Thread: Another character’s thoughts when writing in first person.

I’d been thinking about using first person for my story. But I was going over the rough drafts of some scenes, and found one not written in first and which includes another character’s thoughts.

My question: if I use first, how is the reader informed of stuff known only to another character?

Here’s the example I stumbled over:

(The passage attempts to show a woman covertly watching a man. In other words, he doesn’t know she’s weighing him up. The man, Clive, is the MC who has just spent half a page bringing the reader into the picture on how he met up with this previously-unknown woman)

“Emma contrived to look away, pretending embarrassment. At the same time she observed Clive from a corner of her eye, and wondered at his urbane appearance. He looked like he might have a dollar or two. Ah, well, nothing ventured, nothing gained.” The sentence after this is dialogue.


Over to you.

Originally Posted by The Backward OX

My question: if I use first, how is the reader informed of stuff known only to another character?

They aren't.

Sometimes you can get around this by having your first person narrator think about what someone else is thinking, and guess at their intentions. Like:

Emma contrived to look away, pretending embarrassment. I felt like she was still watching me even after she turned away. Like she was sizing me up, out of the corner of her eye. I looked pretty good, I thought, like I might have a dollar or two and knew where to spend it.

... obviously I don't know the voice of your narrator or anything. But you get the idea.

But yeah, one of the main rules of first person is that your narrator doesn't really know what's happening outside his head. All we have access to are his thoughts, perceptions, and so on. It's a limitation you just have to deal with when writing in first. Unless your narrator is a psychic.

I guess another way your narrator can know what a person is thinking, is if that person tells the narrator, but does so later. Like:

A few days later, Emma told me she'd been sizing me up. That'd she only looked like she wasn't interested. But I didn't know that at the time.

That’s a really good answer. Easy when you know how. Maybe this first person caper won’t be so hard after all. Many thanks.

Like mwd said, thinking about what someone else is thinking (and affirming it later) is a good way to accomplish this, though if you do it too often, it all gets rather redundant in my opinion.

I've run across this problem before, since I hardly ever write in the first person and trying to get in those points of view you are used to when writing in third can be frustrating. What I did was write assumptions of another character's thoughts in italics. I never confirmed whether or not these thoughts were true to the other character's thoughts, so the first person character might have been portrayed as a little schizo. This method is kind of like playing instant history, where you see people and can't hear what they're saying and you fill in the words for them, based on what they're doing.

Read some things written in first person and see how it's done. Then try it for yourself. I'm betting that's how most people figure it out.

Go back to sleep. This one has been done and dusted ten, eleven hours ago.

Anyway, what help is a comment like that to the legions of lurkers who stop by, hoping to learn something here about writing? What's wrong with giving a little?

I'm sure that's what you had in mind -- helping the legions of lurkers. That's what I'd tell them too. You get a better understanding of things like this by investigating for yourself instead of looking for easy answers from people who've done the work and given it some thought.

So tell me this: how is reading how someone else does it, away from this site, (which is what you advocate) any different to reading the example mwd gave in this thread? For my money, it’s six of one and half-a-dozen of the other.

You’re right OX. It’s all been sewed it all up. You couldn’t possibly learn more by reading published examples by authors who have it licked. And that's not to say the answer MWD so kindly provided isn't a good one. But it is just one example.

Maybe you tried writing something in first person -- you really thought it through and were completely stumped.

That’s the point where I’d seek out examples and go about studying them. And if perhaps all else failed, then I’d ask for help.

But that’s just me. Maybe there’s some pride involved there – and that’s not necessarily a good thing.

Whatever works for you, I suppose.

Thanks Joe. Glad we got that cleared up.

Well Ox, - does this work?:

QUOTE:
Finally it was time to leave to go back to town. We made our farewells and were given brief instructions as to which way to go. Although in all truth, it was Kathy who found our way back to the hotel.
I was going to be sorry to see her go.
'What time is your train?' I asked.

'One goes at about 11.00pm but I don’t have a ticket yet. So if I miss it, I can catch the first one in the morning'.

'Where would you sleep?'
She turned to look at me. 'Well you have a big bed in that hotel. I am sure we can work something out'.

She was smiling as she said it and I could sense that she was a little tipsy. I thought about it. So far I had not really considered sleeping with her but the thought now definitely crossed my mind. Then suddenly she reached across and squeezed my thigh.

'Don’t worry. I’ll be a good girl if you want me to be'

I was not at all worried even if she wanted to be naughty,

UNQUOTE

I had thought to write two versions - in one book the male's and in a second the female's. The spoken dialogue would remain the same but the thinking obviously would be different.

There is another possility. To write the dialogue in two different fonts - one for him, the second for her (or vica versa) - as I have done in this example.

Divus

Divus,

Maybe it’s because it’s past midnight down here and I’ve had a long night writing, but I can’t see a problem here. And it isn’t the same as my question anyway. At least I don’t think it is. The passage seems fine. Like I said, it’s late, and I took my knockout pill nearly an hour ago. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz