fiction - What are the advantages and disadvantages of writing in first person?

A lot of people are either on the side of first person or the side of third person. But what are the advantages and disadvantages of writing in first person for fiction?

Answer

Advantages

• First person narratives also have a much easier time garnering empathy from your audience, since they end up spending so much time in your character's brain.


• If done well, it can give logic and motivations to characters that would seem otherwise evil, immoral, or otherwise not relatable.


• It more easily fleshes a character on the page by allowing the audience to listen to their voice for long periods of time.


• A beginning writer often finds it easier to keep consistent tone, style, and prose when writing in first person.


• In some ways, a first person narrator can more easily "dump" information on the reader.

Disadvantages

• Many authors discount this, but I think it's important: the narrator needs to have a clear reason to be telling or documenting the story in the first place.


• Describing the protagonist clearly (let alone honestly and objectively) is very difficult, and usually requires tacky tricks (like staring into a mirror).


• Perspective and perceptions are extremely limited.


• First person narrators, unless they are telling the story far in the future, are less inclined to understand the gravity of any situation. In general they are more grounded in the immediacy of any given moment and less able to see its place in the grand scope of things.