: Re: In one book can one narrator be in present and the other in past? I'm currently planning a book series that is told from the first person perspective of 5 different characters. I have a different

@XinRu607

It depends on the tense(s) of the five stories in relation to each other and the overall setting, I've seen narratives set in the past in the present tense when telling it in the first person after the fact, and it's quite effective. I've also seen characters tell past narratives in the past tense in a story otherwise told present tense as it unfolds.

So if you characters are relating events that happened earlier chronologically than the setting of the story, i.e. all your characters are sitting in a pub telling each other how they got there or similar, then you can mix and match the tenses they tell their individual stories in without it being too jarring as long as the speaker is clearly identified at any and all change over points between narratives.

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