Heroes Insider Weekly

Captain America and The Character Clinic

The Character Clinic

First Person Problems

         I have an issue with a lot of stories on Wattpad, for one reason, their characters. I have issues with a lot of different aspects of how characters are badly written but for this first article, I decided to focus on one very close to my heart. I have also been dropping not-so-subtle hints as to what this might be throughout this introduction. I am sure the more astute among you can spot it.

         ‘I’. How can one little letter be abused so much?

         Writing in first person is always a risky decision to make. On the one hand, you have direct insight into a character’s head, enabling your reader to connect to your protagonist in a way they might not otherwise have done. On the other hand, it turns out that not everyone’s head is particularly interesting to be trapped in. Do I want to hear what your main character thinks about their breakfast, unless it’s particularly amusing, no. Do I want to hear them endlessly stating how confused they are about a situation, definitely not. And, perhaps my biggest pet peeve, do I want pages and pages of description droning on about the hotness of their potential love interest? A guy has abs, I get it. Unless he’s using supernatural powers to screw with the heroine’s mind, she should not be stating it at least twice a page.

         Want to try and brave writing in first person? Then for the sake of your readers, I highly recommend keeping these points in mind:

1.     ‘I’ is not your friend.

         Okay, so I mentioned this above but believe me, it’s worth stating twice. Please please please avoid starting every sentence with the word ‘I’. There are many wonderful, varied words to choose from in the English language so why restrict yourself to one measly letter? Variation helps you spice up your writing and prevent it from looking like one long boring list. Besides, who really tells a story like this anyway? When you recount something to your friends, you embellish it, make it sound good. Telling a story in the written form should be no different.

2.     Avoid the dreaded ‘mirror’ scene!

         This is perhaps one of the biggest problems you will have to face should you choose to write in the first person. It’s important to describe your character to your readers for obvious reasons and yet it is incredibly hard to describe them physically when the story is told from their point of view. No one really thinks about the way they look or at least, not in the way physical description is framed in most stories. It seems very unnatural for characters to list off their hair colour, eye colour, build etc. Oh, and this gets even worse when you try to be poetic.

         ‘I have long raven locks which flow down my back and bright blue eyes which glitter like ice. I’m not fat but I’m not so skinny that I don’t have any boobs. Everyone says I’m super pretty even though I’m really ugly haha.’

         You see that? No one talks/thinks like that. No one you should be writing about at least. Granted, it is very hard to work physical description into your story without it seeming unnatural. A good way is to have another character describe them but of course, this has to be done subtly. Even comments like ‘I wish I had blonde hair like you’ can seem clumsy if they aren’t worked in well.

         Another technique I like to use is through comparison. This can be with another character (although try to avoid your protagonist coming across as whiny!) or you can introduce your character in a messy situation so that they have an excuse to lament about how they usually look. Overall, I wouldn’t fret too much about describing how your character looks. In the end it doesn’t tend to matter much with first person narration and it is far less important than their personality. Speaking of which…