Persons

About half my stuff is in the first person - I think really because you get much closer in to the "I-guy", since you have to say exactly how such and such felt, whereas I personally always feel like stories where the lead character is "John did.. John said" is further away. Good for some things, not for others. I particularly like writing as "I" if the person is quite dissimilar to me. But I do really seduce Pringle-wearing men on golf courses and smash mirrors that have got above themselves, so nearly all my stuff is autobiographical.

Well my life so far certainly hasn't been boring and I hope it will continue to get more and more exciting. I do think that to be able to write, you have to have led/be leading quite an interesting life - there has to be something that triggers you to write in the first place - and you have to be at least slightly mad also! Jen

Disagree about having to lead an interesting life. Disagree about being slightly mad. Look at any number of writers lives - ordinary...dreary...run of the mill. Not in the slightest bit mad - well not to me anyway. What do you mean by exciting? What do you mean by mad? '' They' say that most writers draw on their childhood and formative years when life (even if it looks ordinary to the outsider) is exciting to the participant because everything is new ...but by the time people get round to writing (unless you are lucky/very committed and start early) life has normally become - at least to the onlooker - fairly 'ordinary'. However as I said in an earlier post ..its what goes on in your head which is exciting. In fact the more exciting /interesting your life is the less likely you are to be able to write! You need moments of calm/boredom even to sit and write! Thinking about 'being mad' - I think you have to be committed - single minded - but not necessarily mad - and in any case one man's madness is another man's 'oh my god - who is that prat?' - remember the fast show character who went around saying "I'm mad I am" and in fact he wasn't - he was just a boring old fart. Anyway this is just a plea for boring old unexciting uninteresting people also being classified as writers. Keep at it Jen - have a brilliant exciting life - be slightly eccentric - and keep writing. You'll be a star.

Jen - And when you get famous - lend me your agent.

Are you calm/bored when you write then? Because when I pick up a pen I am anything but calm - it is a feverish scrabble to get the words written down fast enough on the page - usually done between the hours of midnight and 2 am! It was not me who first decided I was mad - rather my friends! (and I've never seen the fast show). Yes, maybe you are right - I'm only 19 - not old enough to be jaded or to have given up on all the big dreams. As for writing - that too I am only just beginning - I have only been writing short stories for the love of it for just under a year now, and poetry for three. Also, writing is not the only thing I want to do - it is what I do now because I have the time and the ideas - and I shall probably always write, but when I am able to do more things 'in real life' I will throw myself into them and devote my energies elsewhere also. And I don't want the exciting things to be limited to my head! Maybe madness was the wrong word - although, writers spend a hell of a lot of time living in other worlds, creating characters and inventing situations - so, no - I don't think a writer can ever be a totally sane or grounded person. As for agents - I can dream! Love Jen

orwell wilde salinger heller miller (arthur) pinter spag (don't want to be left out) swift ...

... archer

I thought writing in the first person was a storytelling technique where you tell it as if you are the first person? feel kind of stupid i mean am i wrong? well i don't write much fiction from my own life i use pieces from here and there locations and things that have happened to me but no story i have ever written relates to me directly....poems do though!

Jen. I've enjoyed fourty years of adventure. Now I have begun to write. My advise. DON'T START LATER. DON'T STOP NOW.

Already started, couldn't stop if I wanted to, Tom.

My story in my second set, 'What jennifer Wrote Next' - under H - entitled 'H) Equine Heroes - Horses to the Rescue!' is pure autobiography - I recorded it faithfully exactly as it happened! So no, it's not ALL fiction. Jen

OOOPS!!! Totally misread your post, Fecky, being very tired and having a cold - so I'm not feeling very sharp! Sorry I cannot offer more reassurance - my other stories are fiction! As are quite a few of the poems! Apologies, Jen

A lot of mine are fiction or written for someone I know. I lead a fairly boring life too, don't feel bad.

I think I've only posted (and, indeed, ever written) two in the first person, and both of those were pure fiction (well, as 'pure fiction' as one can get, considering that most stuff people write is probably autobiographical to some extent).

I just looked up at the book shelf above my head to see what fiction is autobiographical so.. Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks - he was alive in WW1 was he? Ian Banks - Espedair Street - he was in a rock band? Pat Barker - Border Crossing - pyschologist or child murderer? Joanne Harris - Blackberry wine..ok so she knows the setting from 'real life' - but otherwise .. I could go on and on.... to write fictioin .you have to be able to take elemnets of your own life ..of bits of others lives as they tell you - my mum in WW2 for instance, research and imagine. My fiction is 95% fiction. The occasional 'this bit actually happened to me' does get in there from time to time - but usually changed beyond recognition. Most writers lead boring lives -on the outside what do you have to do to really get something written? You have to sit at the computer or the notebook away from distractions and get into your head! But what is in your head is far from boring. far far far from boring....

but did you guys write it in the first person (andrea accepted) ? I think that was the question. Yes fecks, my friend of the wool, if I write in the first person it is autobiographical. If I write in the third person it could be either or both. I never write in the present tense but often use the blue-perfect.

It's an interesting question and I have realised that I do indeed like to write in the first person, autobiographical or not. Why? Partly because there is a wonderful sense of immediacy to it, a vibrancy and a cheeky little power to add asides, quips, observations and thoughts that at times are harder or appear laboured in any other tense. I do not think I have led a particularly James Bond existence but I hope that I can put myself within anyone's mind, be it a murderer or little old granny from Essex. You have to absorb everything by osmosis and then regurgitate. The first person is superb for that and also, the relationship with the reader is instantaneous and very intimate. You are sharing a joke, a secret or a wonderful adventure with that reader, going on the journey together. Nothing beats that relationship. Or maybe I'm lazy; it's certainly easier to write in the first person and it does feel more spontaneous. As I said, good question.

Oh, dear. Having spouted off as I did (see above), the eds, in their wisdom, have decided to bung one of the two aforementioned stories written in the first person, on Story of the Day ('Yes, Dear'). Ahem...I'd like to assure everyone that it's in no way autobiographical...