How to differentiate narration and thoughts in the first person POV?

I'm not entirely sure what you mean, but I'll interpret it as distinguishing between thoughts of the first-person narrator as character when the story happened, and the thoughts of the narrator when narrating it.

This concept in my opinion only makes sense if the the narrator tells the story in the past tense, as telling in the present tense implies that the events of the story are happening right as they are told, and therefore the thoughts during narration are the thoughts during the events of the story.

For first-person past tense, it is easy to make the distinction, by using the appropriate tense: Thoughts the character had back then are past thoughts, and therefore are told in past tense. Thoughts the narrator has during narration are present thoughts, and therefore are told in present tense.

For example:

The door opened, and a man came in. I thought it was Tom.

Here the character, when seeing the door open, was of the opinion that the man entering the room was Tom (and the formulation suggests that it turned out not to be Tom).

The door opened, and a man came in. I think it was Tom.

Here the narrator thinks the person who came in back then was Tom, but is not sure. There's no indication that at the time the story happened, the identity of the person entering was unclear; it's the narrator's memory that's failing.

posted over 6 years ago

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celtschk‭

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You don't necessarily need to distinguish the two. If you write, for example,

Dan stared out of the window of the classroom. A green park spread outside. Tulips and Hyacinths were in full bloom. Inside, the teacher droned on about something.

You are both narrating the setting (classroom, spring), and showing the character's boredom and desire to be outside.

posted over 6 years ago

CC BY-SA 4.0

Galastel‭

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