First Person Trek Stories

[JD]

Lately I've started reading the Southern Vampire/True Blood, and Dresden Files books, which are both done in first person perspective. I've found that I've really enjoyed the FP elements of the books, and this got me wondering about first person Trek stories. I know about the Captain's Table books, and the Invincible SCE two parter, but are any others that are worth reading?
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[Turtletrekker]

Dreadnought! and Battlestations! (yes the exclamation points are part of the titles) by Diane Carey are told in the first person perspective of Enterprise crewman Piper. I have to be honest though, I liked these books a lot better when I first read them all those years ago than I did upon a recent re-read.

 

[Stevil2001]

There's also the odd short story, like "Four Lights" in The Sky's the Limit.

 

[DimesDan]

Lately I've started reading the Southern Vampire/True Blood, and Dresden Files books, which are both done in first person perspective. I've found that I've really enjoyed the FP elements of the books, and this got me wondering about first person Trek stories. I know about the Captain's Table books, and the Invincible SCE two parter, but are any others that are worth reading?
​

Since reading Christopher Brookmyre's Attack of the Unsinkable Rubber Ducks, Audrey Niffenegger's Time Travellers Wife and Alice Sebold's Lovely Bones in quick succession recently I've been meaning to ask the same and the only first person Trek story I could think of was Mirror Eyes written by Heather Jarman and Jeffrey Lang in Tales of the Dominion War.

 

[William Leisner]

My first SNW story was in first person, which was in direct opposition to the advice Dean Wesley Smith was giving to us would-be contestants at the time.

 

[Christopher]

I've never been comfortable writing in first person, because I find it artificial. I always wonder, is it credible that the character has the talent and opportunity to write down his or her experiences in this form, and the ability to remember every spoken word that precisely? As a rule, I've tried to avoid writing in the first person unless I could justify those things.

But wouldn't you know it, the story I recently sold to the online DayBreak Magazine ("No Dominion," debuting in June) is first-person without any rationalization for those questions. And I don't really know why I wrote it that way.

I guess one way of looking at first-person narration is merely as a figurative device; it's not that the main character literally writes all this down as a professionally told story, it's just a symbolic means of getting into the character's head. I mean, a third-person narrative raises the same logistical questions if you take it literally -- who's telling the story, how did they get this insight into the exact words and events and thoughts, etc.?

So it's not as bad as the kind of first person that really bugs me, something like The Captain's Table, where the narrator is supposedly actually saying these words aloud to an audience, but still somehow speaks in perfect prose form with verbatim quotes and dialogue markers and so forth, totally unlike the way people actually tell oral accounts in real life.

 

[seigezunt]

Dreadnought! and Battlestations! (yes the exclamation points are part of the titles) by Diane Carey are told in the first person perspective of Enterprise crewman Piper. I have to be honest though, I liked these books a lot better when I first read them all those years ago than I did upon a recent re-read.

I recently read these for the first time and enjoyed them, though found them a teensy mary sue-ish. Just a teensy bit, as I think Carey's a good storyteller.

And I found the use of the first person a redeeming factor in these.

 

[Greg Cox]

I had to ghost-write a novel in first-person a few years back and it nearly killed me. I hated being stuck in one character's head for the entire book. Not only was it monotonous, but it complicated the plotting. I couldn't have anything important happen if the protoganist wasn't around, or else key events would take place offscreen. I kept wanting to cut to another POV-the girlfriend, the villain, the best friend, etcetera--but wasn't allowed to due to the format of the series. It was agony.

Third-person gives you a lot more options.

(I'm also reminded of a historical novel I read years ago, about the fall of the Roman Empire, in which the poor author had to go to ridiculous contortions to make sure her first-person narrator was always in the right place at the right time to observe every major historical development across the length of the empire. The author could have saved herself a lot of work if she hadn't chose to write the book in first person.)

First-person is better suited to short stories, IMHO.

 

[seigezunt]

I had to ghost-write a novel in first-person a few years back and it nearly killed me. I hated being stuck in one character's head for the entire book. Not only was it monotonous, but it complicated the plotting. I couldn't have anything important happen if the protoganist wasn't around, or else key events would take place offscreen. I kept wanting to cut to another POV-the girlfriend, the villain, the best friend, etcetera--but wasn't allowed to due to the format of the series. It was agony.

Third-person gives you a lot more options.

(I'm also reminded of a historical novel I read years ago, about the fall of the Roman Empire, in which the poor author had to go to ridiculous contortions to make sure her first-person narrator was always in the right place at the right time to observe every major historical development across the length of the empire. The author could have saved herself a lot of work if she hadn't chose to write the book in first person.)

First-person is better suited to short stories, IMHO.

all too true. great post.

But 1st person allows you to hide things from the reader when you need to, too.

 

[Christopher]

But 1st person allows you to hide things from the reader when you need to, too.

Not if you need to hide something the first-person narrator is aware of. That's hard to do without being awkward.

 

[Greg Cox]

But 1st person allows you to hide things from the reader when you need to, too.

Not if you need to hide something the first-person narrator is aware of. That's hard to do without being awkward.

Ran into this problem years ago. I was editing a mystery novel in which practically every character was not who they appeared to be--and had some sort of devious secret agenda. We couldn't go into any character's head without giving away a major twist.

Eventually, we had to to invent a whole new character, a clueless innocent, and tell the story entirely from his point of view . . . .

 

[Christopher]

Now, this is one way that the kind of first-person narrative that's explicitly a story being told by the narrator can be a benefit -- if the narrator has a deliberate reason to keep what they know from the audience. For instance, in Shelley's Frankenstein, there's no explanation whatsoever of how the creature was created -- because the man telling the story, Victor Frankenstein, considers his creation evil and refuses to tell anyone how it was done.

Of course, that only works with something the audience never finds out. If it's something that's hidden at first and then revealed, then you need the narrator to be specifically engaging in a storytelling contrivance, basically saying outright "I know what this is but I'm not going to tell you yet because I want the story to be suspenseful."

What really gets me is something in The Dresden Files. This is a whole series narrated in a rather conversational first-person tone, with Dresden even addressing the reader outright from time to time. So there's a very strong sense that he's actually telling these stories to us, or to someone. The thing is... one of the things he tells us, usually once per novel, is that his apartment has a faerie cleaning service, but he can't tell anyone about them or they'd stop coming. So... how can he be telling us???

 

[captcalhoun]

i wrote a story in second-person once. that was more of a nightmare than first.

ask Dayton Ward if it was actually any good or not...

 

[Christopher]

Second person strikes me as a bizarre way to write a story. It reminds me of a Which Way book or a role-playing game.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

I guess one way of looking at first-person narration is merely as a figurative device; it's not that the main character literally writes all this down as a professionally told story, it's just a symbolic means of getting into the character's head.

A few months ago I read an urban fantasy that shall remain nameless, but it involved vampires.

The narrator/protagonist was a woman in her mid-twenties. The novel was told in first person present tense. Now, first person I'm okay with. I'm okay with present tense; I've written some fiction in present tense, and that gives the text a unique flavor if used properly.

Combine the two? It was like fingers on the goddamn chalkboard.

I won't even mention the sex scenes. Because it's an urban fantasy with vampires, of course there are sex scenes...

The story was, actually, quite a bit of fun. But the narrative perspective chosen was really annoying. First person present tense -- BAD!

 

[Stevil2001]

Second person strikes me as a bizarre way to write a story. It reminds me of a Which Way book or a role-playing game.

Italo Calvino's If on a winter's night a traveler features a brilliant use of the second person, as it's about someone reading Italo Calvino's If on a winter's night a traveler.

The narrator/protagonist was a woman in her mid-twenties. The novel was told in first person present tense. Now, first person I'm okay with. I'm okay with present tense; I've written some fiction in present tense, and that gives the text a unique flavor if used properly.

Combine the two? It was like fingers on the goddamn chalkboard.

I won't even mention the sex scenes. Because it's an urban fantasy with vampires, of course there are sex scenes...

The story was, actually, quite a bit of fun. But the narrative perspective chosen was really annoying. First person present tense -- BAD!

So bad, J. M. Coetzee won the Nobel Prize in Literature for doing it.

Of course, that only works with something the audience never finds out. If it's something that's hidden at first and then revealed, then you need the narrator to be specifically engaging in a storytelling contrivance, basically saying outright "I know what this is but I'm not going to tell you yet because I want the story to be suspenseful."

Lucy Snowe does this in Charlotte Brontë's Vilette a lot, as does the narrator of Claire Kilroy's Tenderwire. This can work, of course, given a certain narrative context for the story-telling, but that's not present in either work. This is probably why I wanted to punch both narrators in the face.

 

[Greg Cox]

Of course, it's possible to do amazing work in first-person or present tense or whatever. It's just trickier.

It took me years to figure this out. Back in Clarion, I actually got into a debate with an instructor who warned us not to write in first-person. Being young and contrary, I cited numerous classic works that broke the instructor's rule. True enough, he conceded, but still insisted that first-person was easier to screw up than third-person--and was something that beginning writers should probably avoid.

I disagreed--until, years later, I found myself having to read through slushpiles. Boy did I get it then. First-person contains all sorts of traps for the unwary writer. For example:

1) It encourages long-windedness. When writing in first-person, there's more of a tendency to indulge in rambling internal monologues . . . .

2) The narrator is described less vividly than the characters he or she meets, turning into a faceless voice.

3) On a technical level, it's hard for a first-person narrator to describe him or herself, unless you pull the cheap trick of having them glance at themselves in a mirror--which gets old fast. In third person, you can just wade right in: "Jenny Smith, a petite blonde in a little black dress, entered the room."

4) And, like I said before, multiple POV's make for more interesting novels--especially if you're a writer who bores easily!

 

[JD]

I guess one way of looking at first-person narration is merely as a figurative device; it's not that the main character literally writes all this down as a professionally told story, it's just a symbolic means of getting into the character's head.

A few months ago I read an urban fantasy that shall remain nameless, but it involved vampires.

The narrator/protagonist was a woman in her mid-twenties. The novel was told in first person present tense. Now, first person I'm okay with. I'm okay with present tense; I've written some fiction in present tense, and that gives the text a unique flavor if used properly.

Combine the two? It was like fingers on the goddamn chalkboard.

I won't even mention the sex scenes. Because it's an urban fantasy with vampires, of course there are sex scenes...

The story was, actually, quite a bit of fun. But the narrative perspective chosen was really annoying. First person present tense -- BAD!

Ugh, present tense alone annoys me, I couldn't image matching it up with a first person narrator.

I didn't mention it up thread, but I also recently read the first Dexter book, and I think this is probably one of the few stories that could only be done in first person. I really think being able to get into Dexter's head was the only way you could possibly understand why he does what he does, and you really need to do that in order to actually like and care about him.

 

[Myasishchev]

(I'm also reminded of a historical novel I read years ago, about the fall of the Roman Empire, in which the poor author had to go to ridiculous contortions to make sure her first-person narrator was always in the right place at the right time to observe every major historical development across the length of the empire. The author could have saved herself a lot of work if she hadn't chose to write the book in first person.)

I agree in general, but this reminded me of a pair of first-person triumphs: I, Claudius and Claudius the God. Granted, no great contortions necessary to get the narrator in the right place at the right time.

 

[Kataaran]

The original six Captain's Table books are from a first person POV. I've enjoyed reading them, not sure my arm has though, the omnibus edition is a weighty tome.