First Person POV: Past or Present

For me, using 1st is like having a camera as an actor. He's placed there, has a role, but doesn't need to be in the story.
Otherwise, it's hard to really follow a equal story.

You are writing in past. Either stick to it (it seems your more natural to it) or work hard to change over.

It wouldn't hinder the whole writing experience. I think present tense is like running with your head leaning out while your legs try to catch up--at some time, you're going to fall flat.

But I've been writing in 3rd limited past for the past 5 months.


If you have multiple characters that you follow (narrators/MC's) you might want to do 3rd person. Otherwise, keep to 1st.

A written story is a retelling, so it should be in the past tense. It isn't as if it is being told as itt happens. The past tense has been the way to tell a story as far back as there are stories that we know of. Dialogue within a story is a different matter.

First person past or present are both fine, and writers use both regularly. It's personal preference.

Now, I won't read a book written in present tense unless I'm being paid to do so, but that just me. First person, past tense is, however, my favorite POV by a wide margin.

Anyway, yeah, you're drifting in and out of past. An even bigger problem is all the filtering. This is where most new wrietrs get in trouble with first.

My face felt hot "Whose face would be hot except your?)

I can feel (Who else would be feeling it?)

I thrust my fist (That's because you can't thrust someone else's fist.)

Try to avoid filtering whenever possible. Good first person isn't I did this, I did that, I saw this, I felt that, I thought, I heard, etc.

Remember that the story happens outside the protagonist, and you don't have to filter the story through him.

An old example is "I saw the car crash", instead of "the car crashed".

Or "I heard an explosion and windows shattered. . ., instead of "an explosion shook the ground, shattering windows..."

Snick said:

A written story is a retelling, so it should be in the past tense.

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Nonsense. There are bazoogles of stories, many great ones, told in present tense. If you're unaware of this, you haven't read enough.

caw

Present tense has an immediacy that puts the reader in the story. The reader experiences actions when they happen rather than simply being told a story from the past. If you use 1st person, too, present tense puts the reader in the action next to the MC, whose narrative explains what's happening.

For 1st person, I prefer to write past tense. For present tense, I prefer to write 3rd person. But any combination can be effective.

David Simon's Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets is a good example of present tense 3rd. You get the feeling that the narrator is an onlooker, which he was. Simon rode around with homicide cops for a year and wrote his book based on what he saw.

blacbird said:

Nonsense. There are bazoogles of stories, many great ones, told in present tense. If you're unaware of this, you haven't read enough.

caw

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Opinions vary. There are very few stories i the present tense that are good.

The default convention is to use past-tense, either first or third person, in narrative.

You can use present tense with either person, but it's going to throw some readers out of the story (Snick, clearly, being one of them ). And the fact that it's not the convention means that it's harder to do well. It's not what we hear and read most of the time. So early drafts that start in present-tense frequently slip into past.

So, once again, as usual, it depends. But present-tense is rarer and more difficult to do well.

With first person POV, I like to think that the narrator is sitting down with someone and telling them the story. They might be talking directly to me, as the reader, or they might be talking to someone else, and I am just overhearing the story.

The unseen extra character in every 1st person POV is the person who the story is being told to.

And that, for me, means the past tense. "Then I did this, and he did that and this happened..."

I struggle with 1st person in the present tense.

It's a purely personal thing, but the present tense works much better for me in 3rd person POV. Then I feel as if I am watching a movie and the action is taking place in front of me. I don't need to be told about something that has happened. I am watching it happen now.

It doesn't mean that it has to be this way. It's just what makes me feel most comfortable.

Channy said:

Is there anything that makes one more appealing than the other? Is present or past more favoured, or easier to read?

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Past is more traditional, most books are written in it, and its the least distracting tense to write in.

Present tense is a current trend in YA fiction and it has its fans. I'm not one of them.

Al Stevens said:

Present tense has an immediacy that puts the reader in the story. The reader experiences actions when they happen rather than simply being told a story from the past. If you use 1st person, too, present tense puts the reader in the action next to the MC, whose narrative explains what's happening.

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Past tense does this, too. Unless it's a distant, omniscient POV.

Present tense has an immediacy that puts the reader in the story. The reader experiences actions when they happen rather than simply being told a story from the past. If you use 1st person, too, present tense puts the reader in the action next to the MC, whose narrative explains what's happening.

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It is true that "present-tense narrative" is often thought to have a different feel to it than "past-tense narrative", w.r.t. the reader.

But the narrative "verb tense" is not directly related to showing the reader when the story is taking place. Both present-tense and past-tense has been used, and is currently being used, by writers as the main narrative mode to show a story as it is currently unfolding in real time (w.r.t. the story's narrator or viewpoint character, or the reader).

It used to be, and probably still is, that past-tense narrative is the preferred narrative mode for most fiction (e.g. novels). Past-tense narrative seems to not be as bumpy of a ride (for the reader), and the writer don't (doesn't? ) want to wake the reader up from his long, long, 400-page fictive dream.

Al Stevens said:

Present tense has an immediacy that puts the reader in the story. The reader experiences actions when they happen rather than simply being told a story from the past.

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I hear this a lot from other writers, but seldom from many readers. It absolutely does not make the story seem immediate to me, it makes it seem completely fake. I know the story is not happening as I'm reading it, and I can't suspend disbelief because of this.

blacbird said:

Nonsense. There are bazoogles of stories, many great ones, told in present tense. If you're unaware of this, you haven't read enough.

caw

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I've read enough, and I haven't found more than four present tense stories in fifty years that I thought were good, let alone great. And I have no doubt that all four of these, great as they were, would have been even better in past tense.

BethS said:

Past tense does this, too. Unless it's a distant, omniscient POV.

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George ducked out of sight when the body hit the pavement. (Might have happened yesterday, last week, ten years ago.)
-vs-
George ducks out of sight when the body hits the pavement. (Happens now.)

Jamesaritchie said:

I hear this a lot from other writers, but seldom from many readers.

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It doesn't surprise me that a lot of other writers disagree with you, James.

And it's not something about which I'd expect a typical reader to have an opinion formed unless you asked them to think about it.

So I did. Sample of one. My wife reads murder mysteries, and she is not a writer. I just asked her whether any of the books she has read were written in present tense. She said she never noticed one way or the other and didn't think it would matter as long as the book was well-written.

I am not comfortable writing long works in present tense, although I will use it for a short. That's because it's difficult for me to write not because it's difficult for others to read.

Al Stevens said:

George ducked out of sight when the body hit the pavement. (Might have happened yesterday, last week, ten years ago.)
-vs-
George ducks out of sight when the body hits the pavement. (Happens now.)

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Sorry, but George isn't ducking out now, and I know it because it has been written down. Written stories are, at best, retellings of what has happened. If it were happening at this moment, then it couldn't possibly be written, could it?

What you see as "immediacy" I seee as a lie.

Jamesaritchie said:

I've read enough, and I haven't found more than four present tense stories in fifty years that I thought were good, let alone great. And I have no doubt that all four of these, great as they were, would have been even better in past tense.

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In large part, I agree with you. I'm not terribly fond of first person, especially in novels. And, yes, I think most of the ones I've read, even those I think are pretty good (e.g., The Moveigoer, by Walker Percy) would have been at least as good in past tense narration, if not better.

But that's a personal preference, of mine, and of yours. A lot of intelligent people will disagree with both of us. I'm okay with that, even if you're not.

But the point of my response was to the post responded to, which seemed to say that present tense narration was never successful, or something similar. That's clearly not the case.

And for a personal anecdote, the only two stories I've ever managed to get published are both narrated in present-tense. They are also the only two stories I've ever written in present-tense. In both cases it seemed to fit the story. I nave no intention of writing others in present tense.

So why did those two find publication and none of my others can?

Your writing god, Ray Bradbury, has written stories in present-tense, including one I rank as among his very best ("The One Who Waits"). It works, in large part, precisely because it is in present tense.

caw

Snick said:

Sorry, but George isn't ducking out now, and I know it because it has been written down. Written stories are, at best, retellings of what has happened. If it were happening at this moment, then it couldn't possibly be written, could it?

What you see as "immediacy" I seee as a lie.

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Are movies lies? They're just light reflections on a screen. Audio recordings? Amplified digital waveforms is all they are. None of the original art being conveyed in these media is happening now. Yet it is presented to the consumer in the present.

It's okay to dislike the idiom. But to dismiss it?

Snick said:

Sorry, but George isn't ducking out now, and I know it because it has been written down. Written stories are, at best, retellings of what has happened. If it were happening at this moment, then it couldn't possibly be written, could it?

What you see as "immediacy" I seee as a lie.

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But what are fiction writers but lying liars who lie? Moby Dick doesn't begin, "Call me Herman." Hobbits don't exist; nor do starships. There is no town of Santa Teresa on the California coast in which Kinsey Millhone (who isn't real either) operates as a P.I.

The question at hand is not how to not lie. It's how to lie in a way that lets the reader buy into it -- at least until the back cover closes or the ereader shuts off.

Al Stevens said:

Are movies lies? They're just light reflections on a screen. Audio recordings? Amplified digital waveforms is all they are. None of the original art being conveyed in these media is happening now. Yet it is presented to the consumer in the present.

It's okay to dislike the idiom. But to dismiss it?

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Movies are retellings, just like books. By necessity, they are set in the past. Once I get my tie machine going I may make a movie set in the future.