Want to know what I think? Of course you do. I think "I" gets a bad rap because so often so many of us use it in such a lazy way.
I had Cocoa Puffs for breakfast.
I went to the Super Bowl and man did I have a crazy cabbie.
I talked to this guy and then I talked to that guy and then -- guess what? -- I talked to this other guy.
Mirta Ojito gave the keynote Saturday morning here in Fort Lauderdale. She said it was okay to use "I" in telling stories. Seriously.
"It's okay," she said, "to do what your professors and editors have told you never to do."
But!
1.) Make sure there's no other way to tell it as well.
2.) It's not a substitute for good reporting.
3.) The story must have a larger point. It can't be about you.
4.) Use it sparingly.
The key of the caveats, to me, as always, especially at these "writers'" conferences: Report, report, report.
"People will doubt you," Mirta said, on first-person narratives and memoirs. If it's reported to the hilt, though, just like any other story, which it should be, and if it works, and if it's done right, and at the right time, stories with the I-bomb can and often do what we're all trying to do all the time -- make a connection with the reader.
I promise.
