Write an article based on this "Give the narrator a distinct voice. Filter the actions of the story through the narrator. Use the "I" to keep the pace and action moving forward. Read examples of first person narratives."
First person narrators often have a particular way of seeing the world, which is based on their backstory. Give your first person narrator a narrative voice that is distinct and particular to them. Consider the narrator's age, class, and background. Use these elements to create the voice of the first person narrator. For example, if your narrator is a Latino teenager who lives in the Bronx, they will have a distinct narrative voice that may use Spanish phrases and teenage slang as well as standard English. With a first person narrator, you want the reader to view the world of the story through their perspective. This means describing scenes, other characters, and settings from the point of the view of the narrator. Try to filter all the action in the story through the first person narrator so the reader gets a sense of their point of view. For example, rather than say, "I couldn't believe what I was seeing. A killer spider skittered towards me and I thought, I'm dead," focus on describing the action straight from the viewpoint of the narrator. You may write, "This couldn't be what I was seeing. A killer spider skittered towards me. I'm dead." Try not to let the first person narrator get bogged down by backstory or long descriptions, especially if you're writing in the present tense. Keep the pace and action of the story moving forward. Focus on keeping your narrator in the action in every scene. For example, rather than write, "I tried to talk to Sara about how I felt but she didn't want to listen to what I had to say," you may put this content in a scene with dialogue and action. You may write instead, "'Sara, why won't you talk to me?' I was determined to get her to listen to what I had to say." To get a better sense of the first person point of view, read examples of this perspective in literature. Look at present and past tense examples so you can look at how other writers use it in their work. There are several well known examples of the first person point of view in writing, including: To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee Moby Dick by Herman Melville The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald Lucy by Jamaica Kincaid "Shooting an Elephant," an essay by George Orwell "The Death of the Moth," an essay by Virginia Woolf