Third person?

I used to feel a lot more comfortable writing in third person, but I soon noticed that all the YA fiction I've read is written in first person! So I got used to writing in first person, and I tend to do that for all my YA lit. But now I am working on a mystery/thriller sort of thing aimed at older teens (15+ I'd say), and it will work a lot better in third person.

Do teens tend to be put off by third person? Is it a no-go, or do most people not care either way?

Also, can anyone point out any well-known third person YA books? I'm racking my brains trying to think of one, and I just can't!

john green's an abundance of katherines is third person!

Ah! I thought there might be a third person John Green book and I just couldn't remember! Thank you :)

I've never been put off by the POV unless it was obviously the wrong one for the plot - I think that must be about the same for everyone :) If your story wants to be told in third person, I say go for it.

I'm actually trying to get out of always writing in first person at the moment - I just don't seem to be as comfortable with third.

I've always written in third person. The frequency of first is putting me off a bit, unless the first person contributes certain perspective I couldn't get otherwise. I often narrate character thought in third-person, too.

Instead of being the person, I'm like the little insight fairy that hovers in the ear of the person who then flies to another when I have need of that guy's skills, then back again.

When I was a teen, I much preferred third person. And, as an adult, I still prefer it. I could see how third person would be appealing for a mystery novel. If it were written in first person, and the narrator missed a "clue" well, then the reader would miss it too and then they might feel cheated. The reader wouldn't be able to draw their own conclusions. Ya know?

Agreed, I loved Agatha Christie as a teen and quite a few of hers were first, but I also loved third. I think with first you're solving the mystery along with the detective or assistant, but with third you can just explore so many different points of view.

The big kicker for me is dialogue - I've got to have it since my vision's bad & I don't describe scenes a lot. If you want a multi-character story you've got to have more than one person POV or otherwise you have to pray your character into a lot of conversations he or she might not fit well in.

So, maybe that's a way to look at it. How much dialogue do you need? For "Discovering Grace" at lulu.com I have a MMC andFMC so it's kind of a moot point, though the FMC tends to have more of the time. But, her brother also is involved in qutie a few thigns. (They're the only Chrsitians ina rather dysfunctional family that they're trying to help with.) I needed the people to interact with each other in places I knew that - if I didn't do 3rd person - I'd be shoehorning. "Never Let Me go," at iuniverse, is 1st person, but I was able to center a lot of things around this very outgoing character without sacrificing anything or making it seem like I was shoehorning her into situations.

So, I'd look at it that way - how do you use your dialogue? Do your other chardacters' thoughts need to be shown to make it effective? And so on.

I'm a teen and I prefer third person. I almost always write in third person, too. (It's actually weird when I work on my one first person project because I just want to go back to third.)

As far as books, most of Lloyd Alexander's books were in third person. I'm not sure whether or not he's considered popular YA (if he isn't, he should be :)), but he's one of my favorite authors. As far as popular YA, I just finished the Leviathan trilogy and that's in third person.

"Ashes" by Ilsa J. Bick is in third person. After reading so many first person novels it took me a while to get used to it again, but it's a perfectly acceptable perspective for YA. My first novel is in third person and I plan to send it out to literary agents soon.

...This thread confuses me. Nearly everything I've read is in third person. Harry Potter is just about as popular YA as you can get.

Are you meaning second person or participant third person?

Good point - when I wrote "Never Let me go" was 1st person, it's really participant 3rd, but I'm so used to 3rd person I got the 2 mixed up. (Hastings, of course, as Poirot's assistant, is 1st person in Agatha Christie mysteries featuring him, for instance.)

I'd forgotten that the term was for a 3rd persons tory from only the one character's POV, but now that you said it I recall. Thanks.