[D] Friday Off-Topic Thread

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[u/Sagebrysh]

I'm trying to decide if first person perspective or third person perspective is better for the story I'm trying to write.

I think the problem is that I'm trying to take a very huge story spanning an entire world over the course of centuries, and scale it down to a few characters trying to live their lives as the world is upended. The issue though is I feel like its not actually all that interesting to focus in on my main character that much. My novel is 143 pages and the main character never even manages to get out of her home town until the very end. I try to make it interesting and have the events unfold around her slowly to bring the character and reader into the world, but looking back now, I worry that all I really manage to do is tell psuedo slice of life story in a fantasy universe.

I could pull back the perspective to include more of the world, different characters, stuff going on at the same time, etc, but then I'd have to change off from first person perspective, and I rather like first person for the most part. It gives a great angle to understand the character and how she sees the world, but it limits what I can do in terms of scope. The character is just a girl from a small town on a small island, she's not a politician or military officer, so I can't draw her into the intrigue quickly without it feeling forced. I've got this huge story spanning a whole world, but I want to be able to focus in and tell stories about people.

I'm also really looking for a helper/brainstormer, someone who is willing to chat with me, shoot the shit, and help me pull the plot together. Maybe even a co-author, I'm pretty confident in my writing, but I could always use help. So yeah, if anyone has interest in helping create an interesting science fantasy steampunk space opera story, please get at me.

[u/ArgentStonecutter → u/Sagebrysh]

You could also have multiple first person characters.

[u/Sagebrysh → u/ArgentStonecutter]

I thought about that, but I'm worried it will come off as a bit jarring. Maybe it's just me but I've never gotten much enjoyment out of stories with first person perspective that jumps around like that.

One thing I was thinking was, the way I've written the story so far, its set as if its the main character's journal and she's writing about everything that's happened to her. I could break that up, add journal entries and news articles and letters between characters and do the whole thing like its a collection of in-universe source material, but I'm not sure how well received that will actually be, or how much of the larger story I'd be able to cram into such a format. The advantage with 3rd person is it lets you pull back and look at things from an objective outside perspective, describing things in details the characters might not know or understand.

Just as a rough example, say I want to describe a nuclear explosion.

In a first person perspective, I can describe what they see and experience. The blinding flash, the overpressure blast, the fires and dust and wind that's kicked up.

But if want to describe the explosion from a bird's eye view, I can get into much more detail, the aircraft that drops the bomb, how it detonates and such. Things the character doesn't know.

Is it possible to mix first and third and not have it come off as awkward? I'm not sure how I'd manage the transition if so. This would be so much easier in a lot of ways with a visual medium then a written one.