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POV and tense

Raspberry

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I bet that this has been discussed a thousand times, but still I'd like to get your opinions.

The story is a suspense/thriller following a woman who is looking for her daughter who ran away. I started out very classic: third person limited + past tense with three POVs. Somewhen along in the story I had the impression I needed to change POV, because my novel lost focus. A bit driven by the notion that 1st person/present tense is in fashion i tried out this combination, reducing the lead to two povs. It worked well for me as the plot came together nicely. However, the word count remained low clocking in at 63k.

Somehow I wanted to get the third pov from the original into play. This character's story intrigues me, but I personally do not enjoy reading books with three first person povs, why should I write it then? So I rewrote the novel into third person limited / past tense and added his. This time the focus remains, I only need to convert the written chapters and add chapters with the third pov.

So far so good?

No. I keep slipping into first person/present tense. I have to force myself to stay in line. Now the idea came up to use third person/present tense.

My question to you:

What do you think about the combination third/present versus third/ past?
 
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Girlsgottawrite

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I have a similar problem. I wrote a YA novel in first-person, present tense and am trying now to write in past, and I am finding it really difficult to switch back. My understanding is that for adult genre novels past tense is the preferred choice, just because it's what readers are used to and comfortable with. As far as the POVs, I think either can be effective though I'm a fan of first-person because it allows me to really get into the character's head. That's just a personal preference though. As long as you keep it to two POVs, first-person should be fine, but third should definitely be used (in my opinion) if there are three or more.
 

lizmonster

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IMO it's 100% dependent on the book and the narrative. There's no "right" POV/tense combo, just what works for the story.

Philosophically I have no argument with third/present and third/past combined, but I have no argument with your earlier choices, either.
 

Raspberry

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I agree with you, Lizmonster, but I also think that you can get used to a certain voice so that you lose your ability to decide objectively.
 

ChaseJxyz

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I mostly write third person past, but I also don't consciously think about it; I actually had to google "third person present tense" to remind myself what that actually looks like. And my degree is in journalism! I just use the words/grammar/style that feels the best for a given project, so a blog post I do for work is going to be very different than my novel in a lot of ways.

I'm wondering why it is that you keep slipping back into first person. Is it because you just have so much more experience with that? Or does it feel like a better fit for the characters/story?
 

Raspberry

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I'm wondering why it is that you keep slipping back into first person. Is it because you just have so much more experience with that? Or does it feel like a better fit for the characters/story?
That is actually my concern. It is very different from the normal situation, when you start writing on a blank sheet of paper. Maybe you try one POV over the other, write into the story a bit how it feels... but this time the story is written already, and I am trying to optimize its voice. Maybe I am just used to the voice now and can't find another although the other would serve the story better.

But I'm getting there. I decided third person limited/past tense, and hope I can stick to it!
 

MythMonger

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Having a present/past tense combination book might confuse me for a bit. I think I'd assume that the present tense part was happening in the "now" of the book, and that the past tense was happening in the "past" of the book.

If the two narratives were brought together in some other way (the POV characters meet or reference events that make it obvious it was all happening at the same time) that might clarify things. But then I'd be left with the question of why the tense combo was being used. Was there something meta going on, for example.
 

indianroads

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[...]
I'm wondering why it is that you keep slipping back into first person. Is it because you just have so much more experience with that? Or does it feel like a better fit for the characters/story?

Could it be what the OP is currently reading? Occasionally, the voice of what I'm reading will influence my writing; it's not been a problem for me but I can see that it could be.
 

clawyer80

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A couple of my novels follow the life of a particular character. However, each chapter is being told by a different side character. That works well enough I think. However, without really intending it, I wound up also writing different chapters with different tenses. It turns out being one of those things that works IMO, but I'm not sure how it would look to someone that didn't actually write the book.
 

TurbulentMuse

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I personally think having both third/present and third/past in one manuscript would end up feeling unorganized and messy, but my current manuscript has first, second, and third person past tense so who am I to judge? If it works it works.