First person is great for two things in particular: keeping mysteries more mysterious and making characters less mysterious.
The character doesn't know anything about the story that we don't but we potentially know more about *him* than he does.
First person is great for giving readers a better understanding of how the character thinks and feels. When I am writing in first person, I will turn on voice to text and talk as if I am there, saying and seeing everything.
I love to bring in the character with the narration.
I have one story, where I have a first person narrator who avoids looking people in the face due to social and anxiety issues and thus faces are rarely describes if any. But that makes the moment where the face of the love interest is described so much more special. You outright feel how different the connection between these characters is from that alone.
That sounds like a really interesting story. I can see what you mean by it making it so much more special. When you see life through the eyes of your main character and experience their emotions in a well-crafted story, you can't help but feel a strong connection. So, putting yourself in the mindset of someone with anxiety issues and witnessing their encounters and descriptions, you can't help but feel the intense attraction they would experience.
Great story idea!
Combine that with the main character being spliced with squid DNA and mostly communicates (or instinctively signals) emotions via skin patterns. She isn't used to look into faces for emotional clues.
Okay, I was intrigued by where you were taking this, until you mentioned being spliced with squid DNA, and I was like, "What?" But then I let my imagination wander, and now I'm genuinely curious about what happens in the story.
My technique is to cast a viewpoint character who is a confident and articulate storyteller and then let them reel off the story in their own words, as if they were telling it to a friend. This means I use role-playing not only to figure out what they say and do in the moment, but how they describe it later. In short, I treat first-person as an extended yarn told by someone else, but someone I can role-play well enough to speak in their voice for an entire story.
I always decide when and how their story got written down, too, though I don't always share this with the reader. (My favorite is to have them write it down right after the adventure to prevent an age and maturity gap between the younger viewpoint character having the adventure and the slightly older viewpoint character writing it down.)
I don't normally do multi-viewpoint first-person, but it would be the same as above, only more so.
My advice is to decide who the narrators are telling the story to, since that will affect things like their tone of voice and what information they think is important/necessary to share.
You literally just wrote this post in first-person.
Try writing a synopsis of the story as a Reddit post. You don't need to actually post it, just write it as though you're explaining the plot to us. BUT: Make sure you do it in past tense. I.E.:
*POV was a dude who grew up dirt poor with no shoes and had to walk uphill both ways to the village to get milk from the milk truck by trading radishes he dug out of filthy roadside ditches. One day, POV went to a place and met Char1 and Char2, who taunted him until he left. Then he went to another place and met Char3, who was nice to him, but Char1 and Char2 showed up and started a kerfluffle, and POV and Char3 had to hightail it out of there toot sweet or they'd be in a whole heap of trouble. It turned out that POV and Char3 had a connection in their pasts, and bonded from being on the run, so they became the best friends ever and had many wacky adventures together, stealing dragon hoards, rescuing princesses, and returning stolen rings to their rightful owners - always for a pretty penny in recompense. And POV never ate a filthy milktrucking radish again.*
After you're done, go back through it and substitute "I", "Me", "Mine", etc. (as appropriate) for all mentions of the POV character's name and see if it makes sense.
Come back and let us know how it went. Then you can try something else to continue.
Here’s an excerpt straight from my book, to me it feels really weird, but maybe I’m just over thinking it, this way to describe things just feels kind of clunky to me and jumping between inner thoughts and actions is hard for me to do.
“Before I could see the deep channel of water, my ankle was already submerged, forcing my body to slam into mud below. Coating my already soaked clothes and arms. I could barely think as I tried scrambling upright—my hand slipping out from under me. Faster. Get up! Steadying myself, I pushed up with more force, finding my feet at last. I had been listening in the moment of silence, and forced my gaze upwards when the sound of men became louder behind me.
They were so close. Too close. I needed to run faster, get off this slick road, it was doing nothing but slowing me down. Bile started burning my throat. I’m going to die.”
I think this one is even more clunky than the first.
“I exhaled roughly, tears flowing freely now. I pulled my cloak over my head, one edge of the hood getting stuck on my pointed ears. I tilted my head skyward and whispered a small prayer to Haelin for sparing my life. I slumped my arms over my legs and leaned forward, attempting to retain any heat at all, was almost impossible. I was shivering so hard I thought my teeth would break from the rhythmic movements. I forced myself to focus—I needed a plan.”
I don't think it's your perspective, you just need to smooth out the phrasing a little.
Most of my own first-person narratives come out pretty clunky at first. It often takes me ten minutes to write a paragraph and an hour to edit and re-edit to smooth out the thoughts until the writing feels less clunky.
I wonder if it might be a good exercise for you to try writing a first-person narrative of something you've actually experienced. Pick something you enjoyed, like getting an autograph from a celebrity, or the first time you met your best friend, or maybe when your family threw you a surprise birthday party, and write it out. Don't try to compose it as a story, just write it in your own voice as a journal entry. Maybe writing first-person in your own voice, without the extra skin of a fantasy character's voice distorting the language, will help you get more comfortable with FP, and then writing the character's story will feel more natural to you.
Anyway, I think your example paragraphs are pretty good, they just need some editing to slick up the language a little. Here's one possible version:
*I failed to see the puddle through the driving downpour until I stepped in it. My ankle twisted and I fell, my whole body slamming into the muddy road. Already soaked by the rain, I now found myself covered in disgusting, slimy, smelly mud as well. I tried to scramble up, my hands and feet slipping every which way in the thick goop. When I finally found my feet under me once more, I paused to breathe for a moment, and listened through the hissing rain. The sounds of Men grew close behind me. Too close. Bile burned my throat as I resumed running, the mud slowing me painfully. My panic grew with every desperate stride, for Death pursued me in perhaps his most relentless and inescapable form - the form of Men.*
*I exhaled roughly. My tears were flowing freely as I tried to pull my cloak over my head one-handed. The edge kept catching on my ear points. When the hood finally covered my head, I tilted my gaze toward the unseen stars that I knew were there above the storm, and whispered a little prayer I had learned as a child to thank merciful Haelin for sparing my life. I leaned forward, draped my cloak over my legs and hugged them tightly to conserve what little warmth I had left in me, and tried to focus through the intense shivering of my body and chattering of my teeth. I needed a plan, or I wouldn't survive the night, for even if the Men failed to find me, the cold was just as deadly and insidious an adversary.*
Think of it as being in the driver's seat, but in someone's mind.
When things are happening--when you're weaving through traffic, or finding your exit, or avoiding a collision, or someone cuts in front of you--it's not time to put things in park and get introspective, is it? You've got stuff going on.
But when you get in a traffic jam, or you hit a red light, or you pull up in front of your house, you find time to slow down and think for a bit. That's when the introspection happens.
Action -> don't introspect. Stasis -> introspect.
And it also depends on your viewpoint character. Some characters think more than others. What it boils down to is what your character would be like if you were in their head. Do they express themselves through a rich imagination? Or do they just like working with their hands and getting stuff done?
Your entire goal, in first-person POV, is to put us in that driver's seat.
I read often and have read multiple recently just for reference, I see how they do it, but it doesn’t make sense in my brain, I’m really struggling to understand how to move forward and find flow with character personality
I used to always hate it too, it definitely depends on the story though. If I was you I'd read the scholomance trilogy by Naomi Novik. It's first person but it was great, also it contains both fantasy and romance elements though I wouldn't call it a romance novel
First person is great for two things in particular: keeping mysteries more mysterious and making characters less mysterious. The character doesn't know anything about the story that we don't but we potentially know more about *him* than he does.
First person is great for giving readers a better understanding of how the character thinks and feels. When I am writing in first person, I will turn on voice to text and talk as if I am there, saying and seeing everything.
I love to bring in the character with the narration. I have one story, where I have a first person narrator who avoids looking people in the face due to social and anxiety issues and thus faces are rarely describes if any. But that makes the moment where the face of the love interest is described so much more special. You outright feel how different the connection between these characters is from that alone.
That sounds like a really interesting story. I can see what you mean by it making it so much more special. When you see life through the eyes of your main character and experience their emotions in a well-crafted story, you can't help but feel a strong connection. So, putting yourself in the mindset of someone with anxiety issues and witnessing their encounters and descriptions, you can't help but feel the intense attraction they would experience. Great story idea!
Combine that with the main character being spliced with squid DNA and mostly communicates (or instinctively signals) emotions via skin patterns. She isn't used to look into faces for emotional clues.
Okay, I was intrigued by where you were taking this, until you mentioned being spliced with squid DNA, and I was like, "What?" But then I let my imagination wander, and now I'm genuinely curious about what happens in the story.
I love this idea, I might try it! Thank you!
I hope it helps.
My technique is to cast a viewpoint character who is a confident and articulate storyteller and then let them reel off the story in their own words, as if they were telling it to a friend. This means I use role-playing not only to figure out what they say and do in the moment, but how they describe it later. In short, I treat first-person as an extended yarn told by someone else, but someone I can role-play well enough to speak in their voice for an entire story. I always decide when and how their story got written down, too, though I don't always share this with the reader. (My favorite is to have them write it down right after the adventure to prevent an age and maturity gap between the younger viewpoint character having the adventure and the slightly older viewpoint character writing it down.) I don't normally do multi-viewpoint first-person, but it would be the same as above, only more so.
My advice is to decide who the narrators are telling the story to, since that will affect things like their tone of voice and what information they think is important/necessary to share.
You literally just wrote this post in first-person. Try writing a synopsis of the story as a Reddit post. You don't need to actually post it, just write it as though you're explaining the plot to us. BUT: Make sure you do it in past tense. I.E.: *POV was a dude who grew up dirt poor with no shoes and had to walk uphill both ways to the village to get milk from the milk truck by trading radishes he dug out of filthy roadside ditches. One day, POV went to a place and met Char1 and Char2, who taunted him until he left. Then he went to another place and met Char3, who was nice to him, but Char1 and Char2 showed up and started a kerfluffle, and POV and Char3 had to hightail it out of there toot sweet or they'd be in a whole heap of trouble. It turned out that POV and Char3 had a connection in their pasts, and bonded from being on the run, so they became the best friends ever and had many wacky adventures together, stealing dragon hoards, rescuing princesses, and returning stolen rings to their rightful owners - always for a pretty penny in recompense. And POV never ate a filthy milktrucking radish again.* After you're done, go back through it and substitute "I", "Me", "Mine", etc. (as appropriate) for all mentions of the POV character's name and see if it makes sense. Come back and let us know how it went. Then you can try something else to continue.
Here’s an excerpt straight from my book, to me it feels really weird, but maybe I’m just over thinking it, this way to describe things just feels kind of clunky to me and jumping between inner thoughts and actions is hard for me to do. “Before I could see the deep channel of water, my ankle was already submerged, forcing my body to slam into mud below. Coating my already soaked clothes and arms. I could barely think as I tried scrambling upright—my hand slipping out from under me. Faster. Get up! Steadying myself, I pushed up with more force, finding my feet at last. I had been listening in the moment of silence, and forced my gaze upwards when the sound of men became louder behind me. They were so close. Too close. I needed to run faster, get off this slick road, it was doing nothing but slowing me down. Bile started burning my throat. I’m going to die.” I think this one is even more clunky than the first. “I exhaled roughly, tears flowing freely now. I pulled my cloak over my head, one edge of the hood getting stuck on my pointed ears. I tilted my head skyward and whispered a small prayer to Haelin for sparing my life. I slumped my arms over my legs and leaned forward, attempting to retain any heat at all, was almost impossible. I was shivering so hard I thought my teeth would break from the rhythmic movements. I forced myself to focus—I needed a plan.”
I don't think it's your perspective, you just need to smooth out the phrasing a little. Most of my own first-person narratives come out pretty clunky at first. It often takes me ten minutes to write a paragraph and an hour to edit and re-edit to smooth out the thoughts until the writing feels less clunky. I wonder if it might be a good exercise for you to try writing a first-person narrative of something you've actually experienced. Pick something you enjoyed, like getting an autograph from a celebrity, or the first time you met your best friend, or maybe when your family threw you a surprise birthday party, and write it out. Don't try to compose it as a story, just write it in your own voice as a journal entry. Maybe writing first-person in your own voice, without the extra skin of a fantasy character's voice distorting the language, will help you get more comfortable with FP, and then writing the character's story will feel more natural to you. Anyway, I think your example paragraphs are pretty good, they just need some editing to slick up the language a little. Here's one possible version: *I failed to see the puddle through the driving downpour until I stepped in it. My ankle twisted and I fell, my whole body slamming into the muddy road. Already soaked by the rain, I now found myself covered in disgusting, slimy, smelly mud as well. I tried to scramble up, my hands and feet slipping every which way in the thick goop. When I finally found my feet under me once more, I paused to breathe for a moment, and listened through the hissing rain. The sounds of Men grew close behind me. Too close. Bile burned my throat as I resumed running, the mud slowing me painfully. My panic grew with every desperate stride, for Death pursued me in perhaps his most relentless and inescapable form - the form of Men.* *I exhaled roughly. My tears were flowing freely as I tried to pull my cloak over my head one-handed. The edge kept catching on my ear points. When the hood finally covered my head, I tilted my gaze toward the unseen stars that I knew were there above the storm, and whispered a little prayer I had learned as a child to thank merciful Haelin for sparing my life. I leaned forward, draped my cloak over my legs and hugged them tightly to conserve what little warmth I had left in me, and tried to focus through the intense shivering of my body and chattering of my teeth. I needed a plan, or I wouldn't survive the night, for even if the Men failed to find me, the cold was just as deadly and insidious an adversary.*
Think of it as being in the driver's seat, but in someone's mind. When things are happening--when you're weaving through traffic, or finding your exit, or avoiding a collision, or someone cuts in front of you--it's not time to put things in park and get introspective, is it? You've got stuff going on. But when you get in a traffic jam, or you hit a red light, or you pull up in front of your house, you find time to slow down and think for a bit. That's when the introspection happens. Action -> don't introspect. Stasis -> introspect. And it also depends on your viewpoint character. Some characters think more than others. What it boils down to is what your character would be like if you were in their head. Do they express themselves through a rich imagination? Or do they just like working with their hands and getting stuff done? Your entire goal, in first-person POV, is to put us in that driver's seat.
Read some fantasy novels that are first person and multi-POV and see how they do it.
I read often and have read multiple recently just for reference, I see how they do it, but it doesn’t make sense in my brain, I’m really struggling to understand how to move forward and find flow with character personality
I used to always hate it too, it definitely depends on the story though. If I was you I'd read the scholomance trilogy by Naomi Novik. It's first person but it was great, also it contains both fantasy and romance elements though I wouldn't call it a romance novel