Washington Week: Student Voices (O)

COLUMN: Every story is better in the third person
By Tyler Cook
The Gamecock (U. South Carolina)
07/24/2006

(U-WIRE) COLUMBIA, S.C. — I hate writing in first person. First person says, "Hi, I'm first person, and I rule." First person is tactless; it has no nuance. First person sits at the mirror, combing its flowing locks of hair while listening to "light rock" on the radio. First person assumes that its point of view is the most valid. First person is vacuous and easy; anyone can write in first person and say, "Yeah, my characters have depth, because the narrator speaks in first person. You totally get to read all of that internal struggle."

Ernest Hemingway: He never wrote in first person, and just look at all that "internal struggle." Sure, he might have written something in first person, but does anyone remember it? Of course not. People remember finding out Frederick Henry's name halfway through the novel. That's good writing: Subtlety, nuance and withholding information from the reader. If you know what's going on by the end of the first paragraph then the story is too easy. Here's the way a story should start:

"McGarnagle staggered into the Metro, a carton of eggs tucked professionally under his maggoty arm. As the five-o-nine glided past in dewy Technicolor, an old legless invalid crawled to the uncertain warmth of a cardboard box, and breathed his last."

It's pretentious, it's gritty and it's in third person. There's nothing wrong with being elitist. You just have to be elite. Here's what that simple, two-sentence introduction would read like if it were in first person.

"I staggered into the Metro, a carton of eggs tucked professionally under my maggoty arm. As the five-o-nine glided past in dewy Technicolor I watched as an old legless invalid crawled to the uncertain warmth of a cardboard box, and breathed his last. Silly rabbit, Trix are for kids."

No one believes for a second that the tough, in-your-face McGarnagle would describe his own arm as "maggoty." Sure, he might laughingly make a bad pop culture reference at the death of a homeless man (who wouldn't), but we could have gotten the same thing with a simple, "McGarnagle said."

Violence — whatever happened to that? First person wants to put on a dress and pick flowers. Third person wants to stick a gun to a man's temple as he sobs like a little girl, begging for his life. Third person might spare him; third person might blow his brains out. First person would say, "I don't like guns! Let's all hug!" Even if third person let the bastard live, he would always know that he owed his very existence to the third person gunman. First person would probably let the fiend off the hook, giving him a chance to kill again. And even if the man with the gun against his head was innocent, he must have done something to piss off third person that would forfeit his life on the spot.

"Shock and awe" — First person turns it into some crappy pun or hipster joke. Third person actually does it.

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