Why Are We Writing In First Person?

First person is starting to feel like the default setting for contemporary authors. I don't really have a problem with that, and I'm not here to wail about The State Of Our Culture or Authorial Narcissism or some other Deep Insight Into The Problems With Literature Today. I understand why so many authors choose first person, or at least I think I do--it's about making the book accessible and about getting into a certain mindset when telling a story. All of that is fine. However, the truth is that many of first-person narrators (some of my own included) feel like stand-ins for the author. The author imagines the story, then tells it the way she normally would. That's starting to feel like it isn't good enough for me.

First-person offers tremendous opportunities for writers, far more than we usually take advantage of. Two books have really crystallized that for me, and if you are studying voice, I highly recommend that you read them:Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos and We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson. These books are a delicious contrast and together show how a strong, unique voice can create an effect far beyond the simple telling of the story itself. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is a comedy narrated by Lorelei Lee, a dizzy gold-digger. Her lack of sophistication leads her to mis-read many situations and intentions, but she always manages to land some brilliant Yogi Berra-esque insight, ("Fate keeps on happening.") The voice is used very deliberately to heighten the comedy. In Loos's hands, the reader often understands more than the narrator. Still, Lorelei is uniquely charming, and her views of the world are, in many cases, extremely clear-headed, in their own way.

We Have Always Lived in the Castle, on the other hand, uses voice to heighten the sense of horror and disorientation. The very first moment the narrator, Merricat Blackwood, introduces herself, she tells us that she wishes she were a werewolf and, "I like my sister Constance, and Richard Plantagenet, and Amanita phalloides, the death-cup mushroom. Everyone else in our family is dead." Now there is a pair of sentences that will stop a reader in his or her tracks--the fact that she loves death-cup mushrooms comes before the fact that her family is dead, which is narrated with seemingly no emotion whatsoever. Merricat is a fascinating character, filled with bile and fury, the exact opposite of Lorelei Lee. She isn't likeable--she is fascinating and compelling. She isn't just telling us a story. She is pulling back the curtain on a deeply disturbing situation.

Neither of these women sound like anyone else in the world. That is what we should strive for when we are working with first person--a deep reflection of the character and the intention of the entire piece.