why do people dislike first person singular and present tense fic?

[lobelia321]

isiscolo posted a list of her personal unreasonable dislikes in fic. But what is even more interesting than her list is the thread the list has generated. Because while one list tells you something about that person and the idiosyncratic nature of personal taste and how nobody's predilections ever overlap 100 per cent with your own, a look at the thread reveals patterns.

Most of the people on that thread seem to be HP (or former HP) fans and SGA fans so maybe there are also some fandom patterns in there. Certainly, some of the dislikes do not coincide with what I remember of lotrips.

Two disliked points I found especially intriguing:

1. A lot of people dislike the first person pov and say it throws them out of a fanfic. Even when they don't specify, I am assuming that all of these people mean the first person singular.

I have no special dislike of the first person singular. It is a very objective voice (perhaps that is why people don't like it? some people also voiced dislike of omniscient which can give the effect of objectivity as well) because the first person narrator will nearly always know more than the first person character. When I was writing Desert Prince, for example, I noticed how easy it was to build suspense: "I trusted him but I was young and innocent and did not know the doom to come." That kind of thing. So there are interesting experiences to be had with a first person narrator. I am intrigued (and a little bit puzzled) that this seems to be such a disliked voice, especially as it is quite popular in publfic.

2. A lot of people dislike the present tense.

Now, this one also puzzles me. In lotrips, I read a lot of present-tense stories; I got quite used to them. I also value them a lot in publfic. One of my favourite publauthors, Andrea De Carlo, often uses present tense in his novels (I may be biased here because I read his novels in the original and, er, Italian present tense is much easier to read than the Italian passato remoto... *g*). I have also written present tense, and it has a sparkle and sharp tang to it that I like a lot, both in the writing and the reading. It makes everything very vivid and slightly artificial (and I like a bit of slight artificiality in my prose fiction, a sort of stylistic self-consciousness). It also lends itself well to stream-of-consciousness writing, not a mode I particularly love but a mode that I don't mind exploring now and again (both as reader and writer).

This tense also reminds me of the epistolary novel because if you're writing a letter, you are presenting what is happening from day to day, from moment to moment. The bulk of the letter might be past tense ("this morning, we found an alien presence in our midst") but can plausibly veer into present tense at all times ("I must sign off as there is a screaming down the corridor and I want to investigate").


Also, I noticed that a few people dislike weeping men and detailed anatomical exposition of the sex act. Ah, now these are two unreasonable likes of mine... A well-done weeping man, weeping manly tears in manly reticence, can reduce me to squees, and a detailed anatomical exposition can just make me darn-it-all hot.

Over and out. :-)

Comments

[sonicbookmark.livejournal.com]

Hmmm...not me. I'll read anything.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Great! *adds to list* :-)

[minisinoo.livejournal.com]

I think first person can be very hard to do well -- speaking as someone who writes in it frequently, and not just in fanfic. First is my favorite POV to do ... but I think of it as the HARDEST POV, even more so than omniscient voice. It's hard because the narrator/author MUST have a quirky enough voice to carry first, and hard also because of the intense locking into one POV required. It's bad enough in a third person fic with limited POV voices to get across the motivations of other, non-POV characters. But there's always just that bit of distance. In first, it's gone, erased. So to convey that things may not be exactly as the narrator sees them? Really tough trick.

But that's why I love it. 1st POV, when well done, is intimate, masterful, and a challenge. As a character author, it allows me to explore characters in a way I can't in other voices.

(Incidently, and for the record, I entered fanfic in X-Men, where I've written entire novels in first, including, once, a DUAL first. Now, I'm in HP where, interestingly, I've only done one first-person POV, and that was from the head of Amos Diggory -- although I did write another that had and 'essay' embedded in it, also written in first. So I have done 1st in HP, and will probably do more.)

[cpolk.livejournal.com]

yes. first person is hard to do well.

and present tense is also hard to do well.

and that's speaking as someone who has written (and sold!) stories in first person, in present tense, and in first person present tense with narrator!death.

[rahirah]

Maybe people dislike first person in fanfic because first person makes it glaringly obvious when a writer hasn't got a character's voice down pat? I know I sweat over getting first person stories to sound right way more than I do third person person stories. I've written first person BtVS stories from Buffy, Xander, and Dawn POVs, and am working on an Angel one, and the voice is completely, totally different in each one.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I think there's a misconception that all first persons are the same, and all third persons and so forth. In fact, you can have a first person with the narrator telling you a lot or a first person with the narrator giving away nothing. You can have first persons where the narrator is not even part of the story (very, very rare in fanfic but I've read it a lot in, e.g., 19th-century detective stories where an 'I' finds a letter that tells a tale or where an 'I' tells the story of a third person). First person can also be omniscient in the sense of 'If I had known then what I know now'. The first person you describe with the voice down pat is really only one type but then, it is a type I do like a lot, *g*. Actually, to me, any use of direct speech makes it glaringly obvious if a writer has or has not understood a character's voice. Also, the inner voice needn't be the same as the outer voice. This morning I was thinking wouldn't it be interesting to write a first person Sheppard where Sheppard is highly articulate and voluble but whenever he comes out with direct speech it's taciturn?

[thirdblindmouse.livejournal.com]

I tend not to notice what tense things happen in unless (as someone mentioned in the thread) its misuse of tense sequence.

First person narratives, however, do put me off. Perhaps it's a little too intimate, perhaps a 3rd person narrative from the person's POV seems to offer slightly more perspective. None of the shows I watch or books I read have first person POV (in fact, first person POV on camera would drive me crazy), so I'm used to being able to gaze from without and not be personally involved.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

First person pov on camera is very rare and seems very contrived (Hitchcock's Rebecca is often cited). Although first person pov flashes in films is quite common, as when the camera zooms wobblily through the empty corridor of a haunted house from the 'pov' of some ominous presence.

[a-short-detour.livejournal.com]

Hey, I linked here through metafandom and thought your observations were interesting because they're things I've seen myself.

I can understand why first-person makes a lot of readers uneasy. In part, it's because, to steal rahirah's turn of phrase, it's glaringly obvious when the author doesn't have the character's voice down. I'd also venture to say (without any actual supporting evidence) that there's a discomfort with how the character and the author fit together. There's a constant consciousness of the author's voice, and a constant consciousness of the fact that it's fan fiction, and I think those two ideas conflict. Of course, there's the added level that none of the fandoms I've ever encountered has had source material written in first person.

As for present tense, it comes in and out of fashion; I'm rather in love with it recently.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I think there's a misconception that all first persons are the same, and all third persons and so forth. In fact, you can have a first person with the narrator telling you a lot or a first person with the narrator giving away nothing. You can have first persons where the narrator is not even part of the story (very, very rare in fanfic but I've read it a lot in, e.g., 19th-century detective stories where an 'I' finds a letter that tells a tale or where an 'I' tells the story of a third person). First person can also be omniscient in the sense of 'If I had known then what I know now'. The first person you describe with the voice down pat is really only one type but then, it is a type I do like a lot, *g*. Actually, to me, any use of direct speech makes it glaringly obvious if a writer has or has not understood a character's voice. Also, the inner voice needn't be the same as the outer voice. This morning I was thinking wouldn't it be interesting to write a first person Sheppard where Sheppard is highly articulate and voluble but whenever he comes out with direct speech it's taciturn?

Now, what you say about the author/character conflict is interesting. I take it you're not actually talking about the real life author out there but about the narrator who is present as a voice in the story? But, as I outlined in the paragraph above, I think the various discordances between narrator/character can add to the attraction of first person as well as. This goes for third person, too, though, because there is just as much potential for narrator/character interaction in third person!

I think you're onto something re the fan fiction. All of these discordances are beloved by many publfic readers but less so in fanfic. Readers of fanfic often do not like too much experimentation and especially not too much artificiality that interferes with the experience of being totally immersed in someone's head.

Tense in fic

[paradise-city.livejournal.com]

Personally, I really dig present tense. For one, it's much more immediate. There's a greater sense of speed, of involvement when present tense is used. And perhaps one of the arguments against present tense is that it functions as a shortcut in that regard, rather than building speed and urgency through the narrative, but I always find myself much more easily engaged in present tense than past.

For two, present tense has more immediacy. When I'm reading something suspenseful, it's just not as good in past tense as present because the narrator already knows what happened. Somehow, that sucks a lot of the momentum out of the story for me. I like to be right in the middle of things with the characters; it's a much more participatory and therefore engaging read for me.

Nice flip side to the original meta. (Really, secondary meta's always more interesting to me, and this was no exception.)

Re: Tense in fic

[paradise-city.livejournal.com]

For one it's immediate and for two it's immediate? Let's pretend the first "immediate" was "urgent" instead, yeah? Oh, my kingdom for an edit comment button.

[china_shop]

I like present tense, I like first person, I like it when people experiment and play. But then, I've written a number of second person stories, too, and I know even more people hate second person POV. :-)

I mean, I think if all fanfic were written in first person, I'd be tearing my hair out, but it seems a shame to shut down whole avenues of exploration, you know? Maybe this tense or that POV will be the key to the story, will make it sing.

(Now I'm wondering whether it'd be possible to write an effective story in future tense. Hmm...)

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I've written second person; it is very interesting. gabbyhope once told me that she found it like talking to her character: Go on, do this now, just a little more, come on, now do this. Like an imp sitting on his shoulder and whispering into his ear. There's also the other experience, of talking to the reader more intimately via the character.

I've written a snippet in future tense. *g* It wasn't easy. And I'm not sure it can be extended beyond snippet length. Well, by me, anyway.

[jaebi-lit.livejournal.com]

I think that one of the difficulties with the 1st person POV (and now that you've mentioned it, I want to see a 1st person plural POV fic! Rodney narrating with the royal we, perhaps) is that it's easy to abuse. I don't dislike it, because I've seen it done really, really well, but I've also seen it done really badly.

the epistolary novel because if you're writing a letter,

*geeks out* In Latin, there are epistolary past tenses. The letters are written with the assumption that when the recipient reads them, the events that are present to the writer will have finished by the time the recipient's reading about them, and should thus be in the past. So if Cicero hears screaming and decides to end his letter, he would write, "I signed off as there was screaming...I wanted..."

Weeping men: I wrote a fic in sections once and only realized afterward that the male narrator cried in every scene.

[jaebi-lit.livejournal.com]

Hmm. The fen makeup of the answers to isis' post is interesting. The best Snape/Harry fic I ever read ("If You Are Prepared" by Cybele) was in 1st person singular, Snape POV.

[lilacsigil.livejournal.com]

First person singular POV can be done terribly badly, and is rarely done well. The few writers who know how to use it (minisinoo who posted above is certainly one of them) can turn out magnificent things, but perhaps people don't realise that it is a skill.

Present tense - or, even more so, second person - can read like a Choose Your Own Adventure novel, but, again, it can be done exquisitely well by someone who understands the effect that they are creating.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I like your username!

And as you say, your argument is really a bad!fic vs good!fic one, and I'm 100 per cent with you there. Although I can indulge in badfic on occasion.... *g* But in good!fic, anything, absolutely anything goes.

[ptyx.livejournal.com]

Here via metafandom. Hey, I share your tastes! I love writing/reading first person PoV and present tense. I also like weeping men, if the scene is well constructed and I can buy that the character would weep in such circunstances. I also like "detailed anatomical exposition".

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

*laughs* Hello, person who shares all my predilections! Men, weep on!

[cirrussundog.livejournal.com]

Here from metafandom

I started in book fandoms where the sources were canonically first person, and no one ever seemed to mind first person PoV fan-fic. When I moved along, I found third person difficult to write because I was lacking a whole set of tools that I'd been used to having to hand. So I've always been bewildered when people talk about third person being so much easier to write well than first person.

I sometimes think the feelings against first person have more to do with what people are used to and so find easy to do - like thinking English is a simple language because it's what you grew up speaking - than any built-in characteristics of first person versus third person PoV.

However, quite a few fan-fic folks seem to have experience in literary academia where there is, by report, a dislike of first person that I'd imagine must be supported by something. I've never read a good, reasoned explanation of just what is wrong with first person PoV. Is there such an essay out there?

References? Someone? Anyone? Please?

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Interesting! Another commenter further up the thread said she hadn't encountered any first-person based book fandoms and nor had I so I'd be intrigued to know which fandom you are talking about? It just goes to show that it is all relative; I suppose in the first-person fandom it is third person that people struggle with. As I've said above:

I think there's a misconception that all first persons are the same, and all third persons and so forth. In fact, you can have a first person with the narrator telling you a lot or a first person with the narrator giving away nothing. You can have first persons where the narrator is not even part of the story (very, very rare in fanfic but I've read it a lot in, e.g., 19th-century detective stories where an 'I' finds a letter that tells a tale or where an 'I' tells the story of a third person). First person can also be omniscient in the sense of 'If I had known then what I know now'. Also, the inner voice needn't be the same as the outer voice. This morning I was thinking wouldn't it be interesting to write a first person Sheppard where Sheppard is highly articulate and voluble but whenever he comes out with direct speech it's taciturn?

These possibilities of narrator/character conflict all exist for third person as well. They're not person specific, :-)

quite a few fan-fic folks seem to have experience in literary academia Interesting that you mention this. I am an academic and academic writing is much more formal than fic writing. Still, though, i do use the first person as in 'I will argue that...' but it can't really be called a pov. I don't think there is an essay out there delineating what is wrong with first person pov because there is nothing wrong with first person pov! *g*

[feelforfaith.livejournal.com]

(via metafandom)

There's nothing inherently wrong with the first person POV. Like everything else, it can be done well and it can be done poorly. It takes greater skill to do first person well--the character's voice needs to be strong enough and at the same time transparent enough to make me, the reader, forget that I'm reading a written story and make me a part of the character's thought process. That's something a lot of writers, especially new writers, trip on. First person seems like the easier POV to write in, but it's not.

As to the present tense, before I came to lotrips, I wasn't used to the present tense, either for reading or for writing, but now I don't notice it at all anymore. For shorter pieces I even prefer present tense because it conveys the feeling of immediacy; for longer pieces I can read either--it doesn't make any difference to me.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Again, I repeat what I said above:

I think there's a misconception that all first persons are the same, and all third persons and so forth. In fact, you can have a first person with the narrator telling you a lot or a first person with the narrator giving away nothing. You can have first persons where the narrator is not even part of the story (very, very rare in fanfic but I've read it a lot in, e.g., 19th-century detective stories where an 'I' finds a letter that tells a tale or where an 'I' tells the story of a third person). First person can also be omniscient in the sense of 'If I had known then what I know now'. Also, the inner voice needn't be the same as the outer voice. This morning I was thinking wouldn't it be interesting to write a first person Sheppard where Sheppard is highly articulate and voluble but whenever he comes out with direct speech it's taciturn?

These possibilities of narrator/character conflict all exist for third person as well. They're not person specific, :-)

The bad!fic vs good!fic opposition is a different issue entirely and has nothing to do with persons or tenses. A bad!fic can make everything bad, and anything, absolutely anything, goes for good!fic. *g*

Lotrips did have more present tense, didn't it??

[lodessa.livejournal.com]

I dislike most first person povs because it tends to accentuate any weaknesses a writer has.

I actually am a fan of present tense.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Yes, but if a writer is a strong writer it may accentuate the strengths, no? :-)

Scampered in from hogwarts_today

[springandsummer.livejournal.com]

I think I'm fairly neutral about first person POV, but in my head I think that second person puts you right in the action whereas first and third (moreso the latter) create a distance. I'm a big fan of present tense though.

Maybe this is me being too pretentious and not knowing what I'm talking about (or cutting corners), but I'm using second person present tense in a fic right now, because I think it makes this more awkward and real than another POV or tense. Present tense also makes a timeline more ambiguous, I think, which can be a good thing.

Re: Scampered in from hogwarts_today

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Interesting. Many people feel that first person gives them intimate access to a character although one person found first person to be 'voyeuristic'. Second person is self-conscious-making to write, I find, but can be fun, like sitting on your character's shoulder and egging him on to do stuff.

[ranaeressea.livejournal.com]

I have some dislike for first person POV, but only in fanfic because it requires a great deal of knowledge in order to be writtenly properly for the character in question. Fanfiction characters have already been established in an original format somewhere else, and if you don't follow that format, it really throws the fic off.

I love present tense, though. I write it a lot and like to read it as well.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

But as somebody pointed out elsewhere on this thread, there is a book fandom (she didn't give name or acronym) that is based on a first person textual canon. So in that sense the format of that fandom is first person. She said that for her it was third person she had to struggle with after being in that fandom. So that was interesting. :-)

[jadzia7667.livejournal.com]

I like first person and present tense fic, when it's done well. Very often, it isn't.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Heh. Well, that's bad!fic versus good!fic, isn't it? :-) Which is an entirely different topic altogether... *g*

here via hogwarts_today

[grrliz.livejournal.com]

1) I find I have the opposite reason for hating 1st person singular. It doesn't throw me out of a fic so much as put me into it way on a level that I'm not comfortable with. I read mostly HP fic — and mostly NC-17 — and I dislike the idea that "I'm" doing anything in the fic because, well, I'm not. Obviously I'm supposed to be taking on the mind's eye of the character whose point of view it is, but I find it way too intimate to be used properly by most people.

The other thing is that it doesn't jive with the POV that the series is written in. Obviously, there's no rule that says "You must write in the same POV as the books", because that would be dumb and I'm sure there's lots of great 1st and 2nd person narration out there. But when I'm reading a fic, I like getting lost in what the author's done with the canon world, and viewing it from the same* vantage point as I do when reading the actual books helps me a lot in that regard.

*Relatively the same, that is, because obviously not every single fic is presented from Harry's POV, and I don't read much Harry-centric fic anyway.

2) I don't hate present tense so much as I just prefer past tense. Part of it is that present tense sounds very "Choose-Your-Own-Adventure" to me, since that's the tense those types of books are written in. Another part is similar to my reasoning for #1, that is it doesn't jive with the tense that the books are written in. Again, there's no rule that says you have to write in past tense and I've read lots of great fic written in present tense, but it's something that can throw me off.

Re: here via hogwarts_today

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Your point about book canon is interesting and makes book canon very distinct from movie or TV or real life canon. I swam through HP for about a year and am still writing a long, long HP opus (oh would it were finished! *g*) but I never felt constrained by the book style, I have to admit. This is because I dislike the books and I don't find JKR's style very interesting or good. This is why, I guess, I am not a fan of that fandom so much as a writer within that fandom. When I was writing Lotr fps, I did try to evoke Tolkien's prose. But that is getting us away from the point on first person. Another person on this thread further up said they had come into fanfic via a book canon that was written in first person, so for her the experience was quite different: it was third person that was a struggle as most of the fanfic in that fandom was also written in first person, in keeping with the book canon. So, I guess, if you were in that fandom (sorry, she didn't tell me the acronym or name of it) you would crave first person in order to keep 'viewing it from the same vantage point', *g*

[lb-x.livejournal.com]

I love present tense, but I don't actively think about tense when I start reading/writing. Usually, when I'm writing, I end up adjusting things later because I'll have swapped between present/past in different sections.

As for first person, I echo the "glaringly obvious when the author doesn't have the voice", and from my experience, it's often like reading a bad teenage drama. If someone could do a mature first POV I'd read it, but I haven't come across one yet.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Hello! From one butterfly to another!!!! Um, sorry, got a case of icon!distraction there... *g*

I will repeat what I said re voice above:


think there's a misconception that all first persons are the same, and all third persons and so forth. In fact, you can have a first person with the narrator telling you a lot or a first person with the narrator giving away nothing. You can have first persons where the narrator is not even part of the story (very, very rare in fanfic but I've read it a lot in, e.g., 19th-century detective stories where an 'I' finds a letter that tells a tale or where an 'I' tells the story of a third person). First person can also be omniscient in the sense of 'If I had known then what I know now'. The first person you describe who is 'in' character is really only one type but then, it is a type I do like a lot, *g*. Actually, to me, any use of direct speech makes it glaringly obvious if a writer has or has not understood a character's voice. Also, the inner voice needn't be the same as the outer voice. This morning I was thinking wouldn't it be interesting to write a first person Sheppard where Sheppard is highly articulate and voluble but whenever he comes out with direct speech it's taciturn?

[xlovebecomesher.livejournal.com]

here via hogwarts_today

I honestly don't like first person because I don't normally find them to be as interesting to read nor done right. First person tends for me to also feel more voyeuristic which disturbs me. To me first person should be used in diary entries and letters. Present tense unless done right [which is rarely] can fall flat and boring; doesn't have the same speed and interest as past tense.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

The voyeurism of first person (to you) is intriguing to me. It would seem to me that third person is more voyeuristic because you are peeking in on somebody else's experiences while first person gives the illusion of exposure, of confession, of intimate revelation, of exhibitionism almost.

Also, voyeurism doesn't disturb me. Movie-going is voyeuristic, and I like movie-going. :-)

[agnes-bean.livejournal.com]

Here via metafandom

I love writing in first person POV. Unlike other people here, I actually normally find it easiest. Once I find the character’s voice (and I normally don’t write first person unless I have a pretty clear idea of the voice already) I find it a lot easier to keep going in it. There are distinct quirks in first person POV that makes writing in it more fun for me. I’m especially noticing this right now, as I’m writing a third person POV original novella. It’s a lot harder for me than the novel length first person fan-fic I wrote (though of course some of that is also the difficulty of creating your own characters, etc).

However, I agree with those who say it also makes it far more obvious when someone DOESN’T have a character’s voice down right.

As for first person…I can deal with it in one shots (though not for porn…I hate anything but good old fashioned third person for that), but for some reason in fic it bothers me in longer pieces, even when it’s well done. This makes no sense, since I’ve read, and loved, some present tense novels I think it can be really beautiful. Something about the screen verses the pages, I don’t know.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I have written several first persons and always enjoyed them a lot. I find it very easy to stay in character when I am allowed to mimic a particular style that is not mine and can just let rip. This is not to say that I don't also love third person, *g*, but I do share your experience of finding first person an easy ride. However, I have only ever written very subjective first persons and it might be a different challenge (for me, at any rate) to write a quite objective first person or a first person in which character and narrator are in conflict.

How do you find origfic as compared to fanfic? I used to write it all the time but slash has spoiled me; I have lost the urge. I think the two modes of writing require quite different skills. astrogirl2 had a very interesting post about this.

In your final paragraph, when you say 'as for first person', do you actually mean 'as for present tense'?

[schemingreader.livejournal.com]

Uh oh.

1. I have a man weeping in nearly every fic. I don't know why I keep making them cry. I also really like to write detailed descriptions of sex. I tend to use very medical-sounding language.

Now I realize that I should not do this.

2. I will tell you what to hate about present tense fiction: writing it. Never do as I have done and begin a very long, multi-chapter work in present tense. I'm just saying. You will go insane. Also, it will cause you to screw up the verb tenses on all your other stories.

It is just unwieldy and terrible.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Um. Your icon. Guh.

Now I realize that I should not do this.

No, no, no! There is no 'should' here! There is no 'should' at all in fiction!!

I have written first tense ... okay, I am getting muddled here, I have used present tense but not in a long, multi-chapter thing! So, yes, thank you for the advice; I can see how the reading of it might be fun but the doing of it hell!! :-)

Here via Hogwarts Today

[annearchy.livejournal.com]

I was just thinking today about POV in fanfic. I read a moderate amount of HP fan fic and write some as well, and I really do like first person fan fic, especially present tense. Whether past or present, first person seems very immediate. You're literally inside the narrator's head, following along as s/he does or thinks X, Y or Z. You're also discovering things about him/herself and other characters as the narrator discovers them. So to me first person is all about discovery. If there's no discovery, there's no point to writing in first person. Second person, IMO, is also very hard to pull off well. I've written a bit of second-present and it gives me the feeling that the POV character is compelled to do what she's doing in the fic. It's almost like the POV character is watching himself doing what's happening. Hard to pull off, but very effective when done well.

Re: Here via Hogwarts Today

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

The immediacy is what I like about first person although it is not a necessary correlation of first person, just one that tends to occur most often. As people have pointed out, there is also the unreliable first person narrator. Your point about discovery being linked to first person I find very interesting. I've nothing to say about it at the moment because it is not a point that has occurred to me before, *g*. I will think on it!

Second-person is hard; I find it quite self-conscious making. gabbyhope described a similar thing to your point about compelling the character once to me. She said second person made her feel as if she were sitting on the character's shoulder, whispering in his ear, go on, do this now, come on, now do this. It is also a way of addressing the reader.

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

I like present tense and I write it in frequently, and it doesn't turn me off when I see it in another person's stories. First person POV, though, is trickier. Just because I write in it doesn't mean I'll read everyone's. Original fiction is more forgiving for first-person POV because the reader doesn't come to the story with a preconceived idea of how that character should sound. But with fanfiction, it can be a deal-killer. If your Harry or Snape or Rodney McKay doesn't sound like MY Harry or Snape or Rodney McKay, I'm outta there. This does not prevent me from writing in first-person POV if the story feels right for it, but I know it'll lose some potential audience right off the bat.

And I think second-person POV is kinda cool, actually. Never written in it, but I'm intrigued when I find it.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

think there's a misconception that all first persons are the same, and all third persons and so forth. In fact, you can have a first person with the narrator telling you a lot or a first person with the narrator giving away nothing. You can have first persons where the narrator is not even part of the story (very, very rare in fanfic but I've read it a lot in, e.g., 19th-century detective stories where an 'I' finds a letter that tells a tale or where an 'I' tells the story of a third person). First person can also be omniscient in the sense of 'If I had known then what I know now'. The first person you describe who 'sounds' like the character is really only one type but then, it is a type I do like a lot, *g*. Actually, to me, any use of direct speech makes it glaringly obvious if a writer has or has not understood a character's voice. Also, the inner voice needn't be the same as the outer voice. This morning I was thinking wouldn't it be interesting to write a first person Sheppard where Sheppard is highly articulate and voluble but whenever he comes out with direct speech it's taciturn?

But I do understand that fanfic privileges the crawling-into-the-character's-head voice. This, however, is not linked to person, necessarily. A third person can be intimate or distanced, as can a second or a first. I think you're right about the first person in origfic benefitting from not having a canon character to refer to. Readers are happier to tune into the voice, perhaps. Still, though, from the response I've got to this post I'm starting to come round to the notion that a lot of fanfic readers actually do enjoy first person, *g*.

I've written first person plural which was a fantastic experience, and I'm thinking it would be a really great person to use for the wraith because it is such a hive person. I've also written second person which is more fraught but perhaps only because I kept thinking 'readers will hate this, this is contrived'. Maybe I need to free myself of those shackles, eh?!! (It doesn't help that the second person I'm writing is Dudley. Reader resistance is trebled!!) :-)

[luzdeestrellas.livejournal.com]

I can't ever quite articulate why first person throws me so much in fic. I think it's probably a combination of everything above -- that it's hard to do well, that you really need to have the characters down well, especially since we already know them -- and just something more visceral. I have no objection to it in original writing; I'm reading a book atm that I hadn't even thought about as first person until this discussion, but in fic it's almost guaranteed to make me hit the back button.

Present tense, otoh, I am a huge fan of. I write short, mostly relationship stuff, so it works for me. I like the urgency of it, the feeling that it really is happening as I tell it. For long, plotty fiction, I don't think it works so well, though, and I think for some people that's where the dislike comes from.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Quite a few people have said they will tolerate first person in publfic and origfic but not in fanfic. It is an interesting distinction to me. I can understand the point but not empathise.

I have read a long, plotty publbook written in present tense and it was very enjoyable, possibly because it was written in Italian and I find the Italian present tense easier to make out than the passato remoto! *g*

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

I get the general dislike of present tense (it works all right in short vignettes, and can make for very hot sex scenes, but in a long story, or, God forbid, a novel, it makes me flee for my life like a rat from a sinking ship), but I personally have no problems with first person fic as long as the narrator's voice is done well.

There are some pro-fic genres where first person is traditional (classic or noir detective fiction, for one), and a writer can sometimes achieve effects with first person that would be much harder to do in third, even close third. For example, first person is one of the best and easiest ways to pull off an unreliable narrator (Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart" anyone?).

I agree with the general trend in comments so far that first person is probably more difficult to "get right" in fanfiction than in original fic. I can give an original character any "voice" I want, but writing a story narrated by, say, Rodney McKay, well enough that the reader will say, "Yep, that's how McKay would describe watching Sheppard make out with a random alien chick! That's exactly it!" is much harder.

As for second person... unless it's an apostrophe, with a narrator adressing a specific character ("If only I had told you how much I loved you when I had the chance, etc."), I loathe it. It feels clunky and artificial.

I once had a college English professor explain to me that many readers automatically translate the second person into first or third person in their heads, because, while the text says "you," they know that they're not personally doing any of the things described--so they automatically picture a character doing it, instead.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I am intrigued by the strength of feeling about these grammatical matters. And here was I thinking we were all in it for the a) sex and b) cutesey romance. Hm, apparently not, *g*.

I like your point about the unreliable narrator. I do agree that some types of effect seem 'naturally' to go with some type of person. So that first person seems to lend itself to unreliable which doesn't, of course, mean that one could not do third person unreliable equally as effectively but it may be at one remove, so to speak, offer up more resistance.

I see your point about it being more important to stay in some sort of canon character. But, as I've said several times above already, I think there's a misconception that all first persons are the same, and all third persons and so forth. In fact, you can have a first person with the narrator telling you a lot or a first person with the narrator giving away nothing. You can have first persons where the narrator is not even part of the story (very, very rare in fanfic but I've read it a lot in, e.g., 19th-century detective stories where an 'I' finds a letter that tells a tale or where an 'I' tells the story of a third person). First person can also be omniscient in the sense of 'If I had known then what I know now'. The first person you describe with the voice being 'in character' is really only one type but then, it is a type I do like a lot, *g*. Actually, to me, any use of direct speech makes it glaringly obvious if a writer has or has not understood a character's voice. Also, the inner voice needn't be the same as the outer voice. This morning I was thinking wouldn't it be interesting to write a first person Sheppard where Sheppard is highly articulate and voluble but whenever he comes out with direct speech it's taciturn?

I have read some interesting second persons. It may be that second person is more interesting from the writer's perspective and not so much from the reader's. Still, I think there are some intriguing effects to be had, as I discussed in my analysis of novanumbernine's fic Border Town (do a find for 'second person'). I warn you, though; the essay is very theoretical and may not be to your liking. :-) What your college professor told you is what Mieke Bal argues in her book on narratology but in my essay I disagree with that.