of negating narrator, the inner critic, is like a parent for whom nothing is ever good enough. When this negating narrator takes charge, self-exploration can easily degenerate into criticism. It reads your story through the lens of judgment, pointing out your mistakes and shortcomings. Its motivation is to keep you small, and it often leaves you feeling deflated.
Because they’re protecting our ego, negating narrators tend to show up when we write or think about ourselves in the first-person voice. When we declare “I am this” or “I think that,” our negating narrators can guide and cling to the descriptors that follow. For example, if we say “I am a successful stockbroker” or “I am a stay-at-home mother,” we may be misled into believing that is all we are while discounting other valuable parts of our personality. Such distorted thinking may trigger an identity crisis if that label is challenged by external circumstances, like the market crashing or children leaving the nest.
The genius of writing in the third person is that it sneaks us past our negating narrators, who think that we are describing someone else’s life. After all, you’re not writing about yourself (wink, wink), you’re describing the character of your first, second, or third novel!
Writing about yourself in the third person creates an opening to be more curious about the direction of your own unfolding story. For example, instead of fearing the unknown, you might wonder what this protagonist will do next — will she accept the marriage proposal or join the Peace Corps and go to Africa? Such a viewpoint can increase your sense of satisfaction and compassion toward yourself, or alternatively, it can serve as a wake-up call if the character you are playing doesn’t fit the picture of who you imagine yourself to be.
This latter point is comically depicted in the fantasy film Stranger than Fiction, in which Harold Crick, a robotic IRS agent played by Will Ferrell, begins to question his mundane existence when he hears a mysterious voice narrating his life and foreshadowing his untimely death. The narrator in his head casts him in the role of a bureaucratic automaton whose tragic demise is a justifiable response to his passionless, unexamined life. When he discovers that he is not the master of his own destiny, but rather a fictional character dreamed up by an eccentric British author named Karen Eifel, Crick tracks down his creator and, by taking a more active role in his life, convinces her to rewrite the ending of his story. Not only does Crick survive the bus accident that is supposed to kill him, he gets the girl, saves a child, and emerges from the whole experience with a richer, more vibrant, and deliciously textured perspective on the meaning of life.
While both strange and fictional, Crick’s journey is a wonderful illustration of the exciting possibilities that await us when we reclaim the coauthorship rights of our personal narratives. From the perch of the third-person narrative, we can step out of our stories, check out the landscape, and determine whether to stay on the road we’re taking or reroute. From there, who knows what we’ll discover?
First Person vs. Third Person Warm-up
Now, see for yourself the difference between writing in the first and third person in this simple warm-up exercise. In it, you can get a sense of what it feels like when you switch narrative perspectives.
First, write a paragraph in the first-person voice describing a time in the recent past when you did something that you really didn’t want to do, but you did it because you knew it was in your best interest. This might be a difficult conversation with a friend or your boss, or perhaps it was a chore for a loved one. Be sure to describe your feelings before and after the event. For example:
I didn’t want to look at it — the stack of papers on my desk, with all kinds of evidence of how I had been negligent in attending to my taxes the past year and of all the income I had hoped to but didn’t make. I had fooled myself into thinking that I had done okay financially, managed to cover my rent, pay my bills, fill my refrigerator, buy some new clothes, and even have a few short vacations. But the truth lay in that pile. As I began to dig through it, I felt a surge of anxiety in my chest and an old, familiar feeling — shame. How had I managed to survive all these years while being so financially incompetent? People thought I was so together. If only they knew.
Next, write a new paragraph describing the same dreaded chore in the third person. For example:
She wasn’t particularly organized. She had other strengths — creativity, intelligence, a good sense of humor — but keeping on top of her finances, well, that left much to be desired. At least she knew the documents that needed to be saved, even if she stuck them in folders and refused to look at them until she had absolutely no other option. But April 15 came around every year, forcing her to face the spreadsheets. She could delude herself into thinking that she had done okay financially, but the numbers never lied. She’d see how much she made and what she owed, and the penalties she’d incurred from forgetting to pay her estimated taxes. It was her secret shame. Yet she took some comfort in knowing she was far from the only one. And her situation wasn’t so bad. Some people didn’t pay taxes for years, like her friend’s ex-husband — what a disaster! As far as the nitty-gritty number crunching was concerned, that’s what accountants were for, right? Her accountant would figure it all out and keep her out of the government doghouse.
When you’re done, take a few minutes to reflect on what it felt like to write in the third person. Some students have described having more positive feelings toward their third-person self than they normally do toward themselves when they write in the first person. If not, be patient. Writing in the third person is a bit like asking righties to use their left hand. I encourage you to get uncomfortable, experimenting outside your comfort zone, and see what unfolds. Next, we’ll start the process itself in the place where most stories begin, getting to know the star of your story, the protagonist otherwise known as you!
GETTING TO KNOW THE STAR OF YOUR STORY
Men go abroad to wonder at the heights of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motions of the stars, and they pass by themselves without wondering.
— St. Augustine of Hippo, Confessions
Exposition: The beginning of a story in which the main character is introduced to the reader. Situating the story in a time and place, the exposition presents important descriptive information that is needed to fully understand the protagonist.
Now that you’ve put on your story glasses and changed your perspective to the third person, it’s time to get better acquainted with the star of your story — you. Every human story is also a journey of transformation. We start out in one place, with a particular outlook, and end up in another. Yet rarely do we explore who we are as evolving characters with the same gusto and curiosity that we reserve for foreign travel — that is, until something forces us to take a closer look at the person behind the passport. Take Seymour’s story, for instance.
Lost Globetrotter Finds His Compass
Seymour was a single, white, thirty-nine-year-old Wall Street financial professional who “loved to travel” — at least, that’s what he wrote in his online dating profile. He had toured through Australia, trekked up Machu Picchu, and visited several beach resorts in four continents. Yet Seymour was lonely, and he was dissatisfied with his career. Although he often sought out classically beautiful women, he usually got bored a few months into the relationship. At work, he felt restless and distracted. When he wasn’t stressed, he
