First-Person Narration - A Good Option?

Use this forum to discuss the February 2020 Book of the month, "Opaque" by Calix Leigh-Reign
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Chanda Chema
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Re: First-Person Narration - A Good Option?

Post by Chanda Chema »

First person narration was a good option. It's always a good idea to get know the characters thoughts, like you can understand Carly's action after reasoning with her.
Jajachris
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Post by Jajachris »

I think narrations leave a better impact when we use the 'first-person' narration. It helps the reader to connect with the characters.
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Post by Estrellah254 »

First-person narration was a good option. It enables the reader to see things more clearly and understand the emotions of the characters.
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Post by edztan15 »

Though first person narration certainly has its benefits and appeal, it can also limit story telling. It will be a challenge to narrate something that is happening outside the point of view of the subject without jarring the reading experience.
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Michael I
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Post by Michael I »

I thought the first person narration from both characters was clever. It allowed me to get inside both of the character's heads, which is a unique experience.
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Post by Zoe Luh »

I thought the first-person narrative style was interesting but a little confusing. I think a third person pov could have been helpful, especially because the narration came off as unreliable sometimes, and I'm not sure that was intentional. I'm usually a fan of first-person, but I didn't really feel like it worked as well here
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Post by Sumansona1344 »

Howlan wrote: 15 Feb 2020, 13:38
cristinaro wrote: 15 Feb 2020, 07:49 Do you think that it was a good idea for the author to alternate between Adam's and Carly's first-person narration? As far as I am concerned, I found Adam's passages more interesting and believable than Carly's. Would a third-person narration have worked better?
I am a big fan of first-person narratives and I think the way the emotions are portrayed in the first person makes it easier to follow the story.
Same! Also, it helps me to connect with the characters and feel their emotions. In this way, I come to know more about the inner and outer personality of the character which helps to know how the character really is.
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Tonika632
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Post by Tonika632 »

That's a good question. I personally prefer writing in the third person. Every other way of writing seems like I am missing something from the book. I may sound weird but I feel that way. I can read any book with any type of writing but I prefer the third person the most.
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Post by gracedivine »

Well different authors use different styles depending on which one best fits the project at hand. And in this case, I believe the first person narrative is ideal and well suited.
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Post by sirbobthewise »

I think I might be the odd-man-out or perhaps my lack of expertise is showing, but I'm wondering if it even uses first-person narration. Perhaps someone can enlighten me about it... I thought usually first-person narration is conducted with "I," "me," and/or "we" being used frequently within the narration.

In my opinion, I felt like this was third-person narration but with multiple perspectives. The flow actually had me all kinds of weirded out when I was reading it, so I tried to do a little bit of research on it to figure out what was throwing me off. "Multiple perspective narration" seemed like the best fit for the book, but I might be horribly wrong.

Anyways, though, whatever the style was, it didn't really sit well with me. The switching back and forth had me confused a lot of the times, and it just left a very awkward, choppy impression to me. I would have much preferred if the author would have just stuck with one perspective, or divided up the different perspectives into different chapters. It was an interesting and curious choice, though.
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Post by Arite Seki »

Some reader's don't like first-person narratives, especially when they alternate between two characters because it comes off as erratic. However, I find that a first-person narrative is better because it feels more personal and you're able to get inside a character's head
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Post by Honest-reviewer »

I have not read the book yet, but I like the stories in first person. I think I can connect to the story better that way.
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Post by Fi Zoraa »

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't this book in the third person? There is no use of "I" and other first-person references. I think this book is in the third person, present tense. I don't believe this was the best choice as it was difficult to figure out which character's perspective was being referred to. The perspective sometimes switched in the same paragraph of text. It made the book difficult to get into at first.
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Post by Barbie_sidhu »

Third person narrations are better suited. And same goes for Opaque. I think third person narration would have been much better.
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Post by Samuel Okoye 2 »

Generally I think that an author's choice of narrative technique is aimed at effectively passing the plot to the readers, which the author of this book did. I don't have any problem with the author's choice of first-person narration.
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