RARA-AVIS: First vs. Third Person
James & Livia Reasoner (liviajames@itexas.net)
Sun, 3 Aug 1997 22:51:03 -0500
Just wanted to weigh in with a few thoughts on this ongoing
discussion.
Many of my early short stories and my first novel were written
in first
person, probably because of my great admiration for (and
slavish imitation
of) Raymond Chandler and Ross Macdonald. In the nearly twenty
years since
then, I'd never written another novel in first person until
earlier this
year. (A World War I novel, BTW.) I found first person to be
very
refreshing and exciting after all this time away from it, but
it was a
little difficult since I had a large cast of characters, not
all of whom
were in the same place all the time. I hope I managed without
too much
awkwardness. What I really dislike are books that shift from
first to
third person and back again simply for the convenience of the
writer.
Isn't that a fairly recent development?
I'd hate to see the first person PI novel die out, even if it
is difficult
to do without sounding like a parody. I agree that third
person limited
works very well for hard-boiled fiction (and other kinds of
fiction as
well--most of my Westerns were written in third person
limited). I really
have to struggle with using too much internalization, even in
third person.
Best,
James
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