Alice Hoffman's Practical Magic was written in third person present tense, and it didn't bother me as much. (It was also a fabulous book.)

But I do think present tense seems to be limited to the "literary fiction" genre (despite Practical Magic being arguably fantasy...).

If you write in this tense, it's your call of course. But your story better be phenomenal.

The book I didn't like was The Street Lawyer, also by Grisham, and that one bugged me to no end. Of course, by that point, I was already tired with Grisham, so that may have affected my judgment.

It's not a matter of how phenomenal the story is. I won't read far enough to find out.

Without exception, every one of them would have been far better written in normal past tense.

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As for FPPT, I havent't read a successful piece... ever, to come to think about it.

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I've read one novel in it: Hardwired, by Walter Jon Williams. In that case, I liked it.

I've written one story in it, because it was the best way to let an ambiguity about time be ambiguous only when it should.

Present tense has become much more common in "literary" fiction, but it is certainly not "de rigeur".

There are reasons to use present tense, and there are reasons to use first person POVs. I've used both. Indeed, I have used both together. I don't recall a single critique on one of my first-person-present-tense stories that so much as commented on the present tense, and the only POV comments were about the shift between two narrators (which I accept has to be done with enormous care and was one of the main reasons I wanted critiques on the piece in question).

As with any technique, it can be done well, and it can be done badly. I don't know why some people seem to have such a phobia about it - it may well be that they haven't read a good example, but I don't think any technique should be discarded without consideration for instances where it might be appropriate.

but when people are reading your piece and all they can think is "holy crap, I hate 1st person present" instead of "wow, great story," you're doing something wrong.

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Go read David Gerrold's Thirteen O'Clock in February's F&SF. Not only is it in first person present tense, it also uses no caps and almost no punctuation.

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I've done it before, though I doubt I'd be able to replicate it as I'm now write Third Person. Well I'm going to give it a go.

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Go read David Gerrold's Thirteen O'Clock in February's F&SF. Not only is it in first person present tense, it also uses no caps and almost no punctuation.

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I read this, and personally didn't like it. It worked as stream-of-consciousness, and I'm put off by that kind of story. Just a personal preference thing, I think. I don't know, it always seems unfinished to me.

That's probably because the only place I use first-person present tense is in freewriting. "I'm hurrying down the deserted path, winter-blackened tree limbs like skeletal arms reaching out to grab whatever comes their way. The sun is setting, the air's frigid, the wind a wall of ice in my face. I pull my cloak closer around me, realizing how futile that gesture is. If the cold doesn't get me soon, then the Hunters will."

Obviously a weak example. But nevertheless, it works for me-- but purely as a method for just getting words on paper.

I can stand third-person present tense for a sense of immediacy. I like first person if there's a strong PoV character. Someone with attitude or a wry sense of humor or just a powerful sense of persona. Yes, this is a childish example, but the best first-person sci-fi I've ever read were the Animorphs books by K. A. Applegate, because there was such a clear sense of character for such short, low-target-age books.

I think most people attempt first-person present to eliminate the assumption that the POV character can't die. In FPPastT, the character is speaking from a distance in time from the events, usually after it's all over, and so they obviously made it through. There's never a question of if they survive. But in FPPresentT, the story could, theoretically, end with the POV character's dying breath.

Which isn't to say that the POV character in FPPastT can't die while in POV. KAA used every trick in the book to make characters die in POV (with varying degrees of success.)Well, every trick except the cliche view-from-the-afterlife. I think she did what she did just to say it can be done. Just nobody else try it, 'cuz it's been done now to death. A couple reasons why she was able to pull it off:

1)The establishment of multiple POV's. Which is easiest when the POV's are clearly distinguishable one from another. Where one POV leaves off, another can pick up the thread of the story.

2)Use of the immediate-past. Instead of a POV character reflecting on events from some distance in the future, we're reading these events more-or-less as they happen. No "only later would I realize" or "of course I didn't see then that X wasn't gonna work and we'd have to try Z". No flashbacks, just straight-forward storytelling for the most part. It's not Pulitzer-Prize winning prose, (what book written at a fifth-grade level was?) Just good storytelling.

So IMHO, if you're going to do First Person, and want something accessible yet not reflecting-from-some-point-in-the-future, try a more immediate approach.

Alright, enough of my rambling. I just want to make one final point: It's okay to experiment if you first know how to follow the rules you intend to be breaking.

I quite enjoyed it.

I kept trying NOT to because there are so many compelling arguments (especially presented here) against its use. I kept trying to let the FFPT get in the way of my liking the story. I kept trying to let it distract me. But to no avail.

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Since I don't have the compunction or the skill to do so, I'll avoid writing it myself.

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However, having said that, I wouldn't wade through a book length of it unless I found something EXTROARDINARILY wonderful about the plot and characters. Not very likely, and I wouldn't give a book very many pages to prove me wrong.

Short stories are different animals to me than novels. I'm much more understanding of experimental voice in shorts, because I know I won't be immersed in them for too long.

EDIT: And gotten away with it?

I'm not sure I'd read a 300-page ransom note. It'd probably be too demanding.

I feel another Ask Mr. Writing Person coming on...

Nothing will come to you.

Nothing.

"You ignorant Philistine!" you'll say to yourself. You'll stand up, walk around, fling a copy of "The Da Vinci Code" at the wall, consider taking up smoking. You'll scrub the grout in the shower with a toothbrush, you'll call your mother, you'll start alphabetizing your spice rack, anything to avoid that empty page, that vast expanse of white.

And then. Finally, all other options exhausted, you'll do what you always do. You'll troll Hatrack looking for topics. Someone will come through for you; they always do.

They always will.

Actually, I'm really looking at zeroth-person present tense, though I don't know whether that would be a character's body part (like a finger), an article of clothing, or, like, a brain cell.

Buzz. Bzz...bzzz. Buzzzzz.

Maybe I'll try them all.