What does a great first person narrator in fiction always have? There may be a small number of exceptions to this, but in general, the answer is:

AN AGENDA.

The great first person narrators have an agenda. They have a good reason to be telling their story, that agenda will influence what they tell and how, and the reader should understand this.

This is why first person narrators work so famously well in detective fiction, even when the narrator isn’t the detective, as in the case of Dr. Watson telling about Sherlock Holmes. Watson has an agenda of humanizing Holmes, of presenting him in such a way that he appears much more human than he otherwise might.

After all, Holmes is famously robotic and antisocial. Watson’s narration downplays this to great effect.

I sometimes complain that first person is overused or often written poorly, and this is at the heart of it, I think. Unless a first person narrator has an agenda, bringing elements of “am I being manipulated?” or “is he trustworthy?” to add depth, it’s easy for first person to come off as an attempt to over-emotionalize things or to distract for a lacking or boring plot.

(Horror may be an exception to this, as first person increases the emotional stakes, which you want in horror.)

This is not to say, at all, that first person is not legitimate, or that all first person narration is poorly written or has a boring plot. If anything, it probably says I’m not able to appreciate first person narration much unless I’m able to recognize an agenda.

Third person narration has its own difficulties and advantages. It’s not inherently superior to first person, though I do happen to prefer it most of the time. Genre and the particular story you are telling should ultimately determine what point of view you use.

But the fact is, when a story is written in first person, the first question that crosses my mind is “Why is this character telling his or her own story?”

If I can’t identify the reason, and if I don’t find it sufficiently convincing, I automatically feel like the narrator is probably narcissistic. I don’t want to read that.

That’s just me, obviously. Every reader is different, but if you look at the great classics of first person narration, the narrators have agendas.