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How annoying is first-person present tense?

Djmac1031 said:
Well, my first 1st Person Present Tense story is set to publish Monday.

Reading through the comments on why some readers find it distracting or when it doesn't "work" for them, I'll just say I think in the case of this particular story, it fits.

It's basically a dream, narrated by the dreamer.

It's a short, uncomplicated sex fantasy, so no deep dives into characters or complicated plot details.

We'll see what kind of reception it gets I suppose.

It was a fun experiment, regardless of how that goes.
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Can you post a link in this thread when it publishes?
 
AllenWoody said:
For the first several years of my Lit ‘career’ I wrote exclusively in third-person past tense. This mirrored other fiction writing I’d pursued over the years. But for some reason when I decided to try my hand at first-person, I moved into present tense. My first story with this approach was Emergence, which got a favorable overall reception. When I wrote a short follow-up series I kept going in the same vein. It feels comfortable and immediate, really allowing me to present the character with more depth, especially with respect to the reader’s insight into their thoughts.

But since then I’ve also started picking up on some of the sometimes strong dislike people have for this approach. I see comments to the effect that readers flat out won’t start a story written in that tense/perspective, or that it’s annoying. I don’t want to be annoying.

How much does it bother you as a reader, and do you purposefully avoid this tense?
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Okay, I write in two styles.

First Person Present and Third Person Past

I present to you two stories of mine, examples of each.

Fucky Friday in First Person Present
and
Eldritch Pact in Third Person

I am proud of both of these stories, and I stand behind the styles of both.

[PS. Before I posted my comment, I thought I'd see how your work compared to mine. Umm... Having not yet read your stories, I can see from your works page that you are far more prolific and successful than me. So... Yeah. Take my opinions with a grain of salt. 🤣]
 
I write almost exclusively in first person present tense. I guess I didn't realize that was annoying to some and have never received a comment saying so. I don't think that will change my approach to storytelling but to tell the truth it's a little disheartening to read the critiques of that style here. My big takeaway from the responses is that I will be much more conscious of potential tense errors or discontinuities. I may have made those errors in some of my published stories.
 
The first things I wrote were in third person because I envisioned all of it being in a novel and I don't recall many full length novels written in first.

When I started writing pure smut here, I went with first under that guise of its puts the reader into the action. After a few years I ran into a story where I wanted the first person character to be harboring a dark secret, telling a lot of lies...but how to not give that away to the reader? So I went to third and had been doing it ever since and when I looked back at all my first person I cringed because I got to where I feel first is juvenile and effective only for strokers(my opinion, not judging others)

But a couple of months ago I came up with the concept for Taboo Confessions; a fictional site on the dark web where people who have committed incest go to post their story to either brag, or get it off their chest if it wasn't a good scenario etc...so I thought if this was someone telling me their story on a site like that, it would be in first so I did the three short stories that way one of which is here

https://literotica.com/s/confessions-what-mommy-and-daddy-do

I found it kind of liberating to do it because it was so much easier than third because the story is so simple there's nothing that needs to be concealed from the readers. But I won't be going back to it other than for something like this.
 
Milo_Grigsby said:
I write almost exclusively in first person present tense. I guess I didn't realize that was annoying to some and have never received a comment saying so. I don't think that will change my approach to storytelling but to tell the truth it's a little disheartening to read the critiques of that style here. My big takeaway from the responses is that I will be much more conscious of potential tense errors or discontinuities. I may have made those errors in some of my published stories.
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Yep, I’m getting the same vibe here. No one has ever left an unfavorable comment about the tense (just plenty of other things 😒), but now I’m beginning to worry I’m limiting my reader pool by writing in present-tense. I’m part way through a larger work written in present tense so I’ll probably gut that one out, but I’ll think twice before starting anything new. This thread has been helpful in that regard.
 
A word of caution about over-weighting the opinions of a bunch of authors, who likely think about such things as tense and voice a lot more than the general public and therefore might well be expected to have stronger than average opinions (and who are probably more sensitive about leaving critical technical comments laying around in public on someone's story). A little more self-reflection shouldn't hurt, of course, just take our grumbles with a grain of salt.
Milo_Grigsby said:
I write almost exclusively in first person present tense. I guess I didn't realize that was annoying to some and have never received a comment saying so. I don't think that will change my approach to storytelling but to tell the truth it's a little disheartening to read the critiques of that style here. My big takeaway from the responses is that I will be much more conscious of potential tense errors or discontinuities. I may have made those errors in some of my published stories.
Click to expand...

AllenWoody said:
Yep, I’m getting the same vibe here. No one has ever left an unfavorable comment about the tense (just plenty of other things 😒), but now I’m beginning to worry I’m limiting my reader pool by writing in present-tense. I’m part way through a larger work written in present tense so I’ll probably gut that one out, but I’ll think twice before starting anything new. This thread has been helpful in that regard.
Click to expand...
 
Milo_Grigsby said:
I write almost exclusively in first person present tense. I guess I didn't realize that was annoying to some and have never received a comment saying so. I don't think that will change my approach to storytelling but to tell the truth it's a little disheartening to read the critiques of that style here. My big takeaway from the responses is that I will be much more conscious of potential tense errors or discontinuities. I may have made those errors in some of my published stories.
Click to expand...
There’s nothing wrong with using a particular tense, only in using a particular tense wrong. They’re tools in your toolbox, but they’re all tools with multiple uses to some extent, like a flathead screwdriver: you can use it to unscrew something, but also to open a paint bucket, as a makeshift wedge, etc. Each tool has its own hazards, too, usages that might seem appropriate but are actually dangerous, or at least ineffective. Sure, you CAN use the handle of a screwdriver to awkwardly bang a nail into place, but you take a chance of hurting yourself or simply not getting the job done.

If readers haven’t complained about your tense choice so far, you’re probably doing fine. Don’t stress. That’s not to say you shouldn’t look at other options, but there’s no grand unified perspective/tense combo that works best for everything. And, on the flip side, other writers telling you that you should never ever ever ever use a tense are probably echoing what someone else has told them.

First person present creates immediacy. It can be great for horror and erotica for similar reasons, that emotional intensity coupled with the now-ness of what’s being described.

First person, in general, is great for things like mysteries, where you want to show that all the reader really knows is what the narrator is telling them, which may or may not be all that the narrator knows. I write mostly in Loving Wives, and I find first person past very effective there, since the emotional focus tends to be on the narrators’ feelings, and because those types of stories often start out as a sort of mystery; yes, it’s probably about a cheating spouse, but who did they cheat with? Why? For how long? It has its downsides, though, in that if there’s something the reader needs to know, but the narrator shouldn’t, you have to overcome that hurdle, and things can veer quickly into “As you know” or villain monologuing if you don’t think your presentation through.

Third person past can be split into “close” and “omniscient,” with some gradations in between. I’m not overly fond of third person close; it always feels like the double-bladed sword of tenses, neither as good at giving emotional state as first or as good at conveying information as third omniscient. Some people are really good at it, though.

Third omniscient gives complete control of what info you present to the reader, but used poorly, it can feel kind of clinical, it’s popular for a reason, though: there’s very little you can’t do with it.

There are ways you can “fake” other tenses for a bit if you need to; some writers like to keep the emotional immediacy of first person (or simply like to write in that style and don’t want to change away from it) and do a multiple first person story, shifting between multiple characters, using “I” in each case.

There’s nothing wrong with the tool you’ve been using. Anyone who tells you otherwise can STFU; they’re either too hidebound or too picky to listen to. But it CAN be correct to say “I don’t think this was the right POV for the story you want to tell.” The single best thing that @MediocreAuthor did for the story she helped me with, Medusa’s Daughter, was to suggest I shift from my usual first person past to present. It would face been a fine story in past; it’s pretty great in present, though.
 
NoTalentHack said:
There’s nothing wrong with using a particular tense, only in using a particular tense wrong. They’re tools in your toolbox, but they’re all tools with multiple uses to some extent, like a flathead screwdriver: you can use it to unscrew something, but also to open a paint bucket, as a makeshift wedge, etc. Each tool has its own hazards, too, usages that might seem appropriate but are actually dangerous, or at least ineffective. Sure, you CAN use the handle of a screwdriver to awkwardly bang a nail into place, but you take a chance of hurting yourself or simply not getting the job done.

If readers haven’t complained about your tense choice so far, you’re probably doing fine. Don’t stress. That’s not to say you shouldn’t look at other options, but there’s no grand unified perspective/tense combo that works best for everything. And, on the flip side, other writers telling you that you should never ever ever ever use a tense are probably echoing what someone else has told them.

First person present creates immediacy. It can be great for horror and erotica for similar reasons, that emotional intensity coupled with the now-ness of what’s being described.

First person, in general, is great for things like mysteries, where you want to show that all the reader really knows is what the narrator is telling them, which may or may not be all that the narrator knows. I write mostly in Loving Wives, and I find first person past very effective there, since the emotional focus tends to be on the narrators’ feelings, and because those types of stories often start out as a sort of mystery; yes, it’s probably about a cheating spouse, but who did they cheat with? Why? For how long? It has its downsides, though, in that if there’s something the reader needs to know, but the narrator shouldn’t, you have to overcome that hurdle, and things can veer quickly into “As you know” or villain monologuing if you don’t think your presentation through.

Third person past can be split into “close” and “omniscient,” with some gradations in between. I’m not overly fond of third person close; it always feels like the double-bladed sword of tenses, neither as good at giving emotional state as first or as good at conveying information as third omniscient. Some people are really good at it, though.

Third omniscient gives complete control of what info you present to the reader, but used poorly, it can feel kind of clinical, it’s popular for a reason, though: there’s very little you can’t do with it.

There are ways you can “fake” other tenses for a bit if you need to; some writers like to keep the emotional immediacy of first person (or simply like to write in that style and don’t want to change away from it) and do a multiple first person story, shifting between multiple characters, using “I” in each case.

There’s nothing wrong with the tool you’ve been using. Anyone who tells you otherwise can STFU; they’re either too hidebound or too picky to listen to. But it CAN be correct to say “I don’t think this was the right POV for the story you want to tell.” The single best thing that @MediocreAuthor did for the story she helped me with, Medusa’s Daughter, was to suggest I shift from my usual first person past to present. It would face been a fine story in past; it’s pretty great in present, though.
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Omg, mind control stories in First Person Present come ALIVE! 👀

"THIS IS MY CURRENT MODE OF THOUGHT, AND YOU CAN SEE HOW FUCKED UP IT IS, BUT WE ARE BOTH HELPLESS TO DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT!"

So visceral!
 
I don’t think the tense is the problem. It’s more difficult to use it consistently and naturally, and being unusual, it calls attention to itself. So basically you’re doing something difficult where errors will be very noticeable. As an editor when I see this, my first question is why? What about this story makes it better told this way?
 
If you can't annoy a reader, now and again, where is the fun?
Milo_Grigsby said:
I write almost exclusively in first person present tense. I guess I didn't realize that was annoying to some and have never received a comment saying so. I don't think that will change my approach to storytelling but to tell the truth it's a little disheartening to read the critiques of that style here. My big takeaway from the responses is that I will be much more conscious of potential tense errors or discontinuities. I may have made those errors in some of my published stories.
Click to expand...
 
Trionyx said:
No, for fun I decided to read it.
Don't let it go to your head but it was actually well done. I will retract my prior statement 'very' and insert 'usually' in its place.
Cheers.
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Thank you. Much appreciated.

I don't plan on making a habit of writing Present Tense.

The idea came to me and I started writing and it just felt right for this one.

Honestly I almost didn't publish it. Too short and awkward unpopular tense style.

I was convinced to finally publish by a friend who enjoyed it.
 
Oh, I have She-Wolf, which I have a serious block on now, that is going to be in third person present.
EmilyMiller said:
I have a bunch of short stroke stories in first person present. They have done OK

Here’s the first of them.

On My Knees - A Fantasy

I’ve never attempted anything serious in this voice however.

Em
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If I ever get it written. AGH!!!!
 
EmilyMiller said:
I have a bunch of short stroke stories in first person present. They have done OK

Here’s the first of them.

On My Knees - A Fantasy

I’ve never attempted anything serious in this voice however.

Em
Click to expand...

One of my personal favorites 😍

But you're right. Dare To Dream was along the same lines and I think it works in that mode.

But for a full length actual story with plot and characterization, I don't think I could pull that off.
 
Djmac1031 said:
One of my personal favorites 😍
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Thank you 😊
Djmac1031 said:
But you're right. Dare To Dream was along the same lines and I think it works in that mode.
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It works when you want to address the reader directly, almost JOI-like
Djmac1031 said:
But for a full length actual story with plot and characterization, I don't think I could pull that off.
Click to expand...
I don’t think I’d want to - I have problems enough with third person past 🤣.

Em
 
So, I wrote the first 1,000 or so words of a story last week in the first person present. It's a one scene, two person, more or less straight to fun and games type of affair and the tense seemed reasonable. Then I read this thread, thought to myself, 'A whole bunch of my stories have been first person present recently'. Went back and checked and only one of them was (and not a high rated one at that). Thought 'Humpf', went back and changed all the verbs to past tense. Then started writing the story again yesterday and first person present seemed to force its way back into the story. Either it just seemed to work here, or for some reason I subconciously wanted to use it.

Anyway, went all the way through the story again, changing everything back to the present tense. I'm convinced it works, but boy am I going to have a lot to catch come proofreading.
 
Well, yeah, you are.
TheRedChamber said:
So, I wrote the first 1,000 or so words of a story last week in the first person present. It's a one scene, two person, more or less straight to fun and games type of affair and the tense seemed reasonable. Then I read this thread, thought to myself, 'A whole bunch of my stories have been first person present recently'. Went back and checked and only one of them was (and not a high rated one at that). Thought 'Humpf', went back and changed all the verbs to past tense. Then started writing the story again yesterday and first person present seemed to force its way back into the story. Either it just seemed to work here, or for some reason I subconciously wanted to use it.

Anyway, went all the way through the story again, changing everything back to the present tense. I'm convinced it works, but boy am I going to have a lot to catch come proofreading.
Click to expand...
 
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