Asking for help question

To my ears the present tense always seems false and forced, because we have an inner assumption that the story teller knows what is going to happen, that it has been written after the event and this adds an element of unreality where we are being told everything as if it is currently happening.

When narrating a story the grammatical person can become a challenge in its own right. When the first person is used then the voice must approximate to that of the character, or it sounds weird. A similar thing applies to the more rare second person (c.f. The Second Person by Rollin) . When these characters are female for instance a male narrator has to put on the voice, when foreign, the accent ( c.f. Safe Boating by Dave Caldewell) . Third person omniscient doesn't have this restriction and one is free to use whatever voice God gave you - save for the times when direct speech is involved when the vocal tricks need to be brought out again.

This is a problem I've come across when writing in the 1st person. How can you keep the reader in the dark and have a realistic "twist" in the tale if the narrator is telling it all after the event, so is aware of what is going to happen later? Writing a story as a series of diary entries is a neat way of solving this problem.

I'm still very drawn to the 1st person though, It could be argued it's the ONLY realistic method of story telling. How can someone who wasn't there be telling you what happened?

I love writing in first person, present tense. It gives a sense of immediacy. Forgive me, this is really not a shameless plug, but my latest story, 'Sunset,' would be a totally different story if told in the past tense.

I think this has turned into a fascinating discussion. Personally, I often write in first person or in third person but so close to the narrator that it almost feels like first person. Still there is a difference; for first person you need more of a "voice" and (as Alan mentions) you don't have the same freedom for twists. But just as third person narratives spans from omniscient narrators to narrators with a limited and personal point of view, first person narration spans from streams-of-consciousness to literary recollections. Although it's hard to hide things in a stream-of-consciousness story, you can definitely do so in what pretends to be a written or spoken recollection — but only if it fits in with the character of the narrator.

A fascinating combination is first person narratives where the narrator is not the main character; in fact, the story is really about the narrator trying to figure out the main character (Americans may want to think of "The Great Gatsby" at this stage!). Personally I find this an intriguing mold for spanking stories.

What Alef said.

Oh yes! He says it like a fine art!

Dear Alef.......huh?

Love

Mini. X

What did I say wrong now? (Except that extra s in 'spans' — an extra k would have been much more appropriate...)

You didn't say anything wrong, hunni. You were concise and comprehensive (I think. Lol). It all just went way over my head. Which is my problem and not in any way yours.

XxxxxX

One effective technique in a story with multiple characters whose feelings or impressions need to be expressed is to have a first person narrator as journalist. This person then reports what everyone else said or did or felt. Because the narrator is quoting other characters, there is no annoying "head hopping" that you might have with an omniscient 3rd person POV. In addition the narrator's "voice" becomes unimportant unless he/she is a character in the drama as well. I used this POV in the school paddling story, "The Woodmont Three."