In fourth grade, I believe, I sat through a lesson about writing in the third person. My teacher didn’t use that label, or really even talk about grammar, as the point was mostly on how you should write formal, academic papers without using I. For a classroom of ten year olds, full of boisterous words, this probably wasn’t an easy subject to teach. But it was time to learn, the teacher explained, about writing in clear and declarative and objective sentences—which is both an example of a third person sentence, and a statement of purpose about the lesson.
A girl named Jennifer, or perhaps Jessica, had the desk next to mine, and I don’t think either of us learned much during the year as a result of that arrangement, so the specifics of this day are a tad blurry. To my left was a dark-haired girl whose name began with J, to my right was a window that looked toward a wondrous world of green grass and blue skies, and at the front of the class was an adult who wanted me to stop using I. Understandably, my attention swiveled from left to right, from laughing at something Jennifer or Jessica whispered to staring out the window to suppress that laugh, yet I somehow still absorbed this particular lesson.
The doctrines taught from the blackboard on this single day proved astoundingly durable. For the next two decades, at least, writing in the first person didn’t feel natural, nor did it feel right, as the choice of a more detached, authoritative voice seemed the only suitable tone for sentences. The lesson solidified in my mind not as a technique but as a principle. Personal pronouns came to feel childlike, unnecessary, an inclusion of ego onto the page. And these beliefs soon became more fatuous, as I would have flippant, sneering reactions to any writing in the first person, whether inserted into a newspaper column or as the perspective for a novel. When it came to English composition, I soon became an old dog who sensed the length of its leash, constrained to the territory that was familiar without ever testing my limits.
Yet this wasn’t a hinderance for school papers, as the expectation was already for a more formal tone with assignments, and I didn’t consider too much or really even notice the lack of a personal pronoun in my own writing—thus the missing tool happened to be a tool that I didn’t seem to need. Besides, it isn’t that difficult in English to shape a sentence that contains an opinion while omitting a pronoun, so I still felt equipped to include my opinions, judgements, and ideas, however subversively. I learned how far I could push the language without venturing into the solipsistic by first wiping my fingerprints from the words.
And English does have a remarkable capacity for imbuing a perspective into supposedly neutral sentences. There’s subtlety, dynamism, in this capacity, especially because so much artistry—regardless of the discipline—involves conveying a perspective. It doesn’t really matter whether you’ve been captivated by a painting, film, or novel, there’s an intimacy, a pull closer, underneath the surface of good art, which is often the inhabiting of such a seductive perspective that you simply can’t look away. English lacks some nuances that other languages possess, but it manages to remain flexible, in particular, on this subject of perspective. If you consider good storytelling as the expression of a sensibility, this is, for the writer in English, a gift. Having lost its grammatical gender centuries ago, along with most of its original case system, while also keeping an orderly nature for nearly all of its verbs, there’s a potential for intrigue and ambiguity in the simplest of sentences.
Most directly, however, there’s the potency of a third person sentence that contains a first person perspective, offering the reader the appearance of neutrality and omniscience and truth while actually soaking the words with a sensibility—so there’s distance, detachment, even what appear to be facts along the surface, while the bias of a persona is hidden underneath. Few readers recognize that they’re absorbing a first person account, that they’re inhabiting the perspective of a character, in a story that employs this technique. It feels straightforward, as mere narrative, but the perspective is not neutral. Jane Austen usually gets credit for this leap forward in English writing, with her ability to inhabit the internal thoughts of her characters without ever leaving the third person, in a technique known as either free indirect discourse or free indirect style—which is rather useful for any writer who wishes to be a bit surreptitious.
Perhaps writing in this manner over many years prompts a comfort with detachment. You nudge close to the subject, but you’re always a step away, operating at an oblique angle, able to perceive from your own mind the viewpoint of another perspective. And inhabiting a neutral persona—not quite you, not quite somebody else—is useful if you want to truly understand or describe. You’re not the defendant in the courtroom, but you do have the experience of the stenographer. This minuscule distance is fantastic for readers—there’s knowledge and clarity in the narrative but just a little distance to keep the mystery—although it might, over many years of inhabiting other personas, also distance you from your own voice.
I’m not exactly sure when I became comfortable writing once again in the first person, although I doubt that the change occurred merely as a result of learning more about writing. It wasn’t practice, really, or anything about grammar or vocabulary or composition, that prompted the shift in my thinking. Beyond the fundamentals of language that are obviously required for any reasonably coherent page, it is the writer’s state when they pick up the pen that’s underrated. I would consider the passing years as important as the passing pages. So much of what happens on the page—the canvas, the stage—is a consequence of what happens away from the work. The inhabiting of a voice that feels true and essential is only partly a manner of technique.
Nor is it incidental that voice is one of the most common artistic metaphors. It is talked about in writing, yes, but actors, too, talk about the desire to find and inhabit and maintain a voice, as do painters, musicians, and nearly everyone who creates. Although powerful, this is a slippery metaphor. There’s an implication of ease, that knowing and expressing what’s inside is a matter of sincerity, of simply taking the necessary steps. So the actor can be accused of only playing themself, as if playing yourself isn’t, once you think about it, actually the most difficult role; or the writer, too, can be accused of only writing about themself, despite that being, when done with virtuosity, the most difficult subject.
I distinctly remember the day in freshman year of high school, walking away from English class where we had received our first papers and several students had gotten marks against them for using personal pronouns, and others including me got marks against them for not providing clear assertions about the work we were reading, just listing facts or writing around the issue.
I was very frustrated. "I can't make an assertion I don't know the factness of. That's just an opinion. But if I write an opinion, how am I supposed to avoid personal pronouns?"
And my friend Casen, without blinking, said, "Just write your opinions as if it were a fact."
And that was another way I learned how the English language can be untrustworthy.
“So much of what happens on the page—the canvas, the stage—is a consequence of what happens away from the work.” Absolutely true. Experiences, time, maturity, books read, films seen…they all inhabit us and emerge in our writing. Another great post, Charles. Thanks.