0919105406
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- Dec 19, 2019
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What kind of tense I should use while using first person point of view?
Present tense or past tense?
Present tense or past tense?
1) “I hear a loud noise, so I run out the door and see a tree fell on my shed.”
2) “I heard a loud noise, so I ran out the door and saw a tree fell on my shed.”
I think the problem is how it's written. I'm more in favor of:
"A loud noise?! Running out the door to investigate, I spot a fallen tree on my shed."
or
"Hearing a loud noise, I run out the door to investigate, and see a fallen tree on my shed."
Too many 'I's for present tense. Not may people actually think 'I'. It's mostly an indicator to the reader. Thus the less 'I' you have to put in, the better.
Aren’t you still using 2 tenses in your sentence? “I run out the door”, “and see a fallen tree”. In both of your sentences, the character is describing what is currently happening as well as what happened.
Generally, when writing in past tense everything is past tense unless the character describes something they believe will happen in the future. In present tense writing, it’s possible to have 3 tenses in a single sentence, which imo sounds awkward.