When one is writing a novel in the first person, one must be that person.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I like to write first-person because I like to become the character I'm writing.
First-person narrators is the way I know how to write a book with the greatest power and chance of artistic success.
The first audience that you have when writing a book is you.
I've always thought a novelist only has one character, and that is himself or herself. In my case, me.
It's really a misconception to identify the writer with the main character, given that the author creates all the characters in the book. In certain ways, I'm every character.
I've written short stories in first person, but you have so much more control writing in third person. Third person, you know what everybody's thinking. First person is very limiting, and I could never sustain a first person novel before.
It's that kind of thing that readers have. I have it as a reader myself: that expectation that the writer will be that person. Then I meet other writers and realize that they're not.
I think with every writer there are two people there.
The most important basis of any novel is wanting to be someone else, and this means creating a character.
When you're writing first person, all I can see and tell as the author is what that main character can see.