The Delights and Dangers of First-Person Narration

Estimated reading time: 7 minutes

First-person narration is a mode of storytelling in which the narrator is a character in the story and tells the story from their point of view. Just like in the real world, the narrator only knows their own thoughts, as opposed to a third-person omniscient narrator who knows the thoughts of every character.

Authors and readers alike love first person because the technique instantly plunges the reader into the world and the mind of the narrator, and books told in first person are often a feast for lovers of voice. But first-person narration also has its limitations and its pitfalls. If handled badly, first-person narrative can be a real turn-off.

If you’re looking to write a book in first person, here are some tips on how to tap into what’s great about it while avoiding some common mistakes.

The pros of writing in first person

Let first explore the many pros of writing with first-person narration.

It adds a level of realism

One advantage of writing in first person is that your narrative will immediately sound less like a story and more like a memoir. By having your narrator use pronouns like I and we, your story has a greater degree of verisimilitude — even if your narrator admits that their memory may be faulty. Consider the opening sentence of Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut: “All of this happened, more or less.”

You can add depth and complexity with an unreliable narrator

One of the most fun aspects of writing in first-person is being able to use an unreliable narrator. An unreliable narrator is a narrator who the audience knows or suspects lack credibility. This can lead readers to speculate how much of the story is true and how much of it is either a lie (as in the case of many thrillers) or simply the product of someone who has no way of knowing the facts.

This can make a story much more interesting than if the narrator is simply telling the truth. Flowers for Algernon, for example, is told by a narrator whose intelligence fluctuates throughout the story, making it clear that he often doesn’t understand what’s happening, which can lead to dramatic irony.

You can plunge readers into your narrator’s psychology

Character is king when it comes to storytelling. You may have the most intricately constructed plot and the tightest structure in the world, but if your story lacks relatable, three-dimensional characters, readers won’t care.

With first-person narration, you have a much greater opportunity to give your readers what they want by putting the entire story in your narrator’s hands.

Personally, I love first-person narration because, by injecting my narrator’s personality into every sentence, it allows me to bring every single detail to life. In my novel, The Dragon Squisher, for example, my narrator is told he must embark on a hike.

Hiking is an unpleasant activity. It is a demented perversion of that elegant and civilized institution known as walking. The phrase “to go for a walk” implies a pleasant stroll on well-paved roads with your friends or family. One might even get to hold hands under the moonlight with a romantic interest. (I never have, but I’m told that it happens.) “Going for a hike,” on the other hand, involves hauling a heavy backpack over miles of rugged terrain with zealous nature enthusiasts who feel compelled to point out how beautiful everything is.

Had I written the book in third person, this passage would have required dialogue and would have been awkward and less amusing.

It’s great for voice

Readers love authors with a strong writer’s voice. And while you can write with a strong voice in third person (consider The Road or 1984), it’s so much easier to deliver a voicey story in first-person. Here’s an example from my book, The Gazoon Heist.

But then she looked at me. And my stomach. It did that thing my stomach does whenever Margot Higginbottom looks at me, letting me know, in no uncertain terms, that it is tremendously displeased with the current situation. And I found it very difficult to think. So instead of saying “I think you are a beauty to behold” or some such thing, what I said to her was, “I like your head.”

Now, I don’t know about you, but if a giant lug like myself walked up to you and blurted out “I like your head,” you would be forgiven if you expected my follow-up sentence to be, “It would look nice on my shelf.”

It’s great for humor

Some of the funniest books ever written, like The Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy, are written in third person. But for me, writing in first person gives me an opportunity to make every sentence funny. The simplest thing can make your narrator recall a funny tidbit or have them muse humorously. This is from my book, Superlosers.

Had this young boy been named Jonathan, I’m sure he would have been paraded about as a fine example of America’s youth. But Bdonathan? That is a child destined to a life of spray-painting bathroom walls with poorly rendered images of men’s naughty bits.

Pitfalls of a first-person narrative

First-person narration does have its limitations and dangers. In fact, many of the qualities that can make it such a thrilling way to tell a story can be the very things that can make readers want to close a book.

It can limit the perspective of the story

By its very nature, a story told in first person requires your narrator to be present in every scene. So, it’s hard, awkward, or impossible to tell about events that happen “off camera.” Yes, you can preface certain passages with disclaimers like, “Now I wasn’t there for this part, but I was later told…” But that often feels awkward, and it’s not the kind of thing you can do very often in a single story.

This limitation can be used to your advantage, of course. It can be a great device for mystery or horror in which the narrator only knows what the reader knows — especially if written in the present tense.

If you find one narrator too confining, but you still want that first-person-narrative thrill, you can use multiple narrators. Gillian Flynn’s hit novel Gone Girl uses two narrators. Be careful not to use too many first-person narrators. Two is fine, but beyond that, things can get confusing for your readers. There are exceptions, however. The hit YA mystery One of Us Is Lying by Karen M. McManus uses four narrators, so it can be done.

There can be too much “I”

When writing in first-person, it’s very easy to begin every sentence with the words “I” or “we,” and this can be monotonous for your readers. Be sure to mix things up. Here is a paragraph from One of Us Is Lying that doesn’t use a single I or we.

Simon gets up and grabs a cup from a stack on the counter, filling it with water from the tap. He heads back to his seat and puts the cup on his desk, but seems distracted by Nate’s methodical writing. “Dude,” he says, kicking his sneaker against the leg of Nate’s desk. “Seriously. Did you put those phones in our backpacks to mess with us?”

It can lead to passive action

First-person can lead to use of the passive voice: “I saw the door open and heard an unearthly scream.” In this example, the reader is watching the narrator experience these things, which puts too much distance between the reader and the action. To avoid this, eliminate filter words (“I saw,” “I heard,” “I noticed,” etc.). “The door opened. An unearthly scream pierced the room,” is much more effective.

There are a ton of great books out there written in first person — The Chicago Public Library assembled a list, and Book Riot has published “50 Must-Read First-Person Books.” Read some of these classics and give it a try!