I’ve been thinking about point of view. After all, what defines a blog if not point of view? A blog brings you one person’s prejudices, insights, and endless opinions. (Of course, the best blogs bring you much more—like new information, credible reporting, and, sometimes, bursts of brilliant writing.)
But a blog often comes alive because of another aspect of point of view, the literary aspect. The writer sets this point of view by his or her choice of pronouns—I, we, you, he, one, they. I’ve pondered what point of view to use here: The soul-bearing I? The inclusive we, which can also verge into the elegant “editorial we” or the arrogant “royal we”? Or the informal you, capable of sliding from authoritative, even bossy, to irreverent and hip?
Joan Didion once wrote about the act of choosing the first person singular point of view: “In many ways writing is the act of saying I, of imposing oneself upon other people, of saying listen to me, see it my way, change your mind. It’s an aggressive, even a hostile act… There’s no getting around the fact that setting words on paper is the tactic of a secret bully, an invasion, an imposition of the writers sensibility on the readers most private space.”
As you see, I’m going for I, not because I’m a secret bully, but because I want you, my reader, to know that this is really coming from me. This point of view will, I hope, let me gush about writing, even as the articles on the site may have the much more reasoned third-person perspective of the journalist and critic.
I’ll post more about this soon, but in the meantime, talk to me about point of view. Have you seen blogs that dare to diverge from the first person? Are there journalists who go for something more revealing than the detached third person? Can you think of a nonfiction writer who uses you like the novelist Jay McInerney?
Who out there is playing with point of view?
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Posted in Blog | 5 Comments »
Tags:Didion, point of view, pronouns, writers voice
September 19th, 2009 at 12:53 am
I would doubt the sincerity of a third person-voiced blogger. I’d immediately suspect there was a team behind the posts, which is not to say that it shouldn’t be tried by you. And what would happen if you shifted midstream — beginning in 1st, with the occasional drift into 2nd or 3rd for particular occasions.
September 19th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
I think almost all blogs are first person, except some at newspapers. Aren’t blogs by nature a first-person magnet? Have you actually seen any that are not mostly about the I’s who write them? Adopted personas, yes. Third person, nope. But if Rickey Henderson, MLB record holder for career stolen bases, had a blog, it would definitely be in third person. “Rickey says….”
September 19th, 2009 at 4:51 pm
My pal Marci Alboher, who blogs for various publications on careers and the new economy, among other things, (go to http://www.tinyurl.com/YahooNewEconomy) turned me on to Laura Zigman, a novelist who takes a novel tack on her blog—which she calls a “brant”—and everywhere else on her site, including her bio (go to http://www.laurazigman.com/). Zigman writes about herself in a very inventive third person.
September 21st, 2009 at 9:27 am
I see some travel-related blogs that use the second person. These blog aren’t necessarily about the writer’s own feelings on a place, but are suggestions for other travelers (go here, do this). Bootsnall.com might be an example, although as I take a closer look, I’m not sure if their daily posts count as blog material or as articles. Do blogs have to be about the writer’s own life and opinions?
September 26th, 2009 at 9:47 am
My pal Laura Fraser is a daring and stylish writer who publishes frequently in magazines like Vogue, Gourmet, and Glamour. She chose the second person for her book An Italian Affair. I’ll ask her to tell us why she chose this point of view, but in the meantime, if you’re curious, you can read the opening on Google Books.
(Go to http://books.google.com/books?id=iu4skT4OPbEC&printsec=frontcover&dq=An+italian+affair#v=onepage&q=&f=false)