First-person feature stories?

[typefitter]

Yes, you're right. I saw Jessica Diehl's name twice before the story and didn't read it close enough. (Is it common for the stylist to be credited?)

This particular story worked rather hard to sell something that's not there. You tip your hat to the effort. I don't even blame the writer, really. McKinnon was clearly guarded. (It would be better if the writer didn't pretend it was unforgettable, when it really is.)

Mina Kimes' Aaron Rodgers profile - which used 1st person almost out of necessity when Rodgers came to her place for the interview - was very good in part because Rodgers was ready to be a little interesting.

Yes, agreed on Rodgers. It makes life easier when your subject is game. I can still remember a Miley Cyrus profile for Rolling Stone when she obviously made an effort to give the writer a good story. Hang on, let me try to find it.

Okay, here it is:

Miley Cyrus on the Cover of Rolling Stone - Rolling Stone

Josh Eells, the writer, is really good, but when your subject gets a tattoo while you're with her and takes you skydiving—I mean, you're gonna be fine.

 

[typefitter]

This was another instance where the first-person wasn't needed at all. Nearly all the times it was used, it could've been entirely gone without, without changing the story even a little bit. It's gratuitous.

Other than that, it was an interesting profile -- not that revealing, I didn't think -- but interesting. The most revealing parts were the mention of his obsession with death, with the examples of the references to the plane crash and his morning routine of reading the obits, and his nicotine-gum addiction.

The part near the end that says the two sides of his personality don't seem to know each other seems spot on. He does seem to be someone hard to get to really know, perhaps because of that disconnect/disassociation. I know I, myself, have liked him. But, I've also never been quite sure of him and what I've seen of him on Fox News -- as if it is forced, superficial, or, simply, a role.

As for the end of the story, I thought it kind of fizzled, and weirdly so. That last paragraph seemed to come out of nowhere, and, like the periodic first-person writing, seemed entirely unnecessary.

I didn't understand that ending at all.

 

[Tweener]

I read this story all the way though, but didn't think this lede was necessary. Sometimes the first person lede works, and sometimes it doesn't.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.azcentral.com/amp/723712001

 

[Skylar]

First person?

It's an easier way to write, certainly. At least I find it so. Solves a lot of structural questions before they're even asked.

I also think younger writers, or at least those in the generation following mine, are more comfortable with it. Writers forty and under grew up in a world of blogs(!), all of which depended upon first person narratives. So what seems like solipsism or personal memoir to writers my age is simply a truth to those under forty - the only trustworthy narrative is one's own.

Older writers are much more comfortable with the omniscient view from nowhere.

This is a good way to put it for sure. I think I see some problems with it sometimes. But in this day and age everyone has a platform for their own narrative/message/whatever, so it's just the way it is.

 

[franticscribe]

A great story where the author's insertion of himself at the end of a long opening paragraph is jarring and unnecessary:

The Coast Guard's 'Floating Guantánamos'

 

[SnarkShark]

A great story where the author's insertion of himself at the end of a long opening paragraph is jarring and unnecessary:

The Coast Guard's 'Floating Guantánamos'

But it's important for him to tell us he was on the boat!