: What are the stylistic advantages/disadvantages of each narrative tense? I often find myself writing multiple copies of everything I write, which is very inefficient, because I'm unsure how which

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If you're talking about past/present, then I agree with Lisa - it's an important decision based on the genre of your work and how you want it to feel.

However, if you're talking about first and third person, it's another important decision that revolves around what kind of story you're trying to tell and how you want it to feel. While first person allows you to develop a character strongly and tell a deeply personal story that lets the reader connect to the main character, it limits you in the way that you can only tell that one person's thoughts, and are limited to telling the story through their eyes only - meaning they need to be present for all important events. Third person allows you to tell a more complex story and show the emotions and thoughts of multiple characters, as well as have scenes with some characters and not others. This allows for a good amount of freedom when writing and is useful for developing characters that the main character isn't close with. At the same time, it does keep the reader in a position where they're on the sidelines watching, as opposed to being right in the action.

The decision is up to you for both, but I hope this helps in case you meant POV instead of tense.

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If you're talking about choosing between past and present tense, it's a deeply subjective and personal decision. Most YA novels are known for present tense narration that arguably gives more immediacy to the action. Past tense is always the safest bet, can do no wrong there. This choice greatly depends on the audience you're writing for and your genre.

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