Is it okay to *die* in first person past tense?

yes.

that's the short answer.

Of course. If your character isn't likeable. Or you can switch POV's according to what I've read, but I could be wrong.

Yup.

Could be gruesome.

BlueLucario said:

Of course. If your character isn't likeable. Or you can switch POV's according to what I've read, but I could be wrong.

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Or the first person character could have written it right before his death, knowing he could die, which was the case in a book I just finished reading.
Or, the character can tell you from the beginning, I'm already dead, like the first person character of The Lovely Bones (or the main character in the movie American Beauty).

And Phillippa Gregory did it in The Boleyn Inheritance where the character told her story all the way up the point that the axe came down on her neck.
Another first person account she had kept through the whole book was used to wrapped up the end of the story.

dpaterso said:

Is the reader supposed to think it's a ghost telling the story?

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In the case of The Lovely Bones and Sunset Boulevard, yep.

It doesn't bother me. I think you're supposed to write past-tense as if you're discussing something that happened 1 second ago, so it would work fine.

Rashomon comes to mind where dif. characters: wife, lover, thief, medium, tells how the death occured.

Starting 'I died...' etc. is a viable hook but then you wonder who wrote the story.

I think this is a question only writers worry about. As a reader, I don't care if the MC is dead or not so long as the story is told.

I've read a lot of stories in which fp narrators died at the end, usually with a sensation of pain in the stomach and then they see a lot of red and then... I do find it unsatisfying though. But the bottom line is that if you can write it well, you can do whatever you want.

It seems one of the only ways this is generally accepted is if the narrator somehow makes a difference before dying. There must be some impact on others in the story. Otherwise prepare to meet a lot of resistance. Even then, it would have to be very well done.

Hey, Frosty -

I don't know if I would throw the book across the room, but I might not pick up the author's next book. The only situations I can think of offhand in which something like this would not bother me are:
- The book is a fantasy/horror/etc, the narrator is a ghost, his/her status is made apparent early on, and it has some bearing on the narrative (give me some reason the story can't be told by a living person); or
- The story is being told as by someone on his or her deathbed, where I can swallow the premise that I am sitting next to him as he passes on the story of his life in his final hours.

Relative to the second situation, I could buy the condemned criminal's tale, but probably not all the way to the block. The story would have to end where the "dead man's walk" begins, or maybe the second narrator (who to that point has been listening with me) takes over and describes the trip out of the cell, up the steps, etc. Sounds like this is a similar approach to Ms. Gregory's above.

Hope this helps.
HN

dpaterso said:

I don't like the idea at all -- doesn't matter who might already have used it.

Is the reader supposed to think it's a ghost telling the story? Or in the case of a character just about to be killed, that they're frantically writing the last paragraph or speaking into a tape recorder? "Just hold on a second, will you? Nearly finished..."

Sure, American Beauty comes to mind, but with hindsight, what the heck was that all about? Sorry, he's dead, how can he possibly be doing the voice over? Twang! Dammit I've snapped the elastic on my suspenders of disbelief.

-Derek

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I agree with Dpaterso on this. In fact, the 'suspenders of my disbelief' are tighter than guitar strings.

Yes, if you take the story to be an interior monologue as it is happening, rather than someone writing the story down. If the latter, why would it be written in present tense? (Okay, I've kept journals in present tense, so maybe it would...)

Frosty said:

Ahem. Is it okay to die in first person past tense?

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No. And it limits your options for a sequel.

JJ

dpaterso said:

Dammit I've snapped the elastic on my suspenders of disbelief.

-Derek

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Derek in suspenders

It could work, for example in the Lovely Bones or Sunset Blvd. (or American Beauty) as others have mentioned. In essence, a "ghost" is telling the story from afterlife. However, such a notion must be mentioned in the beginning (as they did in the Lovely Bones, etc.). If, however, you proceed with the story normally, and then at the end the narrator died (still in first person), it would be troubling and unbelievable to the readers. Nobody could expect the person telling the story to say "...and I died." How was he able to tell the story, then, in past tense? (It may work in present tense!) It's a cheat, and it may piss off the readers. One trick is to end the story in 3rd person.

Sure, American Beauty comes to mind, but with hindsight, what the heck was that all about? Sorry, he's dead, how can he possibly be doing the voice over? Twang! Dammit I've snapped the elastic on my suspenders of disbelief.

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Actually in American Beauty, he said he was dead right at the beginning, and then he said he would tell you how he got there.

It could also work if your story is taking place in the after-life, I don't know if any of you watched the show "Dead Like Me" but the main character dies in the first episode....

Probably not the answer you were looking for but it was worth a shot anyway...

Anyone who gets annoyed at a first person narrator dying is focusing *way* too strongly on the technical aspects of the novel. Narration rarely makes any kind of sense, anyway. Omniscience? Does that mean that, within the world of the poem, we have to accept that there is some kind of God willing to tell us this story? First person? Are you saying that every first person narrator sat down and wrote out these long novels? Scout Finch sat down and wrote this heartwrenching, grammatically correct story while she was still a child (it's told in young Scout's voice, if I recall, not any kind of "looking back on the past").

In short: Yes, your first person narrator can die. Don't stress too much about the sense behind it.

I read a first person book once in which the narrator died. It was a strange experience. I finished it, put it down, and went to the kitchen to get a diet Cherry Coke. When I came back the book was gone. I wanted to read it again because I had forgotten parts of it, so I went to the bookstore where I bought it to get another copy. They were all gone, every one. Not even empty spaces where it had been. I asked an employee to look it up and she said there was record of it on their computer, and she had never heard of it. She asked me for the information again, and I couldn't recall the name of the book, or the author. She said she was sorry. I went home.

Now here's where it gets strange: I don't even like diet Cherry Coke. A little spooky, huh?

"Dying sucks. Let me tell you about it."