Date: Fri, 7 Nov 1997 14:11:54 -0500 (EST)
From: Andrew Huang <alhuang@hcs.harvard.edu>
To: fanfic@fanfic.com
Subject: [FFML] [question] 1st/3rd person narratives

	As I was mulling over how to continue with my most recent EVA
piece, I realized that I hadn't seen very many fics written in first
person, including most self-inserts. Is that really the way most pieces
are written, or is it just me?

Most fics are, indeed, written in third person, for two reasons I can 
think of:

A)  Narration.  First person locks in your POV, preventing you from 
writing anything that the narrator doesn't experience or hear about.

B)  Characterization.  In FF's this is even more important.  When a 
story is told first-person, every action the narrator takes is 
amplified, so that even slightly OOC behavior is blown out of 
proportion.  Even the style of narration has to be IC (a number of Ranma 
fics told from Ranma's POV forget about this, giving him a level of 
self-awareness he rarely displays).  Unless told as a distant 
retrospective, characters should use the same ``voice'' that they use in 
the source material.

Just my opinion, of course...

>From Andrew Huang, brought to you by his computer, Oddzilla
Oddzilla says, "Mmmmm...Evanjellydonut...."
http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~alhuang/
Harvard Anime Society, Secretary

______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com