: Re: Can the first-person narrator use both past and present tenses? My first person narrator is telling his story in the past tense but there are present tense realities too that get me confused

@Gonzalez219

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Depends on the voice!
You want the character to sound consistent. First, you want it to be the voice to be consistent with the character, and then you want to be consistent with the manner in which the character is telling the tale.
You have some flexibility here, because readers will accept first-person narrators who are not recounting a tale to their buddies in the bar, or writing up a report for the Celestial Emperor, but just telling their tale to no one in particular for no reason in particular. Still, the story should pick a level of formality and stick to it.
Your examples sound conversational, and therefore, the first one sounds better to me because that is the way people talk. Which does indeed make shifting between tenses tricky to figure out.

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