I – means first person perspective
Ever read a book, open the pages and feel like the narrator is telling you HIS or HER story? That’s the first person perspective in writing. If you open a book and read he said and she said and instead of where you might find ‘I’ you find a person’s name, that’s third person perspective.
What’s the benefit of one over the other? Maybe nothing. Maybe lots. People have their preferences in reading material as well as how they write.
For my other me, writing for the adult romance audience, I write in third person and switch back and forth, back and forth and back and forth from his and her perspectives. Yes, I could do this in first person, but it’s much more fluid that way in 3rd.
What I like about first person is that I can get deep into the character development for one singular character. I can get to know them and let them really tell their story vs. telling it for them in 3rd person.
Now to the reader, this probably has limited meaning. To a writer, it means a lot. To me, it separates my younger (less in your face and less open and descriptive with certain *ahem* scenes and language) from my older writing. So if you pick up a book and see it in 3rd person … please be 18 to read it. 🙂 But if you see one written in 1st person … well then go for it! That’ll be the big distinction for me as a writer.
The challenge then is to remember which one I’m writing. 😉
How about you? Do you prefer writing one type vs another? How about reading?
