Thread: POV

My novel and every other story I've written is written in first person. I read that it's sometime's best to write in third person and whatever POV anyone decides to use have a good reason to use it. When should I use first person or third peroson POV? what would be a good reason to use it? What POV should be used for a woman who has Dissocative Idenity Disorder? It's written in first POV now, but I wanted to ask and if I need to change it before I get too far.

I recently read an article linked from a submission page that actually helps to answer that question: First Person Narrative Pitfalls | Gather
It goes into why first person stories are rarely accepted, and should give you really good insight into how to approach things.

I hope the link works. It did for me at first, but now it doesn't. Let me know it there are any problems!

It works thanks.

Personally I like to write in first person but it's true that it can be limiting because in order to tell the story the narrator (or main character) has to be in the right place at the right time or have some profound knowlege of why he or she knows enough to explain elements and developments that they previously weren't privy to. For me it becomes gimmicky sometimes so you have to become real good with devices that don't come off as cheesy or that are relavant in some way. Sometimes you can also change views to another improtant character's first person narrative but you'd have to make sure you established this rule early enough on so it doesn't hit the reader all out of left field.

I'm assuming that your story is told from the POV of the person with the D.I.D., in which case I'd be curious how you transition from one identity to another.

When does the reader learn that the main character has D.I.D.? It could be an interesting story element if the reader is first introduced to each identity as a separate character and then only later do they learn that all of these characters are the same person. But a story told from multiple points of view is more easily told in third person. Like Nicky said, transitions can be tricky in first person.