How do you decide when to write in first or third person? Since I read DFW and Pynchon I've been wondering this

How do you decide when to write in first or third person? Since I read DFW and Pynchon I've been wondering this.

Honest question.

Write in first person if it's fiction for plebs, write in first person if it's your first-hand account, write in third otherwise

what is first person and third person. can you give examples.

Are you serious? Is this for your third grade homework assignment?

Also, present or past tense?

>three three three
I think God is trying to tell you something.

Try using a narrator that alternates between them just to see what it's like.

>Write in first person if it's fiction for plebs, write in first person if it's your first-hand account, write in third otherwise

Terrible.

Write what fits the fiction. They both have different feels, and they both do different things.

You can do dramatic (objective) POV in 3rd person, you can do omniscient more naturally than in 1st person, you can do free indirect style, you can focalize through different characters. Generally try to keep it consistent.

1st person is good for memoir style pieces, unreliable narrators, and particular subjective experience through a character. 1st person can be potentially gut wrenching or disgusting or whatever in the right hands. 1st person narration opens up a lot more room for empathy/disgust with a character.

Generally, 3rd person is better for humorous writing, but not always.

Nah, 1rst person really is only for plebs and naval gazers

Here's the general guideline:

First person present tense: personal account, usually more languid and "thoughtful"

First person past tense: relating something from the past to someone in the present day, great opportunity for flashbacks

Third person present tense: omniscient for the purpose of seeing a bunch of absurd interconnecting events a la GR

Third person past tense: basically everything else

What about 4th, 5th and 6th person?

Don't limit yourself to POVs that require sanity, OP. Go nuts.

Future tense, potentiality tense or green-text tense.

>naval gazers
>naval
Kystbhmm

Write in second person plural future-in-the-past.

You're not /lit if you don't look at the see

>I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I

My biggest problem with first person desu

You have no idea what you're talking about.

All POVs have a function. 1st is useful because you have a vast set of tools to contribute to the story. Unreliability being one of the best.

2nd person, arguably, doesn't actually exist. 2nd person most of the time is 1st in disguise, usually for self-reflection or disregard for responsibility.

As for 3rd, I personally prefer omniscient over limited, because then the narrator has more of an entity and is not limited to one character.

Both if your narrator has lost his sense of time.

Get gud

Hi5

Learn to write, holy shit.

Is that what was happening in Hunger?

This:
Also, in my opinion, third person works best in a story with multiple developed characters with arcs, first person in one with just one or two. This is not set in stone, of course. Good writers can make it work, perspective is just another aspect of prose.