Writers: Do you have any tips on writing in first person?

I've never been able to write in third person! I'm kind of glad though, I don't really like it. First person gives more of an opening into the lead characters mind. Treat the character as yourself. Make the character go through your thought process. Past tense works better with first person.

Don't make them too unrelatable. Through first person it's easy to create YOU, describing their characteristics, personality, etc, when really a lot of it is about you. (See Twilight for more details.) The character's got to have quite an interesting story to tell, and from their point of view you want to make them a character to get along with (relatable). You usually write in the past tense, so keep checking through your work in case you slip tenses at times. I do that a lot when I try present tense myself, as I usually do past. Also read some books in the first person/present. Sorry, this is rubbish. :L Good luck though!

I've been trying that myself recently. In first person, the narrative voice becomes more important because the character is actually telling the story. So literally all of the narration has to sound like him/her, use words he/she would use, and so on. There is no objectivity either, so if, for example, the character is in a place he/she hates, he/she probably won't be nice when describing it. As for present tense, the switch feels a little awkward at first, but you just sort of get used to it as you go. There will be phrases that make sense in past tense but just feel a bit incorrect in present. Follow your ear and after the first few pages, it will become second nature.

When I edit my first-person writing I always circle all the 'I" and see if I can get rid of some of them by rewriting the sentence. My first draft includes a lot of stuff like "I saw X" or "I thought Y" or "I knew Z" and often I can just get ride of the I part and list what I saw, thought or knew. After all it's in first person so the reader should be knowing how saw, though, heard (or whatever).

The thing that I see people mess up on a lot when they first switch from writing third person to first person is that they keep losing the character's emotions. Whereas in a third person book, you would describe somebody's appearance, in first person, you'd describe what your character THINKS about their appearance. Best of luck! (:

There are problems with the first person and although they can be overcome it is a very difficulty thing to do. The first thing about first person is that you know the main character is going to be alright at the end otherwise he/she wouldn't be able to tell the story and that takes the mystery out of it straight away. The second is that it can be very limiting in description because you can only see things through the main characters eyes and finally the word 'I' can drive you up the wall. "I went up the path" I knocked on the door" "I could hear" etc. If you can cut down on the 'I' word and start off sentences with a verb or adjective might help as would not making the sentences too short and snappy. I have written short stories in the first person but I found it too limiting. Good luck with your writing.

I have just started to write in first-person an' all. Don't put too many 'I's in your story because it will make the readers annoyed. Trying adding detail. A couple of senetences with detail in it and no 'I's then you can use 'I's

I personally hate 1st person present tense. Have you tried second person? "You slowly open the closet." "She walks toward you." It's much more immersive than any other tense type.