Post History
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...
Answer
#3: Attribution notice added
by
System
·
2019-12-08T06:58:44Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/30062 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision
by
S. Mitchell
·
2019-12-08T06:58:44Z (almost 5 years ago)
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.
#1: Imported from external source
by
System
·
2017-09-03T20:03:38Z (about 7 years ago)
Original score: 2