=Bill Adams=: Never tried the first.
=Samuel Hopkins Adams=: The third. Because I am prone to find myself
hampered by self-consciousness in the first person, though not
invariably.
=Paul L. Anderson=: The third; you can swing a wider loop. It is
admitted, though, that the first person gives a more intense effect, and
I sometimes use it.
=William Ashley Anderson=: It is immaterial, and depends upon the nature
of a story. But I think a story is most naturally told in the first
person. This also insures the action being continuous. It also adds an
illusion of authenticity.
=H. C. Bailey=: In the third person. The first person, apart from
technical difficulties, seems to me to encourage diffuse writing on the
insignificant.
=Edwin Balmer=: I occasionally write in the first person. It is a more
limited way of writing than in the third person because, among other
reasons, continued use of the first person in many stories of different
character certainly breaks down the sense of illusion.
I think a man should never write in the first person as a woman and vice
versa.
=Ralph Henry Barbour=: I prefer writing in the first person. Nearly
every writer does, and will say so if he's truthful. I write in the
third person because editors believe, correctly or incorrectly, that
readers prefer it. I prefer the first person because it is easier.
=Frederick Orin Bartlett=: I prefer the first person because it offers a
more direct way of telling a story. The public, I think, prefers the
third person because this form permits a wider range of sympathies.
=Nalbro Bartley=: I prefer the third person for writing because it is
more impersonal and one can get into the swing of the story in a more
intense way.
=Konrad Bercovici=: No particular preference.
=Ferdinand Berthoud=: Third--for many reasons. One is that I know
editors and the public prefer stories in the third person, and another
is that it is easier and more convincing. A third reason is that I've
never tried the first person.
=H. H. Birney, Jr.=: Depends entirely on the particular story. First
person is ordinarily easier, but your hero can be made much more heroic
if some one else is talking about him.
=Farnham Bishop=: In the third. When I try telling a story in the first
person it makes me too self-conscious and gums up the action.
=Algernon Blackwood=: Third person. The use of the first person tends to
remind a writer of himself, whereas fiction should mean an escape from
one's tiresome self--a projection into others.
=Max Bonter=: I seem to have no preference in this regard.
=Katharine Holland Brown=: The first person. Easier. Besides, I like to
be in it myself.
=F. R. Buckley=: Used to prefer first person. Now equally at home in
both. Natural instinct when telling a pleasant lie is to have yourself
in it. Later--third person gives you greater scope. The "I" doesn't have
to be carried from place to place to report things.
=Prosper Buranelli=: I would rather be hanged than write in the first
person. A fellow who can't thrust himself forward without the use of "I"
doesn't know even how to brag.
=Thompson Burtis=: I have no choice. Humorous stuff I like to write
first person, because of the latitude in language. Ordinary stuff, on
second thought, I believe I would rather write third person, the reason
being that I can then draw the character that "I" would represent more
fully. Another great plot advantage is that by not tying one's self down
to a first-person story he can present the mental reactions and
innermost thoughts of both hero and villain. This adds a great deal to
the opportunities of a story. The first person story is limited to the
scenes and thoughts of "I" alone.
=George M. A. Cain=: I think I rather enjoy first-person writing best.
But that is a matter I regard as entirely to be determined by the nature
of the story. The first person carries a degree of conviction not so
easily obtained in the third person. I really think it has no effect in
the matter of the reader's ability to put himself in the hero's place.
He reads it as "I." That is just as near him as "he." Obviously the
first person can not be used (1) where the suspense concerns the life of
the hero, who could not have died and told the tale; (2) where the
mental processes of more than one character must be brought in, since
the personal introduction of the writer himself precludes knowledge of
the thoughts of others; (3) where the hero's acts are such that to tell
them would be boastful.
My own rule as to persons is this: Where the character fitted to my
general aim in the story is essentially too weak to hold the sympathy of
the reader, I use the first person, even at the cost of straining to
show others' mental processes by actions. I can not escape the
conviction that there is a man-to-man-ness about the first person which
commands sympathy. I should give up trying to write a story with a hero
guilty of any real weakness, if I found it could not be done in the
first person.
For a story in which a striking character is introduced as hero, I
particularly like the use of the first person for a secondary character
in the position of a witness. It affords easier conviction of truth as
in its use for the hero. It provides instant opportunity to present the
hero in attractive light. I should use this method to the limits of its
possibilities but for the fact that it is the one which makes it most
difficult for the reader to put himself in the hero's place. That fact
relegates its use with me to stories of characters so strongly marked as
to require the reader's friendship for, rather than his
self-identification with, the hero.
Which indicates the place I give the third person by elimination. It
becomes, after all, the one of principal use interfering with no manner
of suspense, allowing for presentation of the reasoning of any or all
characters of the story, commanding sufficient sympathy for any
character from dead neutral up, if at all properly handled.
=Robert V. Carr=: According to mood.
=George L. Catton=: Immaterial. All depends on the requirements of the
particular story. In the first person there is less explanatory matter
needed; that's the only difference.
=Robert W. Chambers=: It makes no difference.
=Roy P. Churchill=: I would rather be an observer than an actor, if I am
to tell the story.
=Carl Clausen=: Third. First limits my view-point.
=Courtney Ryley Cooper=: It depends entirely on the story. I use the
third person mostly, but there are times in stories of great sympathy
when it is impossible to use anything but the first. Third person
preferred, however.
=Arthur Crabb=: It depends on the theme to be developed; generally I
should say in the third person. By that I mean that the author does not
appear at all. A writer can do a whole lot more if he keeps himself out
of it and then if he restricts himself to what he could see and know
himself.
=Mary Stewart Cutting=: I prefer writing in the third person, though in
two or three of my favorite stories I have written in the first person.
Usually the third person gives you more scope.
=Elmer Davis=: Depends on the story. Obviously in an "I" story there are
things you can't tell the reader without introducing the old expedient
of the messenger or something like it. But it has its merits if the plot
permits.
=William Harper Dean=: I seldom write a finished story in the first
person. But (and here's something) did you ever write a story in the
first person and then go through it and change it to the third person
and inspect the result? I can write a much better story in the first
person--a more spontaneous one than in the third. For in the first
person I say what I would say under certain circumstances in the plot,
feel what I would feel--whereas writing "He thought--," makes me stop
and think--now what _would_ he think? And right there you are in danger
of inventing instead of interpreting as you should be doing.
=Harris Dickson=: I began writing in the first person. Don't know why I
have abandoned it. I do believe, however, a tale in the first person,
well told, takes a stronger hold on the imagination. Perhaps because,
like every child who asks "Daddy, is it true?" we seem to get an
atmosphere of verity from the fellow who says, "This happened to me."
For the same reason the teller of anecdotes prefers to lay them on
himself, or his friend.
=Captain Dingle=: First person, though it seems unpopular, so I don't
indulge often. This way I fall into my characters' boots easier.
=Louis Dodge=: I like to write in the third person chiefly for
convenience. The first person must go in at a door; the third may go in
at a keyhole or through a wall.
=Phyllis Duganne=: I much prefer writing in the third person. The first
person seems to have so many limitations; if the first person is your
hero or heroine, there are so many things he can not tell about himself
that have to be told in other ways. I don't like to read stories in the
first person, as a rule; I don't find them so convincing. This "I"
person is always getting in the way of the story. First-person stories
are easier to write; I mean that they flow more easily, though I think
they are harder to make convincing. I think people usually resent this
"I" who thinks he knows so much, and talks at such great length. It
makes a story out of it--an unreal thing--while a story in the third
person has no one, ever present, to remind you that it's only a tale and
may not be true anyway.
=J. Allan Dunn=: I enjoy writing in the first person but do not believe
it attracts the majority. It smacks of conceit, for one thing, but if
one writes of a character in which one can project one's own thoughts,
character, successes, failures, hopes and despair, the intimacy is a
stimulus. It has limitations because the hero, if he sees everything,
condenses the narrative. And he is only a translator for the other
characters. So I prefer the third for sheer craftsmanship. To write a
first person narrative through the eyes of a third person, who may be a
minor character but a shrewd observer, is one of my preferences.
=Walter A. Dyer=: It all depends. I usually write in the third person,
because in that form a character can be handled more freely, but I have
written stories in a frame of mind that demanded only the first-person
treatment.
=Walter Prichard Eaton=: It is easier to write in the first, because the
process of thinking "I" identifies you with the character. Also, it is
more dangerous, because the same process identifies the character with
you. (This is really quite wise and intelligent.)
=E. O. Foster=: I prefer writing in the third person so as to have as
little of my own personality enter into the story as is possible.
=Arthur O. Friel=: No preference. Depends on the story. Some are told
more naturally in first person; others in third.
=J. P. Giesy=: The first, I think, since in it I may, as it were,
vicariously live the part exactly as the actor lives his part for the
time being and consequently enter very nearly into the thing. However, I
very frequently choose the third because of the very nature of the
subject in hand.
=George Gilbert=: Some stories can only be told in the first; some only
in the third person. The story itself decides the person, not the
author. If the story is one that can only be told best by one person's
having knowledge of all the incidents, the first person becomes
permissible, not mandatory. If the story is such that no one person
could have had knowledge of all the details without recourse to the
receipt of letters, telephone calls, confidences given in such a way as
to interrupt the thread of the tale, the story calls for other treatment
than first-person telling. The limitation on the first-person story,
when the narrator is the hero, is this: It is plain that the narrator
lived to tell the story, so no matter what peril he gets into during the
tale, the reader must know he survived, unless it is a tale of a
manuscript found buried or in family archives, etc. The
first-person-narrator story is most effective when the narrator is not
the hero, yet some fine tales have been written that violate this rule
of mine. In any event, the author must look into his story at the
beginning and decide this point. Another author might have an entirely
different idea on it, and succeed at a given tale where I would fail
using my rule.
=Kenneth Gilbert=: While writing in the first person is the easiest way
to tell a story, I prefer the third for the freedom of description it
permits. Many stories, however, would fall flat if not written in the
first person.
=Holworthy Hall=: Third person. Generally more convincing and less
conceited.
=Richard Matthews Hallet=: I have written both ways. The first person
makes an easier narrative, but makes it harder to develop a plot. And I
find, curiously, by asking the question a great many times and from
being criticized myself, that there is among a great body of readers an
odd aversion to a story in the first person. I've never heard even the
semblance of a reason for it, but no matter, it exists and will
certainly work against the popularity of a story in the first person.
There is also a considerable group of persons who profess unwillingness
to read a story with the faintest touch of dialect in it; in spite of
this dialect stories thrive. So do some stories written in the first
person.
=William H. Hamby=: Really prefer writing in the first person, but
rarely do.
=A. Judson Hanna=: This is a matter governed by circumstances. By far
the majority of my published stories have been written in the first
person. As a rule, I prefer to write them so because it allows so much
freedom of expression and creates an informality between writer and
reader that appeals to the reader. It is the personal touch.
=Joseph Mills Hanson=: I prefer to write in the first person because it
gives me a sense of more intimate grasp of the motions of the characters
and a more vivid realization of the situations. Nevertheless, I have
written more often in the third person; perhaps because the former
seems, also, egotistic.
=E. E. Harriman=: In the third person, because writing in the first
gives a feeling of indecent exposure of the intimate corners in my soul.
=Nevil G. Henshaw=: In short stories I've no particular preference,
although I think it a trifle easier to use the first person. In long
work I find the first person much the harder, as then a vast number of
facts and ideas must be presented from the single point of view. I also
find the transition more difficult.
=Joseph Hergesheimer=: Third, for obvious reasons.
=Robert Hichens=: I prefer writing in the third person. I like to tell a
story, not to tell about myself. As a rule, I dislike a novel written in
the first person and I very much dislike a story told in the form of
letters. I scarcely know why.
=R. de S. Horn=: I generally prefer writing in the third person. In this
case I can go anywhere, describe anything. I am omnipotent; I can see
through walls, read minds, experience emotions unlimited. In the first
person I am narrowly proscribed. I can only represent my own emotions
and what I can know through the medium of my five senses. The only
advantage of the first person is that stories thus told have an air of
veracity, of plausibility, that is particularly desirable at times.
Furthermore, they can the more strongly enlist the reader's emotions and
sympathies.
=Clyde B. Hough=: I prefer to write in the third person. It gives me
more scope.
=Emerson Hough=: I don't know--as it chances.
=A. S. M. Hutchinson=: In the third. I feel my own individuality would
get in the way if I wrote in the first.
=Inez Haynes Irwin=: I think writing in the first person is infinitely
easier than writing in the third because inevitably one _dramatizes_
more when writing in the third person and _describes_ more when writing
in the first person. Dramatizing is more difficult than describing.
Perhaps that is why I prefer the third person--the other seems too easy.
Yet there's an ease about first-person writing, an informality.... It
goes swiftly, breezily, directly.
=Will Irwin=: When I began, I liked best to write in the first person.
Now I prefer the third. Why, I can not say exactly. Probably because
your interests increase with years, and when writing in the first person
you have limited yourself to the interests, experiences and observations
of but one character.
=Frederick J. Jackson=: Third person. Simpler, usually more effective,
is easier for me. Have written only two stories in first person.
=Mary Johnston=: Depends on what you're doing.
=John Joseph=: I very much prefer writing in the third person, but when
it comes to an old-time western story--well, I have lived these things
and the detached third person doesn't seem to belong, nor conventional
English. I have heard these people talk every day for too many years,
have heard too many camp-fire tales, I suppose, and the more a writer
polishes his story the less real it seems.
=Lloyd Kohler=: The third person. I don't like that eternal "I." Still,
I have read many authors who could handle that very same "I"
convincingly. More power to them!
=Harold Lamb=: The first person is a little more fun. Because it gives a
freer hand in description and more play to emotion.
=Sinclair Lewis=: Third, less (obviously) egotistical.
=Hapsburg Liebe=: I prefer writing in the third person because in the
first I can't keep the perpendicular pronoun sufficiently down.
=E. P. Lyle, Jr.=: In the first person. Comes easier, less formal, your
reader not a reader but seemingly a friend on the other side of the
hearth. I'd recommend it to a beginner. Also tell him to forget he is
writing literature, and to keep in attitude of writing a letter.
=Rose Macaulay=: Third. Because I dislike reading stories told in the
first.
=Crittenden Marriott=: Third. In the first the quotation marks are such
a bother.
=Homer I. McEldowney=: The third person. It is easier, for me, and, I
think, more effective.
=Ray McGillivray=: Fifty-fifty with me. First person is easier. The
third person style has been responsible for most of the best literature
ever written. Not all, but most.
=Helen Topping Miller=: I have never written anything in the first
person--it intrudes the personal idea and hampers my view-point. I
prefer to see my characters impersonally.
=Thomas Samson Miller=: The first person always seemed to me the more
plausible, for in the third person the author often relates actions and
happenings that occurred thousands of miles apart at the same time. I
can never forget that _some one is telling me the story_ and that some
one couldn't be--say in the heroine's bedroom, if he is a man author.
=Anne Shannon Monroe=: It is easier to write in the first person--more
easily made real; but I prefer the third. The third is less personal,
more the spectator's account of the whole. Writing in the first, there
are many things you can't tell, because you, as one of the characters,
can't know it all; as a spectator--a sort of on-looking creator--you can
know it all.
=L. M. Montgomery=: Personally I prefer writing in the first person,
because it then seems easier to _live_ my story as I write it. Since
editors seem to have a prejudice against this, I often write a story in
the first person and then rewrite it, shifting it to the third. As a
reader, I enjoy a story written in the first person far more than any
other kind. It gives me more of a sense of reality--of actually knowing
the people in it. The author does not seem to _come between_ me and the
characters as much as in the third-person stories. Wilkie Collins's
_Woman in White_ is a fine example of the use of the first person. It
could not have been half so effective had he told it in the third. And
_Jane Eyre_ simply couldn't have been written in any but the first.
=Frederick Moore=: I like to write in the third person, because then I'm
a god--all seeing, all knowing, all controlling--so far as the
characters are concerned.
=Talbot Mundy=: On the whole, I think, the third person. It is easier to
keep things concrete, and to keep off the paper the mental actions and
reactions of Number One.
=Kathleen Norris=: A story in the first person is limited because the
teller of it is presumably the hero, and consequently he has to _imply_
his own merit, beauty or intelligence. More than that, he must be
present at every scene related and the plot must move in spite of him,
as it were. This sort of story was enormously popular in Dickens' day,
but it does not fit the new American type of novel.
=Anne O'Hagan=: I don't know. It's easier in the first person, but I
don't think the results are apt to be so clear cut.
=Grant Overton=: I have, as it happens, never written anything except
certain passages in the first person. I think I have no preference. It
is all a matter of technical advantage in presentation.
=Hugh Pendexter=: I have no preference and use both first and third
person as the story demands. I have started more than one story in the
first person and found it impossible; perhaps because of plot demands. A
story that walked lamely in the third person behaved well when told in
the first. If I desire to show a young man, neither Whig nor Tory, but
leaning toward the latter and his gradual turning to the former, the
first person affords for me the only vehicle. If plot is accentuated,
the third person becomes the vehicle.
=Clay Perry=: I prefer writing in the third person rather than in the
first because, personally, I have always been more or less
self-conscious and I have the same feeling in writing. Just to use the
word "I" as now is hard work for me.
=Michael J. Phillips=: I despise first-person writing. I quarrel with
the prig who is telling the story. He is either too wise or too
ignorant. He either knows too much or doesn't know enough. If he is an
actor in the story who really is deserving of a lot of credit and
admiration, I can neither give him credit nor admire him. If he values
himself as truly as a swashing, swaggering fellow who would be likable
if some one else wrote of him, he becomes a hopeless braggart. And if he
is modest, he does not glow sufficiently bright and I think: "Well, how
did this fathead ever stumble into this delightfully distinguished,
daring, lawbreaking group of real folks?"
=E. S. Pladwell=: Third person. The "I" becomes monotonous in print.
Nobody can avoid it when the first person is used.
=Lucia Mead Priest=: I do not prefer the first person, in fact I do not
approve of it, save for a certain type of writing. But when I write in
the third I find myself growing stiff and formal. I am less direct,
inclining to consciousness and pomposity. I don't know why.
=Eugene Manlove Rhodes=: Either, according to circumstances.
=Frank C. Robertson=: Depends on the nature of the story. As a rule I
think the third person gives the writer more latitude for the
development of character and material.
=Ruth Sawyer=: The third person. Unless the story needs the direct
confession of an autobiographical treatment, I think the intrusion of
the first person as eye-witness or teller of the tale makes for
complexity rather than simplicity. Personally it has the same effect on
me that my neighbor makes when she says, "My sister's husband told me
that his friend, etc."
=Chester L. Saxby=: I like writing in the first person for the pleasure
of dwelling intimately with the hopes and fears of the character. I like
writing in the third person for that strong, austere
impersonalness--like a laboratory investigation. All in the mood, I
presume. We're not always the same. It explains the rejection of much
good stuff by editorial offices. I think, on the whole, I prefer the
first-person story. It's the story of me then; I'm putting forth effort
as the story proceeds; I feel the reality more. But it's a difficult
metier.
=Barry Scobee=: I prefer writing in the first- or third-person according
to the story. No other reason.
=R. T. M. Scott=: I prefer the third person because editors prefer the
third person and I have grown accustomed to the way of least resistance
so far as editors are concerned. Besides, that "I" is hard to use
genuinely in reference to all kinds of characters.
=Robert Simpson=: I prefer writing in the third person because it is,
constructionally speaking, the simplest.
=Arthur D. Howden Smith=: First is easier. It's more convincing.
=Theodore Seixas Solomons=: I prefer, for celebrity (it's _easier_ and
quicker) and humanness, writing in the first person. Its handicaps are,
of course, that the omniscience of the third person is wanting and it is
impossible to describe the characters and action in terms of the
author's best philosophy when the character telling the story is almost
always unable to achieve such philosophy. I therefore use the first
person only when the action is such as not to require the peculiar
advantages of third-person narration. But I much prefer the first
person, because of its naturalness and humanness, when the nature of the
story permits its use.
=Raymond S. Spears=: Some of my best work is under assumed name in first
person--an adventure of the imagination.
=Norman Springer=: I like the first person best. I seem to be able to
get under the skins of the characters better.
=Julian Street=: The third person is less easy but is generally the
method of the best writers. The first person is (with some exceptions)
the refuge of the tyro. As a writer learns his job, he is likely to
write more and more in the third person--especially if he is a person of
taste.
=T. S. Stribling=: I have no preference as to the person. I find the
first person good for rapidity of relation and the elision of endless
detail; the third person is best for expansiveness.
=Booth Tarkington=: Of course writing in the first person is infinitely
easier. (That's one reason it should rarely be done.) The reason that
writing in the first person is easier is this: The writing is supposed
to be done by a fictitious person; the author, therefore, does not feel
so responsible, _himself_, for the "quality of his prose."
=W. C. Tuttle=: A great majority of my stories have been written in the
first person. In fact, I began writing that way because I could tell a
story better than I could write one, and because, in the first person,
there are fewer threads to carry. Characterizations are easier to depict
in the third person, I believe, except in a humorous story, when I would
rather describe a character in the first person.
=Lucille Van Slyke=: Third person. Because it seems to me that not one
person in a thousand can successfully keep up the illusion of being
another person very long. First person writing is a sort of lie as soon
as it leaves personal experience behind, and most of us do not have a
great many thrilling experiences personally. (I happen to adore writing
in second person and do a great deal of that for sheer amusement. I
wouldn't be so silly as to submit it to any editor, for I am aware of
the well-known aversion to it--but, admitting that it presupposes a
highly imaginative reader, think what fun it is for both writer and
reader. I have been awfully interested in Louise Dutton's stories about
an adolescent girl in which she uses second person a great deal but
lapses to third--or indirect discourse--so often that she much breaks
her continuity which makes me feel as though I were jumping in and out
of a Punch and Judy box--I love the minutes I'm being Judy but get
rather mixed when I am trying to be Punch!)
=Atreus von Schrader=: I prefer writing in the third person, because I
believe the use of the first person distracts, nearly always, from the
illusion of reality. Nine times out of ten the first person is used
because it is easier, and for no other reason.
=T. Von Ziekursch=: Have no choice.
=Henry Kitchell Webster=: I seldom write in the first person, but there
is a certain kind of story where the mechanical advantages it offers are
great enough to more than compensate for its limitations.
=G. A. Wells=: I prefer writing in the first person, though seldom do so
because I am not enough the craftsman to subdue my egotism. I like first
person better because I get closer to the story. It is the personal
equation. When one writes first person he goes on the stage and acts; no
matter how large or small his part, he is in the show. In the third
person he sits with the audience and merely records what happens. His
readers have the same advantages he has and he can't show a superior
air. I often write a story in the first person, and when finished strike
out the big "I's" and substitute the name of the principal character.
That way I get direct contact with the story.
=William Wells=: Third. Too darned bashful; seems like bragging.
=Ben Ames Williams=: I prefer writing in the manner best calculated to
produce the effect I desire. This is a technical question, to be
answered differently in different cases.
=Honore Willsie=: I prefer third-person writing, for, while it is more
difficult than first-person writing, it is less apt to have an
egotistical effect on the reader.
=H. C. Witwer=: I prefer writing in the third person, but have written
two hundred fifty short stories in the first, because my readers seem to
prefer that. I find writing in the first person much easier than any
other.
=William Almon Wolff=: The third. There is, for me, a certain
artificiality about first person writing; a certain seizing upon illicit
aids. It's great fun to write in the first person, and, sometimes, of
course, it's the right thing to do. But not often, I think. You dig
deeper when you're interpreting life through your description of people
seen objectively.
=Edgar Young=: Writing in the first person used to come natural to me,
due to the fact that for years as a traveler I told many tales in this
fashion to amuse friends and was an adept at it. At present I prefer
third person work.