Discussion Why are Chinese novels written in third person?

I finished reading heavenly jewel change and now I'm reading issth.

While reading them i thought something's wrong, why does their narration feel kinda weird and then it hit me. They are freaking written in third person pov!

I'm used to reading first person pov in jap and Western novels so i found it strange.

Are all the Chinese novels written in third person pov? Is third person pov simply more popular in China?

Which popular Chinese novels are written in first person pov?

 

umm....I think third person is pretty common in western novels as well. I don't think its more popular in China, but I guess first person is definitely more prominent in Japanese light novels, which is probably why you're thinking this way. And no, there is no such thing as "are all western novels in first person" or "are all Chinese novels in third person"? There's no clear division, and regardless of which country a novel is from, perspective is always very diverse from author to author. There are a lot of different perspectives (limited, omniscient, etc) you know.

 

I haven't found many Chinese books written in first person POV. On a matter of preference, I enjoy third-person POV much than the first person POV.

I read Western published books before getting to know Chinese books but even before, I found it hard to relate with first-person POV books

 

Isn't third person perspective the most common POV in fiction everywhere?

 

3rd person is the norm everywhere, 1st person has lots of faults so professional authors don't use them unless you're writing an autobiography or diary type novel

 

The main reason is that there's mostly no difference between first and third person in Chinese. Most languages have some form of conjugation so that the two POVs will have different words so the narrative voices will feel very different from each other. In Chinese there is no conjugation so the only distinction is the use of the first person pronoun as opposed to the character's name.

What this all means is that the only reason to write a book in the first person is if the writer wants to limit the narrative. The idea being that only the protagonist's thoughts are revealed so that the other characters have to be explored more indirectly.

It is generally, but it's vastly more common in Chinese than in other languages. Also it's notable that first person POVs are extremely common in books on Syosetu.

 

I dont like first person because it makes me feel that the main character is selfish
I dont really have any interest in knowing the main character's thoughts so I prefer third person

 

Hmm I think only for authors not well experienced or whatnot. First person itself doesn't have faults it's the authors who don't really know how to use it properly. There are many great books, recent or old, that have first person, and amazing prose. It definitely does not have to be used mostly by diary entries or autobiographies

 

It's just as easy to explore a character's thoughts in third person. And in fact, the third person is often used in Chinese so that the thoughts of more characters can be more exposed. This can be extremely important in books where the goals and inner turmoils of various characters are important to the narrative.

 

3rd person is prevalent in western too, usually 1st person is mostly found in YA novels.. so maybe you just haven’t really read out of that genre yet?

 

I guess that is kinda true. Though it's not that I've not read out of YA it's just that I've just started reading books like a year ago or so and somehow every single of the title I've read, even the non YA were first person pov.

 

Taiwanese novels are often written in first person POV (or a mix of first person and third person), and they are done extremely well. But these are also light novels (ie. published physical books) and not webnovels. In my opinion, I prefer the mix of the two since it allows the reader to get a better understanding of the character’s thoughts and emotions, but doesn’t tell the story from purely their POV so that the reader can still get a large scope for the main plot.

 

SFACG books and others that follow the Japanese otaku styles are going to be more likely to be written in first person. It's the same reason why Syosetu books are predominantly written like this.

 

Well first person POV sucks most of the time. Most of those jap novels with first POV are badly done and brainless. For now let's forget about my hate for jap novels, Usually almost all the novels are written in third person POV and mostly everyone prefers third person over first person cause it's not pleasing to read all the idiotic thoughts of mc.

Chinese novels or any original novel I find 90% of them have third person pov. And I am not interested in Japanese wonderland cause most of them are filled with Gary stu, beta, pussy, spineless Mc. So pretty much 1st person POV is rear for me except finding some originals with 1st person POV like needle in a haystack.

 

Most of literature is written in third person. First person books are usually a signature of amateurish and childish essay type of writing. Given unsophisticated quality of Japanese novels translated here (mostly from syosetsuka, without any editor, mostly extremely amateurish writing written by children) it isn't surprising the Japanese works here are in first person. Most of the better jap novels are written in third person.

There's also the problem of many amateur translators struggling big time with translating pronouns and quote associations when it comes to Japanese novels. Example of a decently constructed quote sentence -

"My chair is brown in color." Bret muttered angrily as he felt he was the odd man out.

Vs typical japanese translator + syosetsuka author

<My chair is brown> (Bret)
<I was angry because I was made the odd man out.>

 

idk why but I find 1st POV novels cringey... reminds me of teenage wattpad experiences. ngl those times honed my writing skills to what I have now today but I can't write 1st person pov for the life of me.

Third-person pov allows the writer more control over the pace of the story instead of being stuck to one character at a time. I dun have any idea whether CN authors actually write in 3rd person pov but it has been automatic for translators to interpret it as such as far as I remember.

 

I thought third person is normal isn't it???

 

Invisible Dragon is the best first person POV. You guys got to read it!

 

For me it's the oppposite, I always read CN novels and when I start to read slime isekai LN, it was so hard to understand and can't adapt to 1st pov.

 

I think a lot of people are just too harsh and thick skinned to understand the beauty of Japanese fiction characterization.

Are you saying that Chinese novels are written better than Japanese or the Chinese novels have better translation then Japanese or both cases?