? Why is she telling the story? Is it even a story at the point she's talking, I mean - OMG, writer meltdown - when is she telling her story? Is she at the end of the story - does she know what happened? No, that would give a totally different tone, it would be very knowing, almost omniscient, like she was an old lady sitting in the conservatory and talking to her grand-daughter. So if she's telling it on the hoof in the here-and-now, then how does that work? Is it supposed to be almost like a running record of her thoughts - except without all the minutiae and visits to the toilet and whatever? Is it almost like we're eavesdropping on someone's thought processes?
You see. Thinking too much. Does anyone else have thoughts about first person PoV?
I'm a fan of first person - in return for perhaps limited scope, you get much more in depth. The voice does need to change, though, if the character has.
Mind you, no matter what person or tense I write in, by the end of a book the character has changed a lot and the first chapters often need editing to match the more complete form
Oops, that should have read.
I try to phrase what my character is 'thinking' without using, 'I' all the time.
I don't use the first person point-of-view accept in streams-of-thought. And when I do, I try to phrase what my character is without using, 'I' all the time. Then its back to my omniscient narrator, because I find it so much easier than writing I the third person.