I'm a memorist so writing in the first person is easy for me. But translating it into a fictional work is another story. I have a few short stories in first person, but actually had to re-write a third into third person because it was too intense to only be inside one character's head (unreliable in the sense that she is a psychopath). Beta readers were emailing me to ask if I was okay.
Brunonia Barry (The Lace Reader) develops her main character Towner Whitney in first person, present tense, with multiple flashbacks and journal entries. You know from the first sentence that Towner is an unreliable narrator, because she tells you that she is a liar. The extent of that doesn't become apparant until the end, but it works beautifully. That uses two all the elements you describe above, the memoir style, unreliable narrator, and letter/journals. The other point of view character, Rafferty, is cast in third person, past tense.
I've read two as yet unpublished novels in first person, one on critters.org, the other on Online Writers Workshop.
The first also cast the character as an unreliable narrator, but it took a while for the reader to know that. To sustain that for 110K is quite a feat, and the novel had parts where I couldn't figure out what was really going on because there was no other POV character to ground me. That left the ending uncertain. Not to mention all the action scenes that took place (this was a fantasy about a hero's quest with a lot of battles) were described as flashbacks when the point of view character met up with his comrades. The author did use letters and journal entries. I liked it though and hope he is still working on it.
The other was a fantasy novel and overall, the author did a good job. The narrator was somewhat unreliable in that he was immature and self absorbed, but the mystery and intrigue twists helped move the plot since we were finding out what was going on as the protagonist put the clues together.
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timeasmymeasure
First Person Point of View
Date: 2009-03-28 12:39 pm (UTC)Brunonia Barry (The Lace Reader) develops her main character Towner Whitney in first person, present tense, with multiple flashbacks and journal entries. You know from the first sentence that Towner is an unreliable narrator, because she tells you that she is a liar. The extent of that doesn't become apparant until the end, but it works beautifully. That uses two all the elements you describe above, the memoir style, unreliable narrator, and letter/journals. The other point of view character, Rafferty, is cast in third person, past tense.
I've read two as yet unpublished novels in first person, one on critters.org, the other on Online Writers Workshop.
The first also cast the character as an unreliable narrator, but it took a while for the reader to know that. To sustain that for 110K is quite a feat, and the novel had parts where I couldn't figure out what was really going on because there was no other POV character to ground me. That left the ending uncertain. Not to mention all the action scenes that took place (this was a fantasy about a hero's quest with a lot of battles) were described as flashbacks when the point of view character met up with his comrades. The author did use letters and journal entries. I liked it though and hope he is still working on it.
The other was a fantasy novel and overall, the author did a good job. The narrator was somewhat unreliable in that he was immature and self absorbed, but the mystery and intrigue twists helped move the plot since we were finding out what was going on as the protagonist put the clues together.