Literature About point of view

Personally, I like to write in first person PoV using present tense. It somehow allows me to get empathetic with the character more. Yet, there seems a general disagreeableness on such style of writing. May I have some reasons why?

I, personally, prefer third person, past tense. It just flows better in my opinion. For some, it just feels jarring, like you are reading a diary or a journal, or even an autobiography. For me, I don't mind, just as long as it is done well. Whatever PoV style you prefer, go for it. But most people prefer past tense and third person in RP because most people do that and it just makes the RP (which is a collaborative story in my opinion) flow better. Seeing someone shift tenses or go for a tense that is either future or present jars most people who are used to the usual past tense.

Some might fight tooth and nail to follow a past tense. Some might feel like those who do it in any other tense that isn't past are regressed human beings who don't know a thing about writing.

For me? I honestly do not care.

Just as long as you can pull it off and it works well with what you have going on, then I don't mind. But most people go about the story-making or RP process as a way to reenact something that had happened in the past. Given the past tense. Stories in present tense are actually quite common, but when paired with RPing, it can disrupt the flow of the other past tense posts and make it seem like your character is currently doing these things while every other character has already done them and they are moving on.

I prefer third-person for RP. Idk, but first-person just gives me a self-insert vibe that makes me uneasy. That might just be me, though.

I've always preferred third person perspective rather than first person. I just feel awkward roleplaying in first person, Normally I empathize very well with my characters in third person, but first person makes me feel like the character and I are a single entity, which is a really odd feeling. I just feel odd saying "I" do this, and that you reply saying "I say this to you". It makes me feel like it's a self-insert, as Jannah said.

There's another reason for this, and it has to do with the fact that I love multi-character roleplaying. I love having several characters, and honestly, it would be weird to use first person perspective if I'm playing multiple characters. I like using an omniscient narration because I like to describe my character's thoughts along with what the say or do. It would be very strange to do that same thing with a first-person perspective, because how is one character going to know what everyone else is thinking? It also makes a very awkward problem when the character that would be the POV character isn't in the current scene. How do you narrate then?

I guess it's my thing for having so many characters, that I need a perspective that isn't attached to a single character in order to narrate everything my characters do. First person doesn't give me that freedom, because either I use first person perspective for all my characters, which would be incredibly confusing, or just for one, and never show anything that happens without that character, which I don't want to do.

Redfork2000 said:

I guess it's my thing for having so many characters, that I need a perspective that isn't attached to a single character in order to narrate everything my characters do. First person doesn't give me that freedom, because either I use first person perspective for all my characters, which would be incredibly confusing, or just for one, and never show anything that happens without that character, which I don't want to do.

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I forgot to add it to my post, but yes I also often play multiple characters. That makes first-person very impractical.

Merciless Medic said:

I, personally, prefer third person, past tense. It just flows better in my opinion. For some, it just feels jarring, like you are reading a diary or a journal, or even an autobiography. For me, I don't mind, just as long as it is done well. Whatever PoV style you prefer, go for it. But most people prefer past tense and third person in RP because most people do that and it just makes the RP (which is a collaborative story in my opinion) flow better. Seeing someone shift tenses or go for a tense that is either future or present jars most people who are used to the usual past tense.

Some might fight tooth and nail to follow a past tense. Some might feel like those who do it in any other tense that isn't past are regressed human beings who don't know a thing about writing.

For me? I honestly do not care.

Just as long as you can pull it off and it works well with what you have going on, then I don't mind. But most people go about the story-making or RP process as a way to reenact something that had happened in the past. Given the past tense. Stories in present tense are actually quite common, but when paired with RPing, it can disrupt the flow of the other past tense posts and make it seem like your character is currently doing these things while every other character has already done them and they are moving on.

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Oh yeah, this I find interesting. While third person perspective is something I always use, I seem to have no preference whatsoever between past or present tense. In fact, just a couple of years ago I frequently made the mistake of constantly switching between both tenses. Nowadays I don't do that anymore, and just go with whichever tense my roleplay partner is using, but I really don't have a preference between them. I kind of only pay attention to them now to make sure I use the same tense throughout my post, but honestly it doesn't change much for me.

Oh, I'm very much the same. I usually have around 2+ characters I control and I like to delve into the intricacies of all characters involved and their feelings and explain it as I go along. Its difficult to do when it is just first person, and I can't "get" my characters if I do that.

Also, first person tends to screw with me in an RP setting, because there is very obviously a difference between myself and the character I'm reading about and it confuses me as I tend to have an easily impressionable mind (which is why I can "get" my characters at any given point in time because my mind is just like that).

Redfork2000 said:

Oh yeah, this I find interesting. While third person perspective is something I always use, I seem to have no preference whatsoever between past or present tense. In fact, just a couple of years ago I frequently made the mistake of constantly switching between both tenses. Nowadays I don't do that anymore, and just go with whichever tense my roleplay partner is using, but I really don't have a preference between them. I kind of only pay attention to them now to make sure I use the same tense throughout my post, but honestly it doesn't change much for me.

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Yea, I think we all fell into the tense shift trap before. I got hammered on another site that wanted all posts to be past tense and my tenses shifted so much. XD so that was fun.

Personally, I prefer to use first person past tense. I write from my character’s perspective, something I find both interesting and more immersive. In contrast to third person limited, which does still tell you what the character’s perspective is, in first person the very narration is that perspective. I like to show the character’s state of mind from the narration, and there isn’t a particular distinction between what a character is thinking and feeling the narration of events. I find this lends itself well for both a more descriptive / detailed style of roleplaying that I use, and for a kind of writing where you are coming at it from a particular character’s side as opposed to an external third party’s like a narrator.

Furthermore, one thing that always bothered me when I mainly used third person were those moments when the same sentence refers to multiple people by the same pronouns. This goes double for the "he" or "his" pronouns, because in my native language the masculine is the one we use for neutral grammatically speaking, so I do have a habit of doing that in english as well. So I'm playing a male character, and I'm referencing a character I don't know yet, using the pronoun "he" for both wouldn't be uncommon, and at times it could get confusing regarding just who the sentences were talking about. First person greatly reduces that problem my making my character be referenced with "I" instead of "he/she".

Lastly, since it was brought up a few times in other posts here I want to address the complaint pertaining to multiple characters. I actually don't find it any more difficult to work with multiple characters using a first person perspective, though I do understand why it could amplify the feelings of someone who is bothered by first person in the first place. My approach to this matter is first to consider whether the multiple characters are in a scene together, or whether they are separate. If they are separate, then it's easy, just make a tab or if you don't wanna code, you can just make more posts, thus dividing the multiple characters in clearly outlined portions each depicting that character's own perspective. If characters are in the same scene, then I will typically pick 1 character and have that character be the perspective character for the whole interaction. If there's a mix of characters being together and being separate, then I will make a mix of these two methods as well.

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As for my reasons for past tense, first there's the matter that it's how I viewed a written story. The image of a written story in my head is in past tense, thus it feels appropriate to use it. Second, there's the fact that I like long, very descriptive / detailed posts. Because of this, there's often multiple events and an outlined causality within the post to make it cohesive. The past can contain a sequence of events, but the present can only ever contain one event. As such, since I need to call back on previous events within the post it would get difficult to word it in present tense.

The most interesting aspect about this reasoning though, is what happens when I shift the framing to something more game-like, specifically play-by-post D&D5e. Because things are gamefied, I am able to bear shorter posts than usual, and I tend closer to present tense because rather than simply "a story" it's also "a game" and also I tend to describe more an an action my character is currently doing than describing a miniature scene like I do in other kinds of posts. Heck, there have even been D&D games where I actively wanted to use 3rd person instead.

Lastly when I'm GMing I also tend to have changes to how I do things, as I tend to write from a more third person cinematic perspective.

So I think it makes continuity difficult. In most first person published works there is only one protagonist. So you are following a singular character and their perspective of the plot.

Off of the top of my head I can’t think of a single multiple POV (as in a story where you follow multiple people perspective of the action) that have first person point of view.

So in roleplays I just find it awkward to read first person perspective for 2 or more different characters. As the benefit of first person point of view is to put yourself into the characters shoes.

But I don’t want nor need to put myself in my partners characters shoes. I am not telling the story from their perspective. I am telling the story from my characters perspective.

In addition I find alternating points of view just kills suspension of disbelief. So I am not going to have one character do first person and the others do different points of view.

tl:dr

1. First person point of view works best for one character NOT multiple characters in a roleplay
2. Having one character write in first and other characters outside of it kills my suspension of disbelief

Great question. I have some thoughts about using first person perspective, but I haven't yet figured out how to articulate my feelings about present tense. Here's what I've got:

As a reader, I'm looking for distinctive voice. Ideally, I'll be able to tell who's speaking without the author mentioning the character's name or other obvious clues. The issue I run into with first person perspective is that sometimes the writing style doesn't match the personality of the character, which brings me back to voice.

When the voice of the narration takes on a more generic tone or uses florid vocabulary and sentence structures that don't seem to fit the character, I pull away from the writing and question who is actually speaking to me: the character or the author? That's one example of when I get the self-insert vibe others have mentioned and why I personally stay away from this style of writing in roleplay. It's absolutely possible to roleplay/write well in first person, but I think it's a more challenging style than third person.

For some reason, reading first person past tense is a little easier for me to accept. Maybe past tense helps put a little separation between me and the author, should the voice waver, and that creates some boundary?

I used to do FP but ever since I started using TP I can’t go back. It just helps me to be more descriptive, plus it has omniscience so I’m just barred by things from my perspective.

VeyrinDay said:

Personally, I like to write in first person PoV using present tense. It somehow allows me to get empathetic with the character more. Yet, there seems a general disagreeableness on such style of writing. May I have some reasons why?

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I'm with you here actually! Although I personally perfer the impactful immediacy of present-tense I continue to struggle keeping to one tense or the other in my posts. I don't even realize when I end up mixing them between paragraphs and it really janks up my flow (which I'm really conscious about). That said, I try not to worry about it too much. If someone is really that unhappy with my past-tense-future-tense bungles in my writing, then that's ok. Everyone has their preferences and it's only normal to disprefer what isn't the most commonplace.

Fly your present-tensed freak flag high my dude. I'm sure as heck doing it every chance I get!