Mary Rosenblum:  I wanted to talk about first person characterization because it seems so easy and is actually so hard.  You are limited to what your character actually says. Maybe your character is very forthcoming about his/her feelings and maybe not.  But the only way you can convey that character to readers is through what that character says or what that character does.  And your characterization demands that your character be consistent.
If you have created a tough guy homicide detective and he's not very introspective, then he's not going to muse at length about his past and its effect on him now. So if you want the readers to figure out that he's living up to Dad's tough rules even today, he's not going to tell us about that.  You're going to have to find a way to force him to tell someone something that will give us readers that clue.  Maybe his brother drops by. He's the kid brother, the ne'er do well who never cared if Dad was ticked off.  And that bugged big brother, so the two men are always sparring a bit, and our cop doesn't really like little brother's lifestyle much .
You can have little brother make some comment about how our POV was always trying so hard to live up to Dad's expectations that he didn't have time to have a girlfriend or any fun for that matter.  I thought about decking him. But I didn't. He was right. I popped the top on another beer.
And that's probably as much introspection as we're going to get, but we do get a lot of characterization in that terse bit of internal narrative.  We know that his brother's accusation makes him mad, but he's honest enough and self aware enough to acknowledge that the guy is right. So he gets another beer. It might help because it still hurts, obviously. Now another character, who is more introspective and more talkative might be more than willing to tell all.  We have Red, who has stayed on the keep the family ranch going and has had to live with his father as his mind and health failed.
  I took a beer out onto the back porch. Loner, Annie had said. I'm not a loner. I chugged about half of the beer, thinking about that. I'm always working, is all. You got to do that, to keep a ranch going these days. I dunno. I guess I could let it go, get a job in town like she says. It'd kill Dad. Not that I don't want to kill him myself some days. A lot of days. I tossed back the rest of the bottle and went for another. Gotta get up and go after calves at dawn, before it gets hot, but tonight I just felt like drinking.
So we have a different person here with a different way of speaking, more introspective and willing to share his feelings.  Our rancher guy is more likely to talk about what's going on to the readers. Our tough homicide detective is going to focus more on the action, drop in brief asides.  In both cases, their reactions to what is going on around them will reveal the person to us...what each man likes, dislikes, what motivates him. What you, the author, need to remember is that you cannot put the backstory into your character's mouth and just have him/her rattle it off.  Then it's obviously the author pulling the puppet strings. Your character's internal narrative has to be a reflection of that person. If she is precise and analytical, it's going to show, ever time she opens her mouth.
Barney was supposed to meet me at the Pink Cat at eight. I parked the car next to the Plaid Pantry where the lights shone on it, and went in to get our usual corner table. It's always empty on Thursdays. I think Pierre shoes people away, knowing we're coming in. He brought my usual Zinfandel I looked at my watch. Ten minutes past. Barney is always late.
The first person character is not necessarily the author, right Mary?
Mary Rosenblum:  David, the first person character is only the author in personal narrative. Otherwise, that first person voice is your made up character. So in my example above, we're going to start learning about our POV from her narrative. She carefully parks the car in a lighted area. She's thinking about a safe departure later or maybe worried about a break in. She notices that Barney is ten minutes late. She is punctual, always orders Zin, so the barkeep brings it to her without asking. She's pretty routine-based. They always have the same table.
In effect, I become someone else.
Mary Rosenblum:  Yep, when you start using first person, you need to put on that character's persona and voice or that character will be you.  That is what makes first person a challenge to novice writers. It is hard to consistently write that 'I' voice without simply putting your own vocabulary, word choices, and world view on the page.  So a lot of novice first person characters are a hybrid of the character and the author. Not good.
The other thing that happens is that the first person POV becomes a reporter simply describing the action.  So we get no sense of character.  The details in the above example reveal some of our narrator's personality.  If she simply 'reported' on the action, we wouldn't get a sense of her.  I parked in front of the Pink Cat, went in and sat down with a glass of Zinfandel to wait for Barney.
We don't learn anything about her, do we?  I see that type of first person a lot.
Seems to me that you really need a character which has a compelling, perhaps even unique, voice if you are going to use 1st person POV.
Mary Rosenblum:  Yes, Dale, you do. Because voice reveals character. It's the asides to the reader that fill in a lot of blanks. If your POV is merely telling us what is going on, then you need to use third person POV.
What do you mean by "asides"?
Mary Rosenblum:  If your POV is telling us and adding embellishments -- asides to the readers that reveal his/her personality -- then it's a good first person voice. Those are the comments, Charie, that add information to the action. Our corner table was empty. I think Pierre shoos away customers on our night. But then, we leave him a big tip. If she was just telling us what's going on, she'd just tell us that the corner table was empty, and she sat down. She adds information. Pierre shoos away customers, they tip big.
What if I choose a neat compelling character and I really get into the story.. am i still likely to slip back to regular ol me?
Mary Rosenblum:  David, the more you get practiced at 'putting on' a first person POV, the more easily you'll retain it as you write.  But as you revise, you can read for places where your voice slips in. Happens.
So, asides are different than internal narrative. The latter is more like the character thinking to themselves: Jeez, what's going on here? and the former is akin to the main character in a play or movie speaking directly to the audience.
Mary Rosenblum:  That's pretty much it, moosie.
Mary, isn't it important to consider who the 1st person narrator is telling the story to, because that will shape their narrative a well?
Mary Rosenblum:  That's the point, Dale. The personality of the first person narrator utterly shapes what he/she says. If your character is not the type to speak to the readers, that person is not going to speak to the readers and you need to do this story in third person. :-)  Every word your narrator speaks should reflect that person's personality.  Every word YOU speak reflects YOUR personality.  You don't just have your narrator tell readers what they need to know.  You have the narrator say what he/she is going to say to react to the scene.
I guess the number of characters best be kept few or one could lose track of who is speaking in whose voice
Mary Rosenblum:  It is very very difficult to have more than one first person character in a book David and VERY difficulit to do it in a short story.  I do not advise using more than one first person voice.
Can you tell us a little about first person point of view and its limitations...what's going on outside her immediate arena...and techniques for getting around this difficulty?
Mary Rosenblum:  It is not possible to show readers things that your first person POV cannot see or know about.  Therefore, you, the author will have to do some creative work if you want the readers to know something.  Your POV character is going to have to find out.  It is highly jarring to readers to switch away from first person to cinematic so that you can show readers something that the POV can't know. Nearly always it is not going to be enough benefit to outweigh the damage you'll do to the story.  This is one of your considerations when you decide whether to use first person or third.  If your readers need to know things that your character does not, third is probably your better choice.
What about showing things such as a setting the character is familiar with but the reader isn't?
Mary Rosenblum:  That's always a challenge, speck.  The POV isn't going to notice all the details of, say, her living room. She sees it every day!  So you have to be creative. Give your POV a reason to do things that will 'show' the scene to the readers.
[] 6:46 pm: One solution might be again who she is telling the story to?
I hung up. Bernie was coming over here. A jolt of panic went down my spine as I looked around, inventorying the three days of newspapers on the floor beside the chair, the dirty coffee mug on the bookshelf, the week's worth of dust on everything. Oh well. I headed for the kitchen to stick yesterday's lunch dishes in the dishwasher. He was going to have to take me as I was.
Here, our POV has to look at the living room because she's evaluating it in the light of Barney's visit.
Seems like a big difficulty is to make all the asides and narration not seem contrived.
Mary Rosenblum:  It sure it, Moosie! That's why I keep saying first person...done well...is a lot harder than third. You have to make it sound natural while revealing what you need to reveal. It's like juggling about five balls.
The hard-boiled detective hunts for the killer. Is it a cop-out to have a separate 1st person POV from the villain's perspective?
 Mary Rosenblum:   Charie it can be done but it's VERY hard to do so that the benefit outweighs the jolts to the reader as you change POV.
Isn't another advantage that first person is more immersive to the reader? However it seems to be that a tight 3rd person close can be nearly as immersive
Mary Rosenblum: Actually, Dale, the third person is more immersive than first. first, you are TOLD the story by the POV. You are not the POV yourself.  In third, using a really tight limited third with the narrative distance reduced to zero, the reader BECOMES the character.  I'm not going to put a strong action story into first person. I want my readers to share the scene with the POV.  I want them IN the action.  But if I'm going to write a 'head story' where the POV is going to do a lot of alone time, I'll use first person.  Internal narrative is not nearly as strong as a first person narrative.