Is it better the use the present or the past tense for a novel written in the first person

You are almost certainly going to use both, since it is almost impossible to say very much without making reference to actions past, present, and future. But I think what you are really asking is, should you write in the narrative present or the narrative past.

The narrative present means that you are narrating events as they occur, as if you were walking down the street giving a running commentary on you life. "On the left I am passing the butcher shop. Now I am crossing the street."

The narrative past means that you are narrating events after they happened, the way you would normally narrate events, for instance if someone asked you how was your day?

Both the narrative present and the narrative past involve the use of multiple tenses:

Now I am passing the butcher shop where Dave met his wife. They are going to knock it down next month to build a Starbucks like they did last year on Main Street.

The narrative past is the default mode of storytelling in the western tradition (and probably in all the other traditions as well). The use of the narrative present is a device for obtaining certain effects. For instance, it can give the narrative breathless quality or suggests a sense of inevitability to events. Use it is your are trying to achieve such an effect and have some clear idea of how to do so.

posted about 7 years ago

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Mark Baker‭

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It depends on what you are trying to do. Present tense creates tension because the reader doesn't know what is going to happen -- is the narrator going to live after the bomb explosion, for example? However, past tense can be advantageous if you want the reader to think that the narrator has learned from experience. Is the storyteller giving you the benefit of his/her wisdom after a long series of events? Is this a retrospective, or is it happening now?

A personal opinion only: I find it very difficult to write first-person present tense for anything longer than a very short story because anything I write seems rather false and 'pushed'. Of course, this is my limitation, but you might want to consider how many well-respected authors write this way before you take it on yourself.

posted about 7 years ago

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S. Mitchell‭

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