Novels written in first person present tense?

Brother to Dragons, Companion to Owls, by Jane Lindskold, published Avon 1994, near-future sf, is first-person present-tense, narrated by a mute autistic girl. I think it was Lindskold's debut novel as well.
-Barbara

A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray. I'm sure someone has already suggested it, but it's so awesome that it bears repeating.

This is a fascinating thread for me because I am right now working on my second novel which, though most of it is in first person past, has a frame narrative in first person present.

I had no idea that might cause people to throw the book against the wall.

I've thrown books against the wall that were written in third person past. If it's a good book most people won't throw it against a wall. If someone thinks it's really bad they will. I prefer to throw Weiss and Hickman books, and I don't care about POV or tense. I think their prose is godawful.

I don't read third person past.

I find it unnatural.

lkp said:

I had no idea that might cause people to throw the book against the wall.

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Please pay no attention to other people's opinions on this. Go with what you think is best for your story.

The original French novel "The Planet of the Apes" was written in first person and in past tense. But then, at the very end of the novel, during just the last four or five pages, it shifted to first person present tense.

I never read the French, only a very fine English translation. It shifted also.

lkp said:

This is a fascinating thread for me because I am right now working on my second novel which, though most of it is in first person past, has a frame narrative in first person present.

I had no idea that might cause people to throw the book against the wall.

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I can only speak for my own reading preferences.

The only thing - ONLY thing - that will make me SPeBWaS* a book is bad writing. Not tense, not POV, not subject matter...just simple bad writing. If it's written well, I couldn't give a fiddler's bitch what tense or POV you use.

* scarletpeaches book/wall syndrome

scarletpeaches said:

I can only speak for my own reading preferences.

The only thing - ONLY thing - that will make me SPeBWaS* a book is bad writing. Not tense, not POV, not subject matter...just simple bad writing. If it's written well, I couldn't give a fiddler's bitch what tense or POV you use.

* scarletpeaches book/wall syndrome

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First of all 'spebwas' is the best acronym ever.

And second, I agree. I don't care if the novel is written in first, second, third, fourteenth, or any variation thereof. As long as it's good, I'll read it. Otherwise, I'm just limiting myself.

Oh goody, maybe Ms Peaches will read it. I so, so, so promise not to head hop. Never. Not at all.

I did give the first chapter to some betas, and they said they liked it.

And by the way, I'm too shy to start a thread about this in goals and accomplishments, where it belongs, but I got an agent today. Yay! My very first choice. So it is actually possible that someone other than my mother and my friends might one day be able to read my stuff.

lkp said:

And by the way, I'm too shy to start a thread about this in goals and accomplishments, where it belongs, but I got an agent today. Yay! My very first choice.

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Hey, that's great! Congrats! That calls for a Snoopy dance, I think.

Also Alan F.Troop's Dragon Delasangre series (four novels, all FPPT). I believe these are his first published books.

Esopha said:

First of all 'spebwas' is the best acronym ever.

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I had a hand in coming up with that version! Ask Scarlet. I'm so proud.

HEROES DIE and to a lesser extent, BLADE OF TYSHALLE by Matthew Woodring Stover.

It's not purely first person present, there's some third person limited in them too, but it pulls it off well.

Present tense is great done well. Especially for stories that rely on suspense and tension, and especially especially in first person stories. It just gives you the sense that anything could happen. If you're writing first person, if it's present we have no idea what can happen; if you don't write in present, then we know that the person's survived. You'd be an idiot to write in past tense with it in first person only to have the narrator die. It wouldn't make any sense, unless the person's dead ghost is telling the story.

I don't think that present tense is awkward, I just think it's difficult to write for first-time writers, and they wind up schlopping off blame, deciding that there's just something wrong with writing that way, rather than simply owning up to the fact that it's probably just them who can't write that way.

maestrowork said:

I had a hand in coming up with that version! Ask Scarlet. I'm so proud.

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True dat. I originally called it SPiBWis, until Ray gave it a tweak and made it more aesthetically pleasing and trippy-off-the-tongue.

And of course it can be adapted for anyone: mine would be mabwas.

I called it Cat Dodgeball. Throw the book at the wall and watch the cat jump.