Levi Mercury asked Mark Lawrence:

Hello again! I wanted to ask whether first-person comes more intuitively to you than third-person? I've always found in writing the latter that it feels stilted to me—because my observation has to be objective in constructing the scene, not subjective where I can sort of do whatever—whereas the former is much more natural to me. The Broken Empire Trilogy and what it stands for made me think to ask you!

Mark Lawrence Not really. You can, after all, change one into the other simply by swapping "I" etc for "s/he" etc and applying the appropriate grammar rules.

It's more a case of choosing the best form for the story. If the main focus is one character and what's going on in their head, then first person can work really well at creating a sense of intimacy and immediacy. If the story is more interested in the people surrounding our PoV(s) then third person makes "pulling the camera back" feel more natural.

Prince of Thorns is Jorg's story, the other characters are of much less importance. Red Sister has Nona as its focus but we're interested in her friends, teachers, etc and the interactions of a friend group.

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