How We See the Story

Time for a bit of a personal reveal here. During a particularly traumatic part of my life, I went through a very bizarre, ongoing period that I didn't fully realize was unusual: I dreamt in the third person. My dreams would be about me and whatever wild, subconscious developments my brain needed to process, but it all appeared to me as if I viewed it like watching the story happen on the screen. There I was, doing things and processing ideas, but I wasn't part of the process. This form of detachment/disassociation is an uncommon way the mind tries to understand situations too painful to relive, and it has a bunch of psychological significance. Long story short, I made it through that difficult time in my life and resumed taking the lead in my own dreams. However, as I got into writing, I realized just what this said about the perspective we choose to write from.

Third-person perspective places the narrative perspective outside of a character, either opting to tell a story as it's seen from a distance, or rfrom some omnipotent source not directly tied to the characters. It's still beneficial for the focus to be on one character and their actions, but instead of discussing the story of, say, Tom by being in Tom's head, we sit outside and see Tom live his life. This has several advantages, in particular it shows the world as it is, allowing the reader to take in everything and compare it to the character's perspective. Third-person perspective is very broad and rich in world-building, but it comes at the cost of not being deep into the character's head and thoughts.

This is where first-person perspective becomes a very engaging but possibly scary way to view a story - particularly if you are writing stories about personal experiences. In a first-person story involving Tom, it's no longer, "Tom went to the bar," but "I went to the bar," putting the reader into Tom's space. The reader should be taking in the story as if they were Tom, experiencing everything firsthand. And, just like a dream, this means things are felt in the most intimate way. While this can be a very satisfying experience for the reader, it can get a little unnerving for the writer - particularly when we get into difficult subject matter.

Recalling how I started this post, there were experiences my mind needed to process but didn't want to relive, so it disassociated into the third-person perspective in order to make those experiences manageable. Those experiences no longer happened to me, but to the person I saw. When we write in the first person, we do not have the luxury of avoiding the ugly or scary feelings. Instead, we have to confront those things head-on and write about them as personal experiences. In this situation, our writing might suffer because we do not go as deep into the subject as the reader would prefer. Even if the writer feels they are really exploring some deep personal situations, sometimes the mind can wall off those things it does not want to face, and they don't pop out in our writing. In turn, the character feels flat and lacking dimension because something's still missing.

When you want to tell a story, consider how you want the reader to experience it because this will inform you about the best way to write it. If it is best told as an adventure experienced from the outside, then third-person gives you a lot of tools to work with. However, if the story needs to be perceived from inside a character, then work from the first person and offer the reader a very personal experience. Just be warned that it's a very intense experience for the writer as well. And when dealing with personal stories, there may be more challenges than you anticipated.