The Human Touch: First-Person Point of View and the Personal Perspective in Nonfiction
I’m prone to spilling my guts in writing. The words and phrases, even the punctuation marks, tend to splatter like innards and blood. Time after time, the first draft of my nonfiction reads like a dissection, a revealing rumination, a digging deep. But I’ve been warned against getting overly personal, told not to even use first person — haven’t you?
Before attempting to tease out this point-of-view dilemma, let me throw up my hands and exclaim: I just can’t help it! Initially and on second thought, too, I default to my experience and observations as arteries to the heart of a given piece. Try as I might, I can’t quite prevent saying it all, often in the starkest terms. Life events, family lore, snippets of the news, issues of yesterday, today, and tomorrow — my thoughts, reactions, and analysis almost invariably pour out prefaced by “I”. Once I let it loose, this point of view quickly delves into all the emotional crevices and bares all the details, some dirtier than others.
It’s either that, or a disembodied, deadpan narrator, not nearly deserving of being called third person for the humanity she/they lacks. This is the so-called anonymous omniscience and objectivity nonfiction writers have been taught to strive for, a tuneless voice, a muted mask. Contrary to my tendencies, I revert to this ghost, whipping it out like sword and shield whenever the relevant battlefield (read: job) demands it.
There are no hard-and-fast rules to our rescue, dear fellow authors. After all, narrative or creative nonfiction — i.e. the use of literary techniques outside of their typical poetic or fictional realm — is a mash-up of genres. It comprises writing for general audiences from disciplines under the wide liberal arts and sciences umbrella, alone or combined. Philosophy, journalism, theology, education, the legion of social and physical sciences, just to name a few. And history, of course, history writ small and large, the individual, interpersonal micro woven into the grand-scale macro. If every sentence starts with “I” or has a mortal spirit behind it, the text is naturally intimate, inviting in a way that a drier, more detached voice just can’t be. Hence the popularity of the most familiar nonfiction subgenres: biography, memoir, and autobiography.
Here’s the rub: by writing in first person, from within, you risk exposure. Not only of your inner self and your interactions with the world, but more gravely, that of other people. Choosing this point of view hazards, almost requires stepping on the proverbial toes of those around you, certainly the ones in your narrative. If not composing an utterly shameless tell-all or a principled exposé, some balance between disclosure and privacy is in order. Even confessional memoirs are carefully constructed, divulging only the essential and sidestepping the secrets beyond the author’s own. And if the piece does bare too much, it is (usually) by design.
What marks all nonfiction is that the content aspires to truth(s) and the search thereof; it doesn’t depart from the parameters of reality, and if so, only stylistically — its arguments are supported by examples, evidence, proof; and its narratives, constructed through description and illustration. That’s why the human touch is perfectly appropriate, necessary, if you ask me. Because to resound most effectively, the personal can and must be true, must hold fast to reality, and will be judged harshly if it doesn’t. Especially if it harms someone else. To keep your circle intact and stay friendly with your folks, consider your writing a loudspeaker. What do you want the amplified sound to echo?
To toe the delicate line between peeking into another person’s private world and a head-on ethical breach — the absolute don’ts of violating confidentiality and slander aside — make sure that this insider insight is needed in the first place. If it’s merely decoration, cut it outright. If it is substantive, think long and hard about what you would not have done unto you. Based on that, draw decisive limits and stick to them. You may feel prepared to face the implications of your readers knowing a lot about you. Imagine, though, if they learned the same things from someone else. Expect that the people in your life will recognize themselves in your work. Exert the effort to protect them. Omit any identifying information. Better yet, request permission to write about them and to include their stories in yours. Let them read your drafts and listen to their reactions. See, it’s not just about first- or third-person point of view. It’s about the humane, personal perspective.
Therapeutic as writing can be, the transcript of your therapy session should not be published verbatim. What’s written can’t be unwritten; no one can safeguard confidentiality or buffer the consequences of what you reveal, whether predictable or unanticipated, negligible or destructive. It is critical that you distinguish between venting or processing and illustration or analysis. When an experience is fresh, when wounds are raw, when the aftermath is yet unclear, give the dust some time to settle. Write it out, by all means, but don’t let that draft out of your sight until you’ve caught your breath, reflected more, and returned to revise more soberly.
Splitting yourself and your soul at the seams in writing is tempting for the author and gripping for the reader, yet the purpose this serves is far more significant. What reasons do you see as legitimate for demeaning or outing someone, friend or foe? Causing a wave that could drown yourself or another? Starting or stoking a fire within a relationship, personal or organizational? Burning a bridge for good? Are there any such reasons for you? Spell out what they are, if they exist at all. Return to your unredacted diary draft and edit accordingly. Then, and only then, release it.
About Lydia Shestopalova
Lydia is a free thinker, a rabid reader, and a writer manifesting a word lover's dream. She is a multilingual, queer, migrant Cold War child and an eclectic historian. She used to make community college students call her "Professor" because only her third-graders could get away with "Miss Lydia". You can read her at: seeknsea.wordpress.com