: Mentioning quickly repeated events in first person? When writing in first person, is it better to mention as little repetition of events as possible? Or can it improve writing in some cases

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When writing in first person, it is better to mention as little repetition of events as possible unless you're trying to create a particular effect and you are a skilled and inventive writer.

It can improve writing in some cases to have a character duplicate previous events, but some kind of variation in approach to the event is required.

On a basic level: use synonyms for words within the repeated events and (knock/bang/hammer) to show (for example) changing tensions within the character.

On a more complicated level: repeated actions and events can be an opportunity for development of character and/or situation. Think Groundhog Day where, essentially, the same events are being repeated time and again, but the character is developing throughout.

These effects can be easily accomplished by a skilled and resourceful writer. If this is not the case - perhaps stick to a simple approach. Both examples in the question scan well, so this would suggest that the writer would be comfortable with either approach.

Summary: if you have the skill to do it, then do it.

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What attitude on the part of the knocker are you trying to convey?

The second passage gives the impression that the character is not waiting to see if the knocking is answered, they are continuously knocking, which conveys extreme impatience on the part of the knocking character. The first passage implies a respectful waiting of a few moments to see if the door will be answered without continuous pounding.

If you aren't trying to convey either, maybe you should just skip the mechanistic description of knocking on a door, and jump to "There was no answer at the door"

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In your first example, you allow the reader to experience, together with the character, the waiting for an answer and the wondering why nobody opens the door. Each time your character knocks, there's waiting, anticipation, build-up of tension. In your second example, you gloss over those experiments. In your first example, you're showing. In the second - you're telling.

This would be true in third person as much as in first person, by the way.

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I'll agree with Ash, but it depends on the situation. In this one, the events/actions are not a foregone conclusion. If your character is sawing wood or tightening a bolt or having sex or doing anything where repeated action is expected by the reader, detailing the repeated actions gets boring.

Edit in response to comment. On repetitiveness in sex:

I have no problem with either explicit sex scenes or pages of it; but after more than one or two descriptions of thrusting, licking, caresses or orgasms it becomes comical. What extremist metaphor comes next? (pun intended).

My recommendation for writing such scenes is to read and revise them fifty times in a row, or however long it takes to dissipate any arousal they offer the author, to actually be bored reading them so they can be seen objectively, and cut to their essentials to do their job. Even if their job is to titillate, removing repetition here is like removing repetition in prose or dialogue; more concision and originality is needed to prevent the reader from just skipping to the end.

The sex is in the minds of the characters. There is an arc to a sex scene that does not end with physical climax. Sex is about bonding. Creating one, affirming one, damaging or breaking one, with the partner or a third party off stage (e.g. a wife cheating on her husband). In the case of casual sex, it affirms a characters lack of bonds in her/his life, or the weakness of their social bonds. Or sex can signify submission (willing or coerced), oppression (e.g. rape), or a willingness to flout societal standards: All of these involve emotional bonds. Whatever the bond is, finalizing the nature of it, or the transformation of it, is the climax of the sex scene, and it probably does not coincide with the release of fluids. Again, even if the point is titillation or fan service; nothing we write should be completely excisable from the story. Sex scenes should both BE consequences and HAVE consequences in the characters or in how we understand them.

That is why a sex scene can be long and accomplish something. Not because it is full of repetition; but because it is changing somebody, or is the culmination of a change, and that deserves some attention.

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In this case I like the first one better but that probably isn't going to apply universally. For me the way that the first structure stretches the time of the encounter better evokes the feeling of standing on the threshold wondering what goes on. In this case, I feel, that the protagonist's experience of being left waiting is better illustrated by an exact-ish repetition of action.

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