Writing Styles - Your Thoughts on Style & Tense

[RetroFan]

When writing, or when reading other authors' work, which styles do you tend to like or dislike, and why? Here are my thoughts:

STYLE:
First Person (I) - To date, I have not written a story in first person. I would not be adverse to the idea of writing a story in first person if it seemed warranted, but I find it a bit limiting. I don't mind reading first person stories, but for some reason tend to prefer a female narrator. First person stories with more than one narrator can be very good with two or more character's viewpoints on the same situations, but are not easy to write, and one would have to be careful not to be overly repetitive.

Second Person (You) - I never liked choose your own adventure books in my younger years, and I still don't like second person perspective. The author has a very narrow opportunity to really engage the reader to think they are part of the story, and I would never use second person in my works.

Third Person (Name) - The style I always use and prefer reading. It gives the author more freedom to explore the situations and characters. Of the three types of third person fiction, I use omniscient (thoughts and opinions of more than one character) and subjective (thoughts and opinions of one character only), depending on the story. Objective, the third type of third person prose where no thoughts or opinions are expressed, I avoid as I find it too cold for fiction.

Script - I don't know if scripts, written like a screenplay or a stage play, are permitted on this site. I don't intend writing one, but does anyone know if there are any, and would such works interest you as a reader?

TENSE:
Past - My favorite method of fictional writing is with a past setting. As I specialize in writing fiction set in the past, it is really the only method available to me, so it is good that I like it.

Present - Fiction with a present tense ('Jane runs to catch her train' as opposed to 'Jane ran to catch her train') has become more popular in recent years, but I have never liked that style. Some may like it, but its a matter of opinion.

Future - I have never, either on this website or anywhere else, seen fiction using a future tense - 'Jane will go to New York City for a sales conference on Friday. The weather will be bad, and she will need to stay overnight at the hotel. She will meet Andrew, a good-looking guy from New Jersey in the hotel lobby.' Three sentences in, and it already sounds ridiculous. It's not to say it can't be done, but it would take an author of some talent to make it work. Has anyone ever read any fictional work written in a future tense?

 

[HeyAll]

When reading, I really don't care whose perspective it is; either 1st or 3rd. Both have their strengths. It all depends on the story.

When I write, I use both 1st and 3rd person. It depends on the story. For something like a mother/son story, 1st person works very well because the reader can explore the mom character through the eyes of the son.

But for any other category, I always use 3rd person, and I follow the lead female character around in aspects of her life (ie job, home, dressing, undressing, ect...). So in a way, it's like being a voyeur to that character.

As for tense, always Past Tense. I write Past Tense, and I only read Past Tense. I can't stand any other way.

 

[Hypoxia]

Everything has its place. First person gives more connection with the reader; third limited allows a little more flexibility; third omniscient gives the greatest overview but can make the writer lazy.

I have used second person (limited or omniscient) in brief passages; I think the longest was maybe 1/3 of a LIT page, or 1000-1200 words. Second is useful for scene-setting but would be IMHO painful for an entire story.

Almost all my narration is in past tense. Future would be useful in very small doses such as foreshadowing or summations, like if I want to tell of future events without disrupting the storyline. No more than a couple paragraphs, please.

Present tense, outside of conversation, is to me a VERY specialized tool -- it portends doom. First-present tells me the narrator will die. "I hear the waterfall my canoe will soon plunge over. Oh shit."

A script can be submitted to LIT as just another story, no problem. Of course, the views and votes might not be great. Not everybody likes to read scripts. I'm a perv there; I'd almost rather see the script than the performance.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

I have written many a story in first person, past tense. I have also written several in first person present tense, which I find harder to do.

I have written third person past tense.

All have their good points and their faults.

My very first Novel length work was written in first person, with many points of view. Each clearly defined for the reader. I received many comments on how the readers liked what I did.

Sometime which I select is nothing more than what I feel at the time I start the story. There have been times I went back and changed the POV from first to third.

The only time I have written in second person was when I was writing user manuals.

For erotic stories I prefer first person, although third comes in handy for longer stories.

Third person is great for non-erotic stories where the reader really doesn't have to be immersed in the emotions or feelings of the characters.

 

[sr71plt]

I like a variety and the feel the right tense and styles were achieved.

 

[RejectReality]

I write a mix of first and third, though I almost always stick to past tense. The one exception was a flash story for another site ( which was also first person and gender ambiguous for added fun )

I've never written first person with a female lead. It's not as if I don't feel I could pull it off, but rather that it's... I don't know. Disingenuous?

Third person may be limited or omniscient, depending on the story. Short stories trend toward limited, while longer ( mostly fantasy ) stories lean toward omniscient.

 

[SamScribble]

Over the years, I have flirted with many forms – with mixed results. I still have a bit of a weakness for ‘stream of consciousness’ stories( http://www.literotica.com/s/the-kitchen-table-2) but, as I get older, I become more and more convinced that we humans are a natural story-telling species. We gather around the camp fire (or the water cooler) and we tell stories.

Sometimes the stories are personal – ‘this is what happened to me’. Sometimes they are the stories of other people’s antics and adventures – ‘this is what happened to Michael or Susan or The Great Zog’. And so, when it comes to short stories, first person and third person voices are the natural narrators and the past tense is the natural tense.

It takes real mastery of the craft to step outside. And few writers anywhere – not just here at Literotica – have that mastery of the craft.

Just my opinion.

 

[oggbashan]

Tenses: I normally use Past tense but I sometimes switch to Present for the sex scenes or for fast moving action. The switch to Present can give immediacy to the story at that point - if it is used sparingly.

I usually write 1st person. When I was starting to write for Literotica I used 3rd but one of my draft stories wasn't working so I edited it to 1st. That worked better.

Now when I am having difficulty with a story I KEEP the current defective version as a saved file. I apply several tools:

1. I switch fonts on screen. I always write in a standard font and size. Changing that can give me a fresh perspective as if I am reading someone else's story and I have a distance from it. It works a few times but not when I'm really stuck.

2. I print it out and read it on paper. Works sometimes.

But 3. does work almost every time. I go through the whole story and change from 3rd to 1st person (or the other way around) OR change the tense from Past to Present (or the other way around). I will now have two or three saved versions of the same story. It might be that the original just needs minor adjustment because the plot has gone astray. The change of point of view might be better, or the changed tense. I can select which version is best and continue the story.

If changing person and or tense hasn't worked, the story gets added to the saved junk folder that might be mined for situations or ideas at a later date. But that particular story is beyond rescue.

 

[soflabbwlvr]

I write in both first person and third person limited. At this point it is probably close to a 50/50 distribution between the two. I don't have a preference, it just depends on the story. If the lead character is female, I will write it as third person. If male, it could go either way.

I write exclusively in past tense, with the exception of one story that was present tense. That story started out with very heavy dialogue--nearly 1.5 Lit. pages at the beginning of the story. As an experiment I continued writing in present tense after the dialogue intensive first section, and it worked well enough that I decided to leave it that way. I don't foresee writing another story in present tense, however. It just doesn't feel right in most cases.

As for reading, I don't have a preference between first and third person, however, I absolutely will not read a story where the reader is "you." Nothing gets me to click out faster than being told what I did or how I felt.

 

[Bramblethorn]

When writing, or when reading other authors' work, which styles do you tend to like or dislike, and why? Here are my thoughts:

STYLE:
First Person (I) - To date, I have not written a story in first person. I would not be adverse to the idea of writing a story in first person if it seemed warranted, but I find it a bit limiting. I don't mind reading first person stories, but for some reason tend to prefer a female narrator. First person stories with more than one narrator can be very good with two or more character's viewpoints on the same situations, but are not easy to write, and one would have to be careful not to be overly repetitive.

"Limiting" can be a good thing. A lot of my stories are about protagonists who don't know the whole of what's going on, whether it's "what is that mysterious cult?" or "why did my girlfriend lie to me?" and I want readers to have the same blind spots, to keep them empathising with my characters. First person is a good way to achieve that, although third-person close can also work.

If I really need to give extra information that doesn't fit into a first-person narrative, I can switch; my first two stories here both do that.

Second Person (You) - I never liked choose your own adventure books in my younger years, and I still don't like second person perspective. The author has a very narrow opportunity to really engage the reader to think they are part of the story, and I would never use second person in my works.

I think second-person works better for cybering (where it's written for one specific reader who the author knows well) than for a general audience. My instinctive reaction to "and then you take off your top" is "wait, no, let ME decide that!" So I don't mind it in CYOA stories where I actually do get a choice as a reader, but outside of that it's a very specialised style.

Charles Stross uses multiple second-person viewpoints in "Halting State"/"Rule 34" to evoke the feel of an interactive computer game (HS is a sci-fi/crime story about a bank robbery within a World of Warcraft-style MMO), and I can live with it, but I'm not sure it really added to the story.

TENSE:
Past - My favorite method of fictional writing is with a past setting. As I specialize in writing fiction set in the past, it is really the only method available to me, so it is good that I like it.

Past tense is my default; it's serviceable for most purposes and everybody's familiar with it.

Present - Fiction with a present tense ('Jane runs to catch her train' as opposed to 'Jane ran to catch her train') has become more popular in recent years, but I have never liked that style. Some may like it, but its a matter of opinion.

I'm not a fan of present tense just for the sake of it, but there are some things it does really well.

Someone yells "GUN!" and I spin around, but I can't see it. Bang. I drop to the asphalt. Bang. Fragments sting my face. Where's the shooter? Bang. Find cover.

IMHO, something like that feels more natural in present tense. The fragmented style helps put the reader in the narrator's head. You can still do that in past tense, but then it's a bit harder to justify why the narrator hasn't cleaned it up into something dryer.

Present tense is also useful for withholding information about the future of a story; if nothing else, past usually implies that the narrator is still alive at the end of the story, which may not be desirable.

Future - I have never, either on this website or anywhere else, seen fiction using a future tense - 'Jane will go to New York City for a sales conference on Friday. The weather will be bad, and she will need to stay overnight at the hotel. She will meet Andrew, a good-looking guy from New Jersey in the hotel lobby.' Three sentences in, and it already sounds ridiculous. It's not to say it can't be done, but it would take an author of some talent to make it work. Has anyone ever read any fictional work written in a future tense?

Stross again, from the beginning of "Palimpsest":

This will never happen:
You will flex your fingers as you stare at the back of the youth you are going to kill, father to the man who will never now become your grandfather; and as you trail him home through the snowy night, you'll pray for your soul, alone in the darkness...

When you wake up in your dorm two hundred years-objective from now... there will be nobody to comfort you and nobody to hold you. The kindness of your mother's hands and the strength of your father's wrists will be phantoms of memory, ghosts that echo round your bones... They'll have no one to remember their lives but you; and all because you will believe the recruiters when they tell you that to join the organization you must kill your own grandfather, and that if you do not join the organization, you will die.

As you might guess from that excerpt, it's a time-travel story with people who are in the business of erasing and rewriting history; maybe 30% of it is in future tense, though not all second-person. The future tense works for a story where chronology is meant to be confusing, but I certainly wouldn't use it as standard.

Religious prophecy-type stories can also fit into this category, although a lot of them use an "I saw a vision of the future and this is what I saw" past-tense form instead.

 

[robertreams]

I have recently discovered that my novel is written in the first person historical present. I am impressed it has a name.

 

[Carnevil9]

I like first person because it is sneaky. You can "lie" to the reader through having the main character misinterpret something, or merely not know something. The reader won't feel duped; he was just misled right along with the protagonist! If you tried to do that with a third person narrative, the reader will feel that the author lied to him, and will resent it. That's why so many detective novels are written in first person. Anyway, that's my theory.

Being a man, I only write first person from a male perspective. If I have a female protagonist, I always write in third person, because I don't think I could pull it off otherwise. Maybe someday.

 

[Hypoxia]

I like first person because it is sneaky. You can "lie" to the reader through having the main character misinterpret something, or merely not know something. The reader won't feel duped; he was just misled right along with the protagonist! If you tried to do that with a third person narrative, the reader will feel that the author lied to him, and will resent it.

Any POV can plausibly lie, misinterpret, distort, although it's harder with 3rd-person omniscient (3PO). But 3rd limited (3PL) can certainly encompass all the limitations of 1st. That 3PL voice can sit right on the subject's shoulder and look inside their head to perceive through their mental filters. To keep the reader from feeling lied to, a little 3PO could be tossed in to give a wider picture and show (or hint at) the subject's mistakes. As I mentioned earlier, I may also throw in brief sections of 2PO for scene-setting that's more involving than 3PO or is otherwise impossible, like the reader's magic eye cinematic-ally passing through barriers in Bride of Kong. Yes, everything has its place.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I like first person because it is sneaky. You can "lie" to the reader through having the main character misinterpret something, or merely not know something. The reader won't feel duped; he was just misled right along with the protagonist! If you tried to do that with a third person narrative, the reader will feel that the author lied to him, and will resent it. That's why so many detective novels are written in first person. Anyway, that's my theory.

I've read a couple of books that managed to pull this off in third person - one was a detective novel, the other sci-fi. Each of them had a major twist in which it turned out one of the main characters was actually two different people, one of them impersonating the other.

They both used pretty much the same device to lead readers up the garden path without ever actually lying. You get chapters about what the real John Smith is doing, and the Voice Of Author identifies them as John Smith. Then, alternating with those, you get chapters about the fake John Smith that read like this:

"Good evening, I'm Jane Doe."

"John Smith. Pleased to meet you."

"So, John Smith, what do you do for a living?" ...

The author never tells you that it is John Smith, the only voices providing that information are characters who may be fallible or dishonest. But if the author's sneaky enough, you don't notice it until after the big reveal at the end where you go back through those chapters looking for what you missed. It takes a lot of skill but when it works it's impressive.

That said, first person is certainly the simpler option for this sort of story!

 

[CWatson]

Past - My favorite method of fictional writing is with a past setting. As I specialize in writing fiction set in the past, it is really the only method available to me, so it is good that I like it.

Not to sound sanctimonious, but, the chronological setting of a story has nothing to do with what tense it needs to use. Most people use past because it's just what readers are used to, but I could see someone using present tense to disguise the nature of a historical fiction. It could even add an element of drama to the revelation, though the result would be a tad gimmicky.

What I like about present tense is that it adds a sense of immediacy. The Reader is drawn into the moment (at least if it's done well) and carried away. The novelty of the tense helps too. That said, I'd never use it for anything of length, as it can overstay its welcome.

All ye who have posted here saying, "I would never write 1st person for the opposite gender," I heartily suggest you experiment with it. The result may not be your best work, but it never hurts us to push our boundaries. =) Personally, I've done quite a bit of 1P Female work, and while only a few women have ever written me to say, "You really captured what it's like to be a girl," that's still a lot more than I ever expected to say it.

 

[BuckyDuckman]

The stories I've written that I like the best are those when I realized 1st, 2nd, or 3rd person, the narrator is always a character. Always. The voice of the person telling story, regardless of POV, matters. Nail that voice and the rest will probably work out.

 

[TamLin01]

It's only one man's opinion, but I tend to think that third person, past tense is the standard for a reason.

With tense there should be no debate: I find present-tense writing annoying to read, and it feels self-satisfied, as if the writer feels he/she is being very clever. I suppose a future-tense story would be even worse and surely someone out there has tried such an experiment, and I'm glad to have avoided it.

There is an argument to be made for the tangible benefits of writing in the first person, and I think most writers have done it. But I also think you should have a good reason, and that the first person should be an exception rather than a rule. Ultimately, if you find yourself debating this matter extensively, you're probably thinking about it too hard.

 

[tomlitilia]

It has to be either first or third person style for me to read beyond the first paragraph. The second person view is horrible, and could to me only work if I were actually making the story for a specific person (or if someone made it for me), and then I don't get why anyone else would be particularly interested in reading it.

The first person gets annoying sometimes because many authors forget to even mention what sex the person telling the story has.

As for tense, I'm sure present works sometimes but I can't think of a story I enjoyed written as such.

 

[robertreams]

I had a professor who said it was always wrong to write in the first person. When I said to him, "OH, yeah, What about 'Chapter One, I am Born'" (Dickens). He replied: "Well some people can get away with it. Also I recently became aware that at least one piece I have written is told in what someone described as the "1st person historic present."

I am totally uncomfortable writing and reading second person. I have used and read both first and third person used effectively. However, first or third, I do not enjoy writing in which the author uses first person narrative to cover up a plethora of grammatical and style errors by passing them off as "dialog", or when the author injects himself into the story.

Whether the narrator is first person or third they should be cogent and grammatically correct.

The one exception I find for this is the "diary" or "journal" style.

 

[visioneer]

As a reader, I prefer 1st or 3rd POV. With 3rd, I think limited POV is best because it pulls me closer to characters' thoughts and emotions, but with the understanding that the author may of necessity switch to objective from time to time. I am not picky about tense, but I have noticed Lit authors who write present tense sometimes slip into and out of past tense for action occurring in the present, which demolishes the story flow. When writing, I find this is deceptively easy to do, so one must be on guard. I dislike 2nd POV - it feels unnatural no matter how well done.

As a writer, I have used 1st POV present, 1st past, and 3rd past. 1st present was more of an experiment to see if I could pull it (with a female POV) off. Going forward, I will likely lean to past tense as it is what most readers are acclimated to.

With regards to writing from the opposite gender's POV, why not? Beneath the physical differences, men and women experience the same conflicts, motivations, and emotions, and this is what all fiction, erotic or otherwise, is about.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I had a professor who said it was always wrong to write in the first person. When I said to him, "OH, yeah, What about 'Chapter One, I am Born'" (Dickens).

Weird advice. Many of the world's best-selling books are in first person: "Le Petit Prince", "She", "Black Beauty", "Lolita", "Name of the Rose", even parts of the Bible.

 

[TamLin01]

Maybe it's like Machiavelli's advice about Caesar. To paraphrase: "If you're as good as Dickens, write whatever you want. If you aren't, follow my advice."

I'm a reading a Dan Simmons book right now and he is constantly switching from past to present tense and back again for seemingly no reason. It's damn annoying. I've never read his other books so perhaps this is a "trademark" thing he does. I have trouble imagining any editor not nailing him for it otherwise.

 

[MatthewVett]

I tend to do first person past when writing erotica, but third person limited is a close second.

 

[unregistered]

 

[Handley_Page]

I have to confess my total ignorance here.
It is so long since I did any Engl. Lit that tenses, persons and so forth fly past
my head at high altitude and vast speed.

Where's the best place to seek enlightenment please?