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[skyfalling]

Random question for you writerly (and readerly) folks on my f-list:

How does the point-of-view and/or tense of any particular piece of writing change how you approach/react to it? I've been thinking about point-of-view ever since I read this bit of meta on writing second-person vs. third-person limited, but it was this comment that prompted my

Comments

[wishpaper]

I tend to pretty much automatically write in third-person limited, present tense. I am awful at first-person - it's hard - and I think I avoid second-person because it's so hard to do well, and almost always ends up sounding laughably pretentious or amateurishly trite, like, O, MY ARTSINESS, LET ME SHOW IT TO YOU. I don't know, I think I also like to have names to work with, and first- and second-person make it really easy to fall into a dark abyss of pronouns.

I am not a fan of the first-person, either, and I'm not exactly sure why, but maybe it's because it has a tendency to sound so much like someone reciting a narrative than actually reading a piece of literature? I don't know, I have never really thought about it.

As for tense - okay, yes, maybe I like present-tense for its artsiness factor. It flows better in my head, with all the s's instead of d's, and I like how it sounds. And also it's easier for me to write like something is happening right now than as if it already happened, and that I think is an entirely mental thing.

[figletofvenice]

I usually write in either the second person or the third person limited, and I write in the present tense pretty much all the time. I hate, hate, hate the first-person, because I think about two people on the face of the planet can do it well, and 1. I am not one of those people, and 2. neither are basically everyone else. I don't like how it reads, and how hard it is to get a sense of the narrator as a character/person. I don't even read published novels in the first person

[usofbs]

lol my answer isn't going to be as long as the others 'cause i'm lazy as hell but ): i write mostly in first/third person, though i've written in second, too. as for past vs. present, i really don't give a shit. i've written in past, and i've written in present. i don't find either one harder to write in than the other.

as long as the author knows what they're doing, who cares.

idk, i guess i don't focus a lot on technical crap like that because it's always seemed ridiculously pointless to me.

[bluntedge]

I FEEL LIKE MAKING THINGS LOOK ORGANIZED, SO...

POV: 3rd person for the win! Usually. Probably because it's hard to go wrong with 3rd person, whereas 1st and 2nd have a tendency to go horribly, horribly awry if they aren't used well, but I've also noticed that using 1st and 2nd person often work more effectively when used in short stories or drabbles. Hmm.

Tense: Present tense bothers me greatly because it often reminds me of doing science labs back in elementary/high school and having to write the procedure all in present tense. *shot* But that said, it also comes across as sounding "funny" to me. Like in that little mini-meta you linked to, I guess it doesn't feel very "immediate". I like to think of it as feeling like watching a bad bootleg DVD where the voices/sounds are all just a split second off from the images on the screen. It's not like it's terrible or anything, but it's very irksome, especially for a long story

[alixtii]

I've written at least one fic in the future tense, although I'm not sure I've read any others.

[daegaer]

I've written one as well.

[alixtii]

And it works!

[jorgan]

holy crap people said a lot, which i won't but. . .

first person? totally in love with...when i'm reading it. i tend to like something more when it's in first person, like i can dig into the characters better, plus it's totally faster for me to read for some reason. a book that's in second or third person usually takes me twice as long to finish, haha. but um, when i write it's usually in third person, unless i've got total control of a character/know them well.

as for tense, usually/mostly all present. shits wonky when you're trying to write in past tense, for me anyway. . .dunno if that all really fits what you were asking, but!