Hello Friend

Quote

11th February 2011

“

I gotta be honest. I think the dusty quote-unquote rule about first person is just dumb. I use whatever device best tells the story, including first person.

And, by the way, using it all the time is just as dumb as never using it. You know this: all stories need characters who change. When I’m reporting a story where my main character is, as in a short story or novel, changed or affected by the obstacles presented to them, then I write it third person omniscient. I love that voice. The Gay Talese voice. If it would work, I’d write every story that way. But… sometimes, based on assumptions or expectations or our own biases or just the fundamental nature of the story itself, the person who changes is the writer—and, by extension, the reader. In those cases, the story needs to be first person. The writer is the ombudsman for the new world. He is a narrator. In, say, the story I wrote recently about Zenyatta, the narrative arc was my journey from the expected to the real. Barn 55 changed me. That change was the story’s motor. It felt intellectually dishonest to not write it first person.

The other reason to write first person—a recent Ali column, for example—is because, especially on deadline, it allows me to say most clearly what I am thinking and feeling. Again, it seems cheap and dishonest to not do it. It feels like I am putting an artificial construct—the idea of “the story”—in between the reader, who wants to know what something was like, and me, who just experienced that something. I feel silly not doing those first person.

It’s hard enough telling a story well without school marms handing down rules about what you can and cannot do. I feel the same about people who say reconstructing scenes is wrong. I didn’t realize we were creating an obstacle course, with artificially increased degrees of difficulty? I thought the idea was to tell a powerful story that is true. The only requirement is that it is true. Everything else is a tool.

”

~

Wright Thompson. (via cajunboy)

This whole interview is fantastic.