First person tense changes

Pup said:

I'm trying a novel in first person, and I'm stumped about something.

The narrator is a 16-year-old boy, telling about events in such a way to give the illusion that they happened recently. I don't want it to seem like he's looking back years later after everything's been resolved.

In third person, it's easy to keep the narration all in past tense, when you write something like:

Joe took the message out to his brother. John was two years older than Joe, and...

But in first person, it sounds odd:

I took the message out to my brother. John was two years older than me, and...

That's not how you'd talk if you were telling a story in real life. You'd say "I took the message out to my brother. John is two years older than me..." because he still is two years older.

Another example that's a bigger issue, because it can give away the plot:

Third person sounds just fine:

Joe's sister said, "When you see him, tell your brother -blah blah blah.-" Joe frowned. He didn't mind visiting his brother, but he hated getting caught in the middle of family squabbles.

First person:

My sister said, "When you see him, tell your brother -blah blah blah.-" I frowned. I didn't mind visiting my brother, but I hated getting caught in the middle of family squabbles.

That sounds like the narrator is describing the situation after a lot of time has elapsed, and he may even be hinting that the relationship with his family has changed since then, because getting caught in those squabbles was what used to happen.

In real life, telling the story to somebody while the problems are still ongoing, when you still do hate carrying messages between your siblings, you'd say,

My sister said, "When you see him, tell your brother -blah blah blah.-" I frowned. I don't mind visiting my brother, but I hate getting caught in the middle of family squabbles.

So does it work to shift tenses like that in first person, even though you'd want to keep it all in past tense if it were third person? Or is it better to keep everything in past tense in those circumstances, even in first person?

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Trust your ear. First person or third, present tense is used where appropriate. In third person dialogue, present tense is used on a regular basis. First person narrative is all dialogue, so you treat narrative in first person the same way you treat dialogue in third person.

There's an easy way to sort this out; it's how I learned to write in first person.

Read a LOT of other 1st person novels to see how other writers used tense. There's no need to reinvent the wheel when there's a bloke over there giving them away for free. It'll save you loads of work by showing you how it's done rather than some teacher telling you how to do it.

(Yikes--show, don't tell....I may be on to something here! )

I read older books on the premise that those writers had a better education than the one I enjoyed and might know more.

The age of the narrators doesn't matter; your 16 year old hero will have his own voice. You are looking for help with technique.

Hit the library and bring home some Dick Francis, Raymond Chandler, Adam Hall, and absolutely include Dashiell Hammett's The Thin Man.

Sherlock Holmes stories. Watson is the master at first person narrative that switches voice, but is still from his viewpoint. I trace a major starting point in my career to getting hooked on Conan Doyle's creation.

Include Elizabeth Peter's Amelia Peabody series, and Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum books. They are also experts in this POV.

Once you get through that lot you'll have a much better handle on how to do tense.

And get a copy of Strunk and White's Elements of Style. Every pro writer I know has that book on or near their desk and it is well thumbed.

Good luck!

Personally, I'd go with this:


My sister said, "When you see him, tell your brother -blah blah blah.-" I frowned. I don't mind visiting my brother, but I hate getting caught in the middle of family squabbles. So I told her to mind her own business.


The tense shifts are not that jarring even if the story is in past tense but certain things still hold true to the narrator. One thing you can also do, to make this less "weird" for you is to break it apart:


My sister said, "When you see him, tell your brother -blah blah blah.-" I frowned. I told her to mind her own business.

I don't mind visiting my brother, but I hate getting caught in the middle of family squabbles. I do. That was the only time I told my sister, though.

Anyway, she looked at me after I said that as if I had three heads....

Personally, I'd be leery of the tense changes, b/c it gives the impression that you're stopping the story and talking directly to the reader (like an aside to the camera/audience in television/plays), and that, at least subconsciously, reminds the reader that this is a story, not something that's actually happening.

You know, as I was thinking about this, I suspect the problem isn't so much the tenses, but an issue of authorial intrusion -- the phrases that are bothering you aren't bothering you because of the tense, but because they're authorial intrusion, they're things the POV character wouldn't be thinking in the moment, so you're aware that they're sort of extrinsic commentary, rather than showing what's happening in the story now.

The structure you've presented is sort of:
Action (Asked to be a go-between)
Stop to comment on the action (Always disliked being in the middle)
Resume action. (Agree to carry the message)

If that's the structure you want, then that's fine, but you're definitely implying that this story is being told from some vantage point in the future, when the omniscient (or at least self-aware) narrator knows how the story turns out. And it's the structure doing this, more than the verb tense, although the tense changes exaggerate the effect.

Alternatively, to stay more in the story now, you'd do something like:

My sister said, "When you see him, tell your brother -blah blah blah.-"

Caught in the middle again, I thought, and frowned. But I didn't mind
visiting my brother. "Okay, but just this once."

And, voila, your verb tense issues disappear. You're staying in the moment, not stopping to say, "Oh, by the way, reader, I really hated being caught in the middle," but you're just showing the reader the POV character's annoyed reaction.

Same with the reference to the older brother. The character would NOT be thinking "my brother is two years older than I am," because he knows that, it's part of his world, it's not something he reminds himself of daily or everytime the brother is mentioned. Instead, it might go something like:
I took the [written] message out to my brother, who didn't wait for me to
explain, but grabbed the piece of paper out of my hand. Typical, I
thought. Just because he was two years older than I, he seemed to
believe he had to bully me.

These examples are all past tense, which I'm more comfortable in (and most readers are too), but you could do the same thing with uniformly present tense. Just stay inside the POV character's head, in the story now, and your tense issues will mostly resolve themselves. Unless, of course, you want a more distant POV, a warning that this is a story told from the vantage point of the future, rather than the vantage point of the story now, and then you wold emphasize the asides, possibly with a tense shift, and if you want to do that, then it's just a matter of remaining consistent, with the story now in one tense and the commentary in another.

JD

I'm a shocker for abrupt tense changes. A wise writer friend once told me to think of tense like gears. You can use whichever tense you want, whenever you want, as long as you shift into neutral between them, otherwise your readers will stall.

JanDarby said:

Same with the reference to the older brother. The character would NOT be thinking "my brother is two years older than I am," because he knows that, it's part of his world, it's not something he reminds himself of daily or everytime the brother is mentioned. Instead, it might go something like:

JD

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This I'll disagree with a bit. In third person narrative it would be correct, but in first person it has little to do with what the character is thinking, with what is or isn't a natural part of his world. First person is all dialogue. The POV character is telling someone the story, so it isn't a matter of what is part of his world, or what he knows, or what he thinks, but of what the person he's telling the story to knows and doesn't know.

This is one of the biggest differences between first and third person. The first person POV character is sitting across the table from the reader, sipping coffee, and telling him a story. This means it's perfectly fine for him to tell the reader that his brother is two years older. The POV character may know this, but the person sitting across the table from him doesn't. In first person, the POV character can tell the person across the table from him anything he thinks that person should know.

By and large, past tense should be used, and tense should be consistent throughout. But never having any present tense at all is not very realistic.
Listen to people speak. Darned near everyone I've ever known shifts into present tense in conversation with some regularity, even when describing something that happened in the past.

Two friends meet on the street, and the conversation often goes along the lines of, "So, I'm sitting in Starbuks, and this guy walks in. He's staring at me like he knows me, and maybe doesn't like what he knows. He gets himself a coffee, sits down where he can see me, and keeps staring as he drinks. Gives me the willies.

"I finally leave, and I think that's the end of it, but just this morning I see him again. He's standing right outside my aprtment building, and he's got his eyes locked on my window. I slip out the back way, and here I am, but I still got this feeling like ants crawling up and down my neck."

In third person, you would only do this in dialogue, but in first person it often works in narrative, primarily because the narrative in first person is dialogue. Dialogue of any sort means writing the character. It means letting that character say anything he thinks is pertinent, and letting him say it in whatever tense he would use if he really were sitting across the table from you, telling you a story.

Even in third person, dialogue doesn't follow the same rules as narrative. It isn't a matter of what is or isn't a part of the speaker's world, but a matter of what he thinks the person he's speaking to needs to know, wants to know, would be interested in knowing, etc.

I write in first person present tense a lot. I know it irks the bejesus out of many of you, and that's fine. (Those scowls are just adorable!)

The narrative in first person can be whatever verb tense you like. However, you need to flip back and forth for constants versus present-narrative actions. In your example, the age difference between the brothers is constant and unchanging. So, presumably, is the fact that your 16-year-old narrator hates getting caught in the middle of disagreements. So those would remain present tense. The actions that he's recounting can be in past tense, and as you write, you'll find the shift becomes natural, almost conversational. (One instructor suggests imagining your main character telling the story to a friendly bartender or other sympathetic listener.)

So you'd have I took the message out to my brother. John is two years older than me, and... and My sister said, "When you see him, tell John [because they both know their brother's name!] -blah blah blah.-" I frowned. [Delete this? People are rarely aware of their own facial expressions.] I don't mind visiting my brother, but I hate getting caught in the middle of family squabbles.

As James said, dialogue's verb tense doesn't have to match the narration's verb tense. In many cases, it'd be really weird if it did.

Maryn, suggesting you forge ahead and mess with verbs in rewrite

In my humble opinion, the best modern exponent of switiching between the tenses and not having the reader pick up on it is Chuck Palahniuk. He keeps Fight Club and Survivor in the present tense though they are stories being told in flashback mode, Fight CLub from the top of the building with a gun in his mouth, Survivor from the hijacked airplane. His latest Haunted also does this, but mixes in 3rd and second person. The guy's a genius for the way he switches and you dont even question it. I think he uses the switching to neutral technique by covering a transition with flashbacks or imparting some (what he calls non-fiction) information. He said as much at a reading the other week. Id say give the scene about the interaction betwen the two characters, Joe and his sister I think, then when its over give the "2 years older," info dump stuff and move to the next scene.