First person in the continuing present drives me nuts.
"I am going to the door. The rats hiss. They are eating me. I am bleeding on this paper."
Book: Yes, I'd forgotten you're moonlighting as a criminal mastermind now. Got your next heist planned? Simon: No. But I'm thinking about growing a big black mustache. I'm a traditionalist.
'War Stories'
The Great Write Way, Act Three: Where's the gun?
A place for Buffistas to discuss, beta and otherwise deal and dish on their non-fan fiction projects.
Ginger - Aug 16, 2008 11:15:13 am PDT #690 of 6681
"It didn't taste good. It tasted soooo horrible. It tasted like....a vodka martini." - Matilda
Burrell - Aug 16, 2008 11:18:19 am PDT #691 of 6681
Why did Darth Vader cross the road? To get to the Dark Side!
I can't figure out how to write in first person present, I mean I can't imagine the context in which it would make narrative sense.
javachik - Aug 16, 2008 11:20:06 am PDT #692 of 6681
Our wings are not tired.
Maybe in a mystery, Burrell? But then I don't read many mysteries so what the hell do I know?
Barb - Aug 16, 2008 11:42:32 am PDT #693 of 6681
“Not dead yet!”
It was a fairly common convention in chick lit when the genre was a hot commodity, probably a 50-40-10 split between first person past, first present, and third past.
I very rarely liked any books written in first present, to the point where even if the story sounded good, I rarely bought it. It was just too... I don't know, uncomfortable to read.
sumi - Aug 16, 2008 11:54:29 am PDT #694 of 6681
Art Crawl!!!
Oh, I bet that's a result of Bridget Jones' Diary.
Barb - Aug 16, 2008 11:59:44 am PDT #695 of 6681
“Not dead yet!”
Oh, I bet that's a result of Bridget Jones' Diary.
No doubt, but Helen Fielding actually wielded the POV with skill-- the journal format already gave it a sense of immediacy that the first, preset accented. However, she did mix it up with first, past, which kept the present from becoming overwhelming.
Plus it was a damned funny book.
SailAweigh - Aug 16, 2008 12:10:01 pm PDT #696 of 6681
Nana korobi, ya oki. (Fall down seven times, stand up eight.) ~Yuzuru Hanyu/Japanese proverb
I never did read that book. I may have to take a look at it, just to see if I have an opinion on first person present tense. I can't see it, personally.
Barb - Aug 16, 2008 12:14:20 pm PDT #697 of 6681
“Not dead yet!”
It was one of the things that made me craziest in terms of people using it as the standard-bearer for chick lit, then going on to bash the genre as being all about brand names, shopping, and the Perfect Man.
Thing is, that's not Bridget at all-- there's very little in the way of name brand dropping-- the story is, at its heart, about a woman, in her thirties, watching the world around her go on, while she still seems stuck in the same place, making the same mistakes over and over again, and her efforts at breaking out and finding her way.
The Shopaholic series on the other hand, is everything mockable about the genre. Feh.
Laga - Aug 16, 2008 12:16:40 pm PDT #698 of 6681
You should know I'm a big deal in the Resistance.
according to a blog post I just read, Nick Hornby's High Fidelity is written in first person present tense. I loved his Fever Pitch (and of course the movie version of High Fidelity is faboo) I'll have to check it out.
Ginger - Aug 16, 2008 12:22:22 pm PDT #699 of 6681
"It didn't taste good. It tasted soooo horrible. It tasted like....a vodka martini." - Matilda
Frequently the person in question is crazy.
It was used pretty effectively Audie Murphy's memoir, To Hell and Back.