The Intimacy of First Person by John Marco

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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Back when I started writing
seriously, I was convinced that a “real” epic fantasy novel had to be written
in third-person.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>I had read THE
MISTS OF AVALON, THE LORD OF THE RINGS, and other classic, epic tales, and was
certain that I wanted to follow their lead.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>I wanted to write a book with lots of characters, following
them where they went and weaving their individual stories into one big tapestry,
pulling together all the threads by the story’s end.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>That was “bigness,” I figured.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>That was how to create the heft and scale I wanted in my
books.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Eventually, I did finish
that first book.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>THE JACKAL OF NAR
came out in 1999, a third-person narrative with a “main” character and a
constellation of other, somewhat lesser characters to support the central protagonist’s
journey and to give the book the kind of moral ambiguity I figured could only
come from different viewpoints.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> 
</span>The story was long, complex, and by the time I wrote the third book in
the series, difficult for even me to remember completely!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>But I was proud of what I’d
written.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>I’d kept all the pieces
of the story moving in my mind like a deep game of chess.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>I wrote three books in that first
series, and then went on to write another trilogy, also featuring lots of
characters and third-person narratives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> 
</span>I even wrote a YA novel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> 
</span>Shorter than all the other books I’d written, yes, but still in that
third-person viewpoint I’d gotten so comfortable with.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">And then, something
happened.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>I don’t know what it was
that made me want to do it, but I suddenly really wanted to write a
first-person story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>I wanted to
more deeply explore the main character in my second trilogy, a troubled knight
named Lukien who had already been through a ton of trials in the earlier
books.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>Lukien was, unquestionably,
the heart and soul of the books I’d written, and yet I felt that his story had
gotten muddled somehow, lost in a sea of sub-plots that had been meant to
bolster his story but instead weighed it down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>I wanted to revisit Lukien.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>I wanted to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">know</i>
him.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">A lot of new writers think
it’s easier to write a first-person book than one written in third-person.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>With only one main character and
viewpoint to contend with, there’s only one timeline that matters, one central
thread for the writer to follow to the end of the story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>Before I actually started writing
seriously, I was one of those writers that thought of first-person as “easy.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>To be completely honest, I even
considered it something of a copout.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">But of course I was very wrong.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xXQmRBOQ7L0..." imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xXQmRBOQ7L0..." width="212" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial;">After writing seven books
with lots of different viewpoint characters, I stared at the computer screen a
long time before the first words of Lukien’s new story came to me, the story
that would eventually become THE FOREVER KNIGHT.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>I had spent years writing in my own voice, and it took me
time to realize that now I had to write in Lukien’s voice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>It was his story, after all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>I needed to hear his voice in my head.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">It took some time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>I went back to reading some first-person
narratives to get the feel for how it’s done.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>I remembered some of my own favorite first-person stories,
like Charles Portis’ TRUE GRIT, an absolutely fantastic example of first-person
writing and that elusive thing called “voice.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>Reading TRUE GRIT, I could feel that character of Mattie
Ross—she was alive on those pages.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> 
</span>She supplanted the author’s voice entirely.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>That’s what a great first person story does.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>Above all, it’s a character study.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>It’s an intimate conversation between the
narrator and the reader.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Eventually, Lukien’s voice came to me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>I felt his bitterness and rage and all the things that had
gone wrong in his life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">   </span>More
importantly, I knew that he was a good man, frustrated by his inability to do
good things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>After spending years
writing about him in previous books, I finally got to know him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>Some who have read THE EYES OF GOD and
the other Lukien books don’t think of him as good.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>I used to be able to understand that, because previously I
was like an outsider looking in, spying on Lukien and the other characters but
never really getting to know them intimately.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">That’s no longer true.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>I’ve created lots of characters over
the years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>Readers sometimes ask
me if I have a favorite.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>I used to
dodge that question because I really didn’t have a favorite.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>But that’s not true anymore.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>Hands down, Lukien is my most favorite
character of all those I’ve created.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> 
</span>It’s not even close.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>He’s
like a close friend now. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">If hearing that makes you
roll your eyes, that’s okay.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>I know
it sounds odd.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>Writers are an
eccentric bunch.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>We talk to our
characters, we act out scenes, and we immerse ourselves as deeply as we can in
the worlds we create.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>Sometimes we
prefer them to the real world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>I
don’t know how much I’d like Lukien in the real world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>I don’t think I’d ever be friends with
him because we’re such different types of people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>But I have gotten to know him by writing in first-person, in
ways I’m sure I never would have otherwise.</span></span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: Arial;">Biography</span></u></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">John Marco is the author of
seven books, including the bestselling <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Tyrants
and Kings</i> trilogy and the books of the Bronze Knight, Lukien.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>His next novel, THE FOREVER KNIGHT,
will be published by DAW books in April 2013 and is available now for
preordering.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>To find out more
about John and to read his ramblings about nerdy things, please visit his
website at <a href="http://www.thehappynerd.com/"&gt...
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