A Point of View on Point of View in Writing
Writing in first person is supposed to be simple. You live inside one mind, one voice, one version of the truth. It’s less complicated, less convoluted, there are less details about the ancillary characters states of mind to worry about… right? Nope.
When I started writing Knocked: Into Another Dimension, that idea broke almost immediately. My narrator, Max, doesn’t just exist in one timeline. There are other versions of him, each shaped by different choices, different worlds, and different regrets. Suddenly, writing “I” stopped meaning one person.
Beyond the Bridge
First person point of view works because it limits the story. It forces you to filter everything through a single perspective. The reader never receives true objectivity, only the narrator’s internal version of events.
That intimacy is the reason first person feels so powerful.
But multiverse storytelling breaks that comfort. Which Max is speaking? Which one remembers this moment? Which one is telling the truth, or at least, their truth?
Sometimes I wrote the same scene twice. Once through the Max we begin with, and once through another version shaped by different decisions. The difference came not only in what they described, but in what they avoided. Each Max carried his own rhythm, tone, and emotional vocabulary. Then I ended up with the final “true” version of Max’s reality.
Writing them all as “I” was like trying to fit several mirrors into one frame. You cannot tell which reflection is original.
The difficulty was never the logistics of alternate timelines. The difficulty was keeping the voice honest.
Comparing POVs
Third person offers distance.
First person offers exposure.
In third person, the narrator can protect the character. In first person, the character cannot hide. This vulnerability becomes more intense when the narrator has counterparts. Each Max can sense that he is not the only one in the story. That tension, the feeling of being watched by another version of yourself, became a core theme of the book.
A few snippets that relate to this issue:
From the Prologue – A shootout
I registered several thoughts before blacking out: he (this seemingly bad version of me) had gotten his hands on a modified pendant and altered the output of the Draw Bridge device because interdimensional Bridges began to open without much assistance around the van; he must have used a dead man switch (dang I’m slick and also stupid for forgetting that about myself); and finally, this was about to go horribly and catastrophically wrong.
I hope I (or some version of me) planned for this.
Your Turn To Cross
If you have ever written in first person, you have probably felt that tug between truth and bias. You know what it is like to live inside a character’s mind long enough to start thinking like them.
Have you ever written a character who contradicts themselves or changes their story once they know more? Did it make them feel more real or less?
How about telling me how you feel about first person narratives you’ve read?
Hit reply. I would like to hear how you handle the many voices inside one “I.”
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