When First Person Needs a Different Outlook

I don't particularly care for stories written in first person. I admit I keep trying them, looking for something that might be different but most of the time I'm disappointed and can't get into the story. To me, writing in first person reveals some serious character flaws. This person is telling the story but their view is very limited. It has to be because they can't describe anything that doesn't affect their own senses.

There's always an exception. They always have that same narrow focus but the difference is in how it's presented. Most first person characters deal with "I see", or "I think" but Diana Gabaldon's Claire Fraser is able to tell about her surroundings, people dealing with other people, without interjecting herself into every situation. And when Claire is directly involved, she isn't always the focus of the scene. I like it so much better that way. It doesn't sound so 'self-absorbed'.

But I have found another use for first person. Sometimes when I'm working on a scene I find it difficult to get the feeling of things just right. So one day I tried putting myself in the particular situation my character was unsuccessfully facing. Raven's young son (about two years old) had disappeared and Raven spent her days riding the length and breadth of the highlands searching for him.

To bring out the emotions Raven needed to experience, I got under her skin, became her and interjected what I might have felt under those circumstances. The anger, the worry, the disregarding of anyone else who tried to stop her or make her see reason. I was able to delve into Raven's psyche and bring out all she was feeling. Working from this angle makes it so much easier to interject the necessary emotional trauma that fits the scene.

In my first book, the heroine never knew her parents and believed she'd been unwanted by them. So naturally there was no love lost on her part. Late in the story she finds a letter from her mother where the truth is revealed and gives the heroine new insight to her situation. Again, I put myself in her head and felt the things she needed to deal with. Both scenes were written in first person.

When I'd finished writing both of them, I read them carefully and changed "I" to the heroine's name, changed verbs and anything else that would take the scenes out of first person. What I didn't touch was the emotional quality of the scene. What I ended up with turned out to be some of my best writing.

I suppose it's an odd way to use first person but you use what tools you have to create what you want.  And those tools aren't always used as they were meant to be used. Would that fall under necessity being the mother of invention, where just about everything can have more than its intended function? I imagine it could be. As they say, you need to know the rules before you can bend them. (You don't want to break the rules. That's a whole other can of worms that should remain tightly sealed.) Using first person this way is probably bending the rules of writing but whatever helps can't hurt.

So when you get stuck on a scene, consider a different way to approach it to get the results you're looking for. Who knows, you just might come up with a winning story.