Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Post History

60%
+1 −0
Q&A Mentioning quickly repeated events in first person?

When writing in first person, is it better to mention as little repetition of events as possible? Or can it improve writing in some cases to have a character duplicate previous events and have them...

3 answers  ·  posted 6y ago by Jonathon D.‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Question style structure
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T09:13:37Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/37217
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar Jonathon D.‭ · 2019-12-08T09:13:37Z (almost 5 years ago)
When writing in first person, is it better to mention as little repetition of events as possible? Or can it improve writing in some cases to have a character duplicate previous events and have them mentioned by the writer?

For example, would it be better to have something like,

> "I drew my hand back and gave three sharp knocks on the wood. No answer. I knocked again. Nothing. Not sure whether or not to be worried, I knocked again."

or,

> "I drew my hand back and gave three sharp knocks on the wood. I received no answer but continued to knock; I grew worried quickly from the lack of response."

In either example the character is repeatedly knocking, but in only one is the knocking mentioned similarly throughout the example.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2018-06-25T17:59:32Z (over 6 years ago)
Original score: 11