History Main / AllFirstPersonNarratorsWriteLikeNovelists

Yet, virtually every single first-person narrative in existence in any novel is dramatically written, spends a lot of time on not just events important to the story, but also ones that build character, or even events not really important at all. Events are described in the same amount of detail that they are in third-person narratives. The narrator often uses a higher and more formal level of English than their own dialog. As far as structure goes, it's essentially the same as a third-person limited narrative, except it happens to be in first-person.

* ''Literature/AsILayDying'' by Creator/WilliamFaulkner is a good example of an aversion. All of the narrators talk like normal people, even if that makes the story really hard to follow.

* Future!Ted from ''Series/HowIMetYourMother'' often displayed a rather haphazard narrative style (especially in the first three seasons), occasionally dropping random spoilers and explanations into the story instead of working them into the plot properly (e.g., pausing the action in "Okay Awesome" to say "Oh I forgot! This is important: your Uncle Marshall just had a temporary filling put in that afternoon" right before said filling plays a part in the story.) He also tends to meander around at random: for example, in "Showdown", in the middle of Past Ted's best man speech at Marshall and Lily's wedding, Future!Ted suddenly interjects with "Oh wait! [[WhatHappenedToTheMouse I forgot to tell you guys what happened to Uncle Barney!]]" and spends the rest of the episode showing a completely unrelated scene from a different storyline, and doesn't come around to telling the wedding story until the next episode.

-->-- '''Mrs Bantry''', ''[[Literature/MissMarple The Thirteen Problems]]''

* Most of the stories in ''The Thirteen Problems'' by Creator/AgathaChristie, which are supposedly being told by different members of Literature/MissMarple's circle. The [[AvertedTrope exceptions]] are the last three: one is narrated by Mrs Bantry (see page quote), and mostly consists of the others asking questions in order to get any detail at all; one is narrated by a BrainlessBeauty who needs a lot of help to get the story straight; and the last simply doesn't maintain the framing device.

* ''Literature/FifthBusiness'' by Robertson Davies is a particularly {{egregious}} case. Elaborate writing aside, the first person narration comes off as a bit odd because the entire story is framed as a letter from the main character to the headmaster of the school that he works at. Said "letter" happens to be around 300 pages long, and it describes around forty years of the protagonist's life in intimate detail, including gratuitously long passages describing [[AuthorAppeal his thoughts about obscure Catholic saints]]. When was the last time someone wrote their autobiography as a letter to a friend? Hell, how many envelopes can fit a 300-page letter?

!Owing to the ubiquity of this trope, only unusual variants or subversions will be listed:

* Creator/DanSimmons has a fondness of writing parts of his books as journal entries from people who are going insane or dying. It happens part way through ''Literature/{{Hyperion}}'' and near the end of ''TheTerror''.

* ''Literature/AsILayDying'' by WilliamFaulkner is a good example of an aversion. All of the narrators talk like normal people, even if that makes the story really hard to follow.

* ''Literature/PaleFire'' by VladimirNabokov is a first-person narrative disguised as a critical edition of a poem: the narrator is the editor, not the poet, who is dead. The "editor" slips his narrative into the preface and annotations, and it becomes increasingly clear that he resents the poet for not including his narrative into the poem itself. Then it becomes clear that the editor's an UnreliableNarrator and that the "true" narrative is lurking on an even deeper level...except that there might be an even more "true" narrative lurking beneath that one. And so on.

* DanSimmons has a fondness of writing parts of his books as journal entries from people who are going insane or dying. It happens part way through ''{{Hyperion}}'' and near the end of ''TheTerror''.

* ''Literature/TheKingkillerChronicle'' {{fram|ingDevice}}ed as Kvothe's extremely articulate dictation to the Chronicler, which he forbids him from revising or condensing. Lampshaded when he takes a night to collect his thoughts before beginning, because "A real story takes time to prepare," after all.

* In Creator/IainMBanks's ''Literature/FeersumEndjinn'', the sections narrated by Bascule make heavy use of [[FunetikAksent phonetic spellings]] and text-message-style abbreviations. Wich u mite thnk is vry kool, or just 2 anoyin 4 wurdz.

* [[Creator/IainBanks Iain M. Banks]]'s ''Feersum Endjinn'' is written from the point of view of somebody who compulsively uses misspellings and abbreviations. Wich u mite thnk is vry kool, or just 2 anoyin 4 wurdz.

->''I've been listening to you all and I don't know how you do it. "He said, she said, you wondered, they thought, everyone implied" - well, I just couldn't and there it is!''
-->--'''Mrs Bantry''', ''[[Literature/MissMarple The Thirteen Problems]]''

* ''Literature/FifthBusiness'' by Robertson Davies is a particularly {{egregious}} case. Elaborate writing aside, the first person narration comes off as a bit odd because the entire story is framed as a letter from the main character to the headmaster of the school that he works at. Said "letter" happens to be around 300 pages long, and it describes around forty years of the protagonist's life in intimate detail. When was the last time someone wrote their autobiography as a letter to a friend? Hell, how many envelopes can fit a 300-page letter?

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* ''[[Literature/DangerousLiaisons]]'' is an epistolary novel where the characters show markedly distinct styles and much of its literary worth comes from that fact. Marquise de Merteuil is florid and exuberant in her writing, often addressing her reader directly, while vicomte de Valmont is drier and more procedural, with a tendency to ExactWords. Both the young people repeat themselves a great deal and have a poor vocabulary, while Madame de Tourvel writes convoluted, rambling sentences. When Valmont starts to dictate Cecile's letters the difference is obvious.

* ''[[Literature/LiaisonsDangereuses]]'' is an epistolary novel where the characters show markedly distinct styles and much of its literary worth comes from that fact. Marquise de Merteuil is florid and exuberant in her writing, often addressing her reader directly, while vicomte de Valmont is drier and more procedural, with a tendency to ExactWords. Both the young people repeat themselves a great deal and have a poor vocabulary, while Madame de Tourvel writes convoluted, rambling sentences. When Valmont starts to dictate Cecile's letters the difference is obvious.

* [[Literature/LiaisonsDangereuses]] is an epistolary novel where the characters show markedly distinct styles and much of its literary worth comes from that fact. Marquise de Merteuil is florid and exuberant in her writing, often addressing her reader directly, while vicomte de Valmont is drier and more procedural, with a tendency to ExactWords. Both the young people repeat themselves a great deal and have a poor vocabulary, while Madame de Tourvel writes convoluted, rambling sentences. When Valmont starts to dictate Cecile's letters the difference is obvious.

* [[LiaisonsDangereuses]] is an epistolary novel where the characters show markedly distinct styles and much of its literary worth comes from that fact. Marquise de Merteuil is florid and exuberant in her writing, often addressing her reader directly, while vicomte de Valmont is drier and more procedural, with a tendency to [[ExactWords]]. Both the young people repeat themselves a great deal and have a poor vocabulary, while Madame de Tourvel writes convoluted, rambling sentences. When Valmont starts to dictate Cecile's letters the difference is obvious.

* "The Chymist" by Creator/ThomasLigotti is a justified variant of this trope: The character is an InsufferableGenius with an obvious penchant towards [[LargeHam self-indulgent soliloquy]], and hence speaks [[PurpleProse rather vividly]]. It's even {{lampshaded}} several times ''by the narrator himself'', as well as his companion.

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* Pretty blatant in ''Literature/{{Dracula}}'', which is presented as a collection of diaries, telegrams and newspaper clippings, the diaries being kept by characters like Jonathan, Mina, Seward, etc. Not only do all of them write in pretty much the same style, but all of them make use of [[SesquipedalianLoquaciousness florid, poetic language]]. And include long pages of dialogue that any real journal keeper would simply summarize.

* Pretty blatant in ''Literature/Dracula'', which is presented as a collection of diaries, telegrams and newspaper clippings, the diaries being kept by characters like Jonathan, Mina, Seward, etc. Not only do all of them write in pretty much the same style, but all of them make use of [[SesquipedalianLoquaciousness florid, poetic language]]. And include long pages of dialogue that any real journal keeper would simply summarize.

* Mark Twain's 'Literature/AdventuresOfHuckleberryFinn'' was criticized for (among other things) the hero narrating the way an uneducated 14 year old from the DeepSouth in the 1860s would talk. But that don't matter none.

* The first ''Lucifer Box'' novel plays with this trope. The narrator comes across as a bit of a rambling hack, seemingly trying to play this trope and failing miserably, ending up with a style something like a very eloquent man relating his life story orally to his SmokyGentlemensClub. Occasionally overlaps with FirstPersonSmartass.