The Elegant Variation: A LITTLE SHERBET

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September 23, 2005

A LITTLE SHERBET

First person is the house of the self. My first (unpublished) novel* was written in first person, and when I finished it, I swore never to use that voice again. I, I, I, me, me, my, myself, mine—ugh.**

The next two books (both published) were written in third, with hopes that the change in person would give the stories more breathing room. And it did, absolutely. But now, with the current project, I find myself back on first. Other people manage to make their first-person narrators work, but for me, sitting alone here at the machine, sometimes it feels like there’s no way out. The voice has to be emotional without being hysterical, smart without being show-offy. Sympathy for the poor girl (yes, my narrator is a she) can be hard to come by. She does some awful things, such as killing her husband, which is nice for the story, but she can't always be awful. If she thinks about doing good, however, she comes across as self-congratulatory. If she’s shown doing good, well, she's still the one reporting it, and so it comes across as self-congratulatory.

I recently ran across an exercise in an interesting new book The 3 a.m. Epiphany by Brian Kiteley. He suggests writing a first-person piece in which you use the pronouns (I, me, my) only twice, but keeping the “I” somehow important to the story you’re constructing. The point is to create a narrator who is less interested in herself than in what she observes. Which has the effect of making her more sympathetic. I took an appropriate scene from the novel and applied the directive and found it an excellent palate-cleanser. Highly recommended.

* Why, yes, it had an adolescent female narrator, how did you know?

** Mark avoids the problem in this blog by use of the imperial “we”—it’s still first person, but ducks the I-word. Though every once in a while a phrase like a wild hair up our asses gives pause.

Posted at 12:15 AM | Permalink

Comments

In Grammar Hell (E.B. White serving as guide to Thurber?), there will be a most horrific sight - a Royal We with a single Wild Hair up its Asses. Maybe you could get Ralph Steadman to illustrate. And I don't even want to imagine the tortures reserved for the singular use of "their," as in "A person could end up with a wild hair up their ass." Perhaps Maud could suggest something.

The Debt to Pleasure used the first person (and the narrator was less than angelic) to wonderful effect. He was completely self-absorbed - perfect.

Posted by: Lickona | September 23, 2005 at 08:15 AM

Karen, great posts. Thank you.

I've wrestled with first-person narrator and been defeated every time (except for a rare short story here and there). The examples of first-person narration I've admired and wanted to emulate have been exactly as you just described -- more focused on witnessing the life without rather than articulating the life within -- which I've been experimenting with in my own online journal, with varying degrees of success -- your post makes me want to tackle first person again in my fiction, now that I better understand (in the space of just a couple of paragraphs) the effect I'm striving for.

(Enjoyed BORDER DOGS by the way, and it has one of my favorite opening sentences).

Posted by: Justine Musk | September 23, 2005 at 10:02 AM

At least you're thinking about it. Woe to the editor of anything who must work their way through reams of poetry and prose and which people discuss what are their own vaguely disguised lives.

"I stepped out into the autumn morning,
my Volvo stationwagon
beckoning
my golden retriever..."

We are all so special and interesting, you see.

the scribe thinks it's cultural. When he lived in Seville, every March the city would fill up with about 4,000 American students there on exchange. Their conversation, in which accompanying friends were used as friendly sounding-boards for their own personal stories (you guys, should I get the blue blouse?), always constrasted with that of the locals, because folks in this country are obsessed with their "personal basket" of concerns .

The secret is to use the "I" with an "eye" directed at everything surrounding as opposed to inward. Yes, you are your point of reference and prism, but what's of interest are those people, those events, those places.

You can speak for yourself, without talking about yourself.

Posted by: the highway scribe | September 23, 2005 at 10:05 AM

For an incredibly thorough examination of all the possibilities and drawbacks of the I-narrator and every other sort, see Christine Brooke-Rose, "Narrating Without a Narrator," TLS, December 31, 1999. I've kept it on my desk for years and go back to it frequently.

Posted by: John Shannon | September 23, 2005 at 10:16 AM

Isn't it funny how we gravitate toward first or third person? First never occurred to me until the day the story came tumbling out and there was this "I" in charge. Since then, one problem I've discovered is that it's difficult to separate I from me. That I blog in the imperial we (creating the impression that there's a large army of elves operating behind the scenes) is a curiosity. I am generally only pompous in real life.

And since our last talk, my third person voice has resurfaced. It was like greeting an old friend -- one who chooses to withhold a few secrets.

Posted by: Kassia | September 23, 2005 at 03:42 PM

I'm helping out a friend write her first book (as a writer who has just been published I feel grateful that I made it and thought I would help out others achieve their dream) and you're absolutely right when it comes to a novel written in the first person. The 'I' factor is driving me nuts and I'm unable to figure out how best to let her know that it might be better if she took a different tack, without being offensive. Any suggestions?

Posted by: Skarr | September 24, 2005 at 02:53 PM

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The Elegant Variation is "Fowler’s (1926, 1965) term for the inept writer’s overstrained efforts at freshness or vividness of expression. Prose guilty of elegant variation calls attention to itself and doesn’t permit its ideas to seem naturally clear. It typically seeks fancy new words for familiar things, and it scrambles for synonyms in order to avoid at all costs repeating a word, even though repetition might be the natural, normal thing to do: The audience had a certain bovine placidity, instead of The audience was as placid as cows. Elegant variation is often the rock, and a stereotype, a cliché, or a tired metaphor the hard place between which inexperienced or foolish writers come to grief. The familiar middle ground in treating these homely topics is almost always the safest. In untrained or unrestrained hands, a thesaurus can be dangerous."

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The Elegant Variation

A Literary Weblog.
A Guardian Top 10 Literary Blog * A Forbes "Best of the Web" Pick * A Los Angeles Magazine Top Los Angeles Blog
"Really brave ... or really stupid" - NPR

September 23, 2005

A LITTLE SHERBET

Comments

MY NOVEL

WORTHY READINGS

TEV DEFINED

RECOMMENDED

THIS GUN FOR HIRE:
Reviews & Criticism

SECOND LOOK

Categories

The Elegant Variation

A Literary Weblog. A Guardian Top 10 Literary Blog * A Forbes "Best of the Web" Pick * A Los Angeles Magazine Top Los Angeles Blog "Really brave ... or really stupid" - NPR

September 23, 2005

A LITTLE SHERBET

Comments

MY NOVEL

WORTHY READINGS

TEV DEFINED

RECOMMENDED

THIS GUN FOR HIRE: Reviews & Criticism

SECOND LOOK

Categories

A Literary Weblog.
A Guardian Top 10 Literary Blog * A Forbes "Best of the Web" Pick * A Los Angeles Magazine Top Los Angeles Blog
"Really brave ... or really stupid" - NPR

THIS GUN FOR HIRE:
Reviews & Criticism