Hello Garamet Ask Garamet.

George Dawes Green wrote an interesting thriller entirely in present tense. The Juror. A crappy movie, but an interesting and compelling book.

Have you read it? Can you read?

Does anyone know examples of books/stories written in the future tense and/or 2nd person?

Choose Your Own Adventure books, trin.

Yeah, I suppose. But not quite what I was looking for.

The Half Bakery has an hilarious notion of a 2nd Person shooter computer game. You control the weapons, but you see everything form the perspective of the thing you're hunting.

^^Sounds like that'd be damn near impossible to play. Where can I get a copy?

The problem is, an unskilled writer who uses this approach will often let it show too obviously and the reader gets the feeling the plot is "forced". You can sometimes get the feeling the characters are being forced to ride the plot train rather than a story unfolding the way it is meant to.

I hate to read a book with a character that is going in a direction that feels unnatural to the character...ugh. I don't know if I am expressing myself very well here, but I hope you get what I mean. A story without a natural flow..characters going against their apparent nature constantly. That sort of thing.

Oh, I understand what you mean. The idea is to use the plot to illustrate and develop the characters -- they should always be the reader's central focus -- but at the same time, the plot is the engine that drives that illustration and change. If the characters had their druthers, they'd all just sit around chatting and taking tea. Hmmm...

I'm a pretty good writer, my only problem is actually pinning down what to write about. I'll sit down to write something, get inspired, then I'll start thinking about something else and forget about the other thing. Then when I go back, i'm like, what was I doing with this I don't rememeber. So I have sheets and sheets of paper of half written stuff. I think i'm just not meant to write stories, I can write poetry like a madman and finish it, but stories.....I have a difficult time. When I actually get around to writing something real, my characters always seem one dimensional. So yeah, any idea what I could be doing different?

Try a short story instead. 5,000 words maybe. They're generally not about plot, just moments in time. Try and define a couple of characters in a moment in time. See how that goes.

I've written a couple short stories, I think it turned out pretty good. I'll post one and tell me what you think.