Narrator?

Do you have a preference, of whether a story is told from the POV of one of the characters in the story, with them serving as narrator? I tend to write all my stories that way, because generally, all stories ive written thus far, I tend to serve as narrator as a fictionalised version of myself and the stories are either embellishments of things that have sort of happened in my life, or fantasies of things I would have liked to.

I am however looking at writing a couple of ideas I have where I do not feature, and I am undecided if the story should still be written from the POV of one of the characters, serving as a narrator, or I I should write it with nobody serving as narrator and just detailing all characters thoughts, feelings and dialogue.

Thoughts?

I have done both first person (what you describe) and third person narratives. Third person gives you some flexibility to shift perspective and see things from another character's viewpoint. You can also introduce things that the narrator might not know. And sometimes, you want to write something that's a bit more outside your experience and would not feel right from a first-person perspective.

But for a short, sex-focused piece with a narrator who is basically you, first probably feels more immediate to the reader. Some genres more conventionally lean to one than the other.

So my story for the current competition is first person, with Mitch as basically my stand-in.

My story for the Elemental competition in March, though, was a fantasy seduction involving a woman generating some serious heat with a fire elemental. That one, I went third person as I often do for lesbian pieces. I just don't feel comfortable getting into a woman's skin, esp. a woman who loves other women. I've done it but I tend not to. Also, there's a scene at the end when other people show up and I needed to be able to write that scene.

So I guess the answer for me is that I write what works for the story. Right now, I'm bashing away at a longer, probably non-erotic or less erotic, piece and it's third person since I have a raft of characters and like to shift the perspective a bit more.