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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/42500
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

# Include Excerpts written in the old style

You say you want to focus on a character who recorded his lived experiences. This character could narrate their experiences in 1st-person reliable past-tense in a modern style, but then occasionally include excerpts from their diary as they write it, possibly in a 1st-person present tense or 3rd-person unreliable past-tense. Like this:

    I found him pinned under his horse, bleeding from his shoulder where a spearhead
    had slipped under his armor. I checked his pulse. Dead. I took out my quill and
    laid the parchment on the flank of his horse:

> On this the ninth day of the ſiege of CaſterWyne, I find before me the Noble Lord Granger, slain by the pikemen of ArchWood. Riding fearleſsly he fell upon the enemy and was knocked from his horſe. His armor is stained with blood and his noble crown,

    I stopped writing. His crown wasn't there. I looked all around. It wasn't anywhere.
    My pulse quickened. I grabbed the parchment, not caring if the ink smudged, and
    shouted for the commander.

This would have a bonus of letting you show things about your character through the differences of what he writes in his diary vs how he describes it as a narrator. I didn't mean to when writing it, but the main character of my example doesn't seem too bothered by the death when he finds the lord, but then writes about it as if it's very tragic, revealing that he is writing probably not only for himself to read. Also if you have both modern style and old style describing the same event, you are effectively providing a Rosetta Stone that can help the reader learn to better understand and appreciate the old style.

Original score: 2