THE Group for Authors! discussion

A little background: My latest book is an urban mystery title and it happens to be told in the first person. I wrote this book years ago with a pen and paper, and only recently did I have it transcribed. So now I am going through it and doing the first pass of copy edits.

The book is written in the first person, which I know is uncommon, but the story played out really well this way and I'm very happy with it, with one exception: I am struggling with present tense. When I go back and read the transcript, I obviously struggled with the tense and perspective when I originally wrote the book because I continually wander back to past tense. Even during copy edits, if I need to re-write a scene then I sometimes find myself switching to past tense.

Basically, I'm afraid I may have missed some verb conjugations and I'm afraid that this issue will ruin an otherwise terrific story to the point where I might to back and change everything. What are your opinions on either writing or reading fiction in first person present tense?

Hi, Ryan. I looked at three classics, all of which are audible on You Tube, if you want to hear them. All are told in the first person, but in the past tense. Hoping that these examples may help you decide, I am listing them below:

Brideshead Revisited, by Evelyn Waugh

The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald

The Stranger, by Albert Camus

Maybe listening to fiction written in the first person will give you an idea of how you want your voice to sound. Of the three, Camus’ The Stranger comes closest to first person, present tense.

Best of luck!

Frances wrote: "Hi, Ryan. I looked at three classics, all of which are audible on You Tube, if you want to hear them. All are told in the first person, but in the past tense. Hoping that these examples may help yo..."

Great advice and not bad choices as fiction either

Thank you, Philip.

Ryan, it occurred to me that one of the best mystery writers of all wrote in the first person: look at “The Black Cat” and “The Cask of the Amontillado,” among others, by Edgar Allen Poe.

I tend to write in first person past tense but am currently writing in first person present tense. It seems more immediate, but you have to write in the way that sounds best to you. There is no right way.

Hi Ryan, I write my murder mystery series in the first person present tense because it is immediate and takes the reader to the heart of the story. I wrote a blog this way first, and sometimes drifted into past tense, but it's like everything in life - practice. If you like the story told in the present tense, stick with it. Read it out loud and you'll soon discover if you've slipped into past tense.

I just came across this post. Speaking as a reader, I cannot think of anything that irritates me more, and which is more l likely to give up on a book is writing in the present tense. I find it artificial and pretentious. I do think present tense passages have their place if intending to convey the immediacy of a dream or recollection, and I know it is done by some very successful authors, but an entire book in the present tense is, for me, unreadable.
It is interesting that some stated that they slipped into past tense, probably because that's the natural way people speak. If the intention was to write the entire book in present tense, then it would see to me that the appearance of past tense is an editorial error.

I want to find an excuse to write a book that starts in the past tense, moves into the present tense at some point, and finally continues in the future tense. There really needs to be some reason in the plot for that...

Could you have each tense be the voice of a different character, as William Faulkner does in The Sound and the Fury, where he uses present and past tense?

I recently tried reading a book in the first person present tense and it was not working out. Maybe because the book was otherwise quite bad. But, if writing in the first person, I prefer past tense. It is maybe worth a try to read to yourself one part of the book written in present tense, and then the same part written in past tense and then simply decide what sounds better to you.