@JoanGrey @allisonwyss @adaddinsane

Changing the POV to first person's an interesting choice - what's making you bend in that direction?

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Thank you for that question! CW: TL;DR

Every bit of advice I read insisted on 3rd person narrative sells. So did my agent. This was in the late 70s and 80s. Considering that most (but not all) of what I read was 3rd person, I did my best. I wrote about 12 works (#novels, #novellas) that way.

Problem is, for me at least, writing 3rd person is fantastically difficult. Not the storytelling but the in-writing. It's difficult because I am writing in 3rd person close. I was strenuously warned away from 3rd person omniscient, and I don't particularly like modern stories written that way.

3rd person close: If the character can't sense it or conceive of it, you can't write about it.

Staying in that #POV is very hard. To get it right required repeated boring attention-down-to-each-word-choice detailed revision. C.J.Cherryh is a master of 3rd person close, and I love her stories, but... I. Just. Couldn't. Do it!

I burned out in 2001.

By 2015, I needed to write. Non-fiction essays weren't enough. I thought, "What the hay?" I tried 1st person. I started writing and publishing fiction again -- fan-fic actually -- and it clicked.

I mean, OMFG! (Pardon my Latin.)

In 1st person, POV issues disappear because they're so obvious even while writing the first draft. The #narrative is the POV's thoughts, and my POV's are very opinionated. Entertainingly so, I'd posit. The dichotomy between what the character thinks and what the character says and does is a wonderful subtext all by itself. They even get to lie, sometimes.

As a bonus, I feel closer to my readers. (I've got a creative imagination, I guess.)

So... I'm now a 1st person past-tense #author! It is much more acceptable these days. Whilst some of my previous novels were multiple POV character works, I actually broke chapters on POV changes (like Fredrick Pohl), even naming the chapter for the character! Making the internal dialog unique will be a challenge, but it ought be fun. I certainly know the end of each story (my story-writing MO)!

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@novelx123 @StephenC

It's been so long since I read that Dickens novel, back in the 70s, that I didn't remember it was in 1st person. I loved all his books, but in my mind I remembered them as 3rd person.

1st person can indeed feel confining, depending on the writer. However, third person personal (or close), like C.J.Cherryh does by strictly narrating only what the PoV experiences, has the same bug/feature. It can be either confining or comfortably snug. 3rd person omniscient isn't as popular, but it is classical story telling. For the record, I write 1st person past tense with the PoV aware she's narrating her own story. 1st person present tense is popular and difficult for me read, so I think I can empathize with what you feel.

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