I always found it clunky, particular when the writers are just starting out and tend to overuse I see, I feel, I do, I say in sentence construction. It is harder to make it flow well, because we tend to switch to past tense when telling a story in English vs doing running commentary in present tense on everything that goes on around us (outside the Driver's training heh).
So this is less of a tense issue and more of a tell VS show thing. Words like "see, feel, do, realize, wonder, think" etc are called filter words, which separates the reader from the action by filtering it through the POV character. You can absolutely write any combination of POV and tenses without filtering, but it's a very common rookie mistake!
I myself only started cutting filtering out of my writing about a year ago. I write exclusively in present-tense but when I was a preteen I wrote in past, and I promise I had this issue with both tenses haha
It is less glaring in the Past Tense though because it is more natural, it sort of sticks out worse in present tense, or at least that's how I feel. That was my biggest concern when I tried Present Tense
Nothing a little editing and TLC won't fix! I agree it can be a more common first draft issue for present tense, but I would actually argue I see it much more commonly in first person POV regardless of tense, interestingly. I love writing because it's so versatile haha you can do almost anything with it 
Writing in first person in a way that's not a running mental commentary is hard in my opinion because essentially, even when the writer tries to give a voice to their protagonist, it is rare that they do not bleed into the character and essentially project what they want to portray directly. It is natural to use "I see, feel, do, etc." because that's how we communicate when relaying a story that happened to us to others. But it is also one of the reasons it is harder to find distance and give a realistic description of emotions and actions that is also pleasing to read from an aesthetic/artistic point of view when writing in first person.
Then again, I've noticed that the more simply written stories are often more popular because of the comfort of familiarity and relatability they give to readers.
I totally agree! Writing is incredible and the feeling of creating new worlds and giving life to our characters is just so exhilarating!
It’s not so much relatability or comfort as the essential reading skill. Readers of the free stuff on the internet are often just not particularly well-read.
That might be part of it, true. Then again, how do we define being well-read? Can we only qualify if we are avid readers of the great classics or if we prefer complex, plot twist filled, emotionally wrecking stories? The age of the majority of online readers is statistically low, so it's not a surprise these readers who are often in different levels of their education surrounded by pretentious classics want to get away from all that's high and mighty because it was written by 'important' literary figures decades/centuries ago and just enjoy stories they can understand without doing mental gymnastics.
Does it suck for those, who work hard on creating intricate plotlines with constantly evolving characters only to be overlooked for yet another cliché? It sure does because great complexity won't put bread on the table if one wants to get recognition and money out of writing when left unseen but is it worth becoming popular if it means giving up the quality one values?
(Btw, the stimulation value of Literary/Classical vs Popular Fiction is a fascinating research topic - I've written part of my last thesis on the issue - but sadly not one with much valuable data...)
Classic is not pretentious. It’s the familiarity with printed books that went through editing process, no matter which genre they are and what year they had been written in. In some cases, it’s, regrettably, just literacy. In other cases, it’s ability to focus on sentences, and connect the dots without being explained everything. The whole idea of High Interest, Low Ability level fiction revolves around it & internet tries to emulate it. But it’s hard to stay on low literacy level, while still delivering a story that is not also simplistic plot wise.
personally I always prefer past tense, mostly because present is very trendy right now in YA, and so I tend to get turned off by it. It's weird, because past tense doesn't stand out to me, it feels like a natural tense. But, present tense is just...jarring for me. Like using neon colors in art--it's really nice, and there's nothing wrong with it, but I need a break after a while. So, I only use present tense if I want a jarring shift in the narration, when I do use it, which I do occasionally but that's just a preference.
This could also be because I'm a native English speaker? It's been really interesting to read you guys talk about how a lot of languages just don't have tenses. Since I've only spoken English and Spanish this is like...really fascinating for me, and I wonder if that plays a factor in my preference for the tenses I want to read my books in?
This is a little off track, since we're talking about writing tenses, but when it comes to convoluted storylines (which is every story I write), it's not so much about avoiding cliches but making sure that these complicated story lines are still contained within a simple theme, when all is said and done. So you don't have random outliers, confusing the plot.
Les Mis is long and so complicated--but is about poverty and revolution when you get down to it. Shakespeare had very complicated plays, but the good ones are held together by one dominant message that permeates throughout. Most classics were, at one time, productions that were intended for the every day person. Their way of storytelling with multiple threads still holds up in mainstream storytelling today, so long as we apply it to modern English. The way we actually speak and write today vs like 200 years ago is different...but the story structure hasn't changed too much.
Some people manage to give present tense narration so much fluidity that you actually do not notice it is Present Tense. That’s the pinnacle of the Present Tense mastery.
There is a good possibility of that, yes. because the multitude of English tenses and aspects is natural to you, not to mention as an L1 English speaker you have been exposed to printed English stories generally written in the past tense since you were little, it is what you are more comfortable with. As a Hungarian L1 speaker, I can't really imagine reading, let alone writing, as story in the present tense in Hungarian. At the same time, even with multiple degrees in English the intricacies of tense usage don't always make sense to me when I'm writing a story in the past tense.
Classic often seems pretentious through the eyes of school children, which is partly the fault of the education system for picking books that are jarring, long-winded and not suitable for the age group they were chosen for, and partly the fault of teachers who leave it up entirely to the children to process texts which appear outdated and are way too nuanced for such carelessness. (At least, that's what is going on in my country. Kids especially starting 5th grade get all these summer reading assignments of classics and then when they get back to school they have to take a test on it. Or read the assigned books during the school year without proper discussion because there is no time for that. Which definitely hinders the development of constructive thinking. Although, this makes me wonder if people turn back to High Interest, Low Ability level fiction even when introduced to High Literature because on the one hand, they feel inadequate dealing with complex texts, on the other, it is something they have experience in from childhood and children's stories?
You're right, I totally got off track. I just got fascinated with the idea of familiarity vs ability when it comes to simplified yet popular fiction. I have to agree about how at one time classics were considered mainstream and their language was not out of the norm.
The popularity of George Martin, Joe Abercrombie and Scott Lynch in fantasy says otherwise. Then, again, everyone's favorite punching bag, the 50 Shades of Gray also exists. I dunno. I had never had problems mixing classics with later genre fiction and pulp. I write pulp, I read pulp, but I also love it to be decently written. The low level of writing with repetitive sentence structure dominated by name/pronoun+verb construction is too bland for me.
Reading popular fiction (at least in my book) doesn't equal reading low quality (although, I'm first to admit G. R. R: Martin's A Game of Thrones (never got around to read the other books) was too jarring for me to read. I know many readers hail him as this genius author and plot master, but I couldn't keep up with the mess of switching between character POVs. I'm also one of those people, who just stop reading a story if the writing style doesn't match my tastes), but it appears that because of the amount of marketing Romance as a genre receives, especially nowadays with the surplus of overinflated low quality novels with multiple part movie deals, it's easy to just push every story under the same umbrella. Not to mention, self-publishing and online story-sharing platforms have done a number on the industry as well, no matter how nice it is that more authors get the chance to get their work out there in theory.
Still off-topic (sorry OP!) but what really irks me isn't authors who write in simple sentence structure because that's their current skill level, but the dwindling willingness to accept constructive criticism aimed at helping them improve their writing. How one hopes to get better if they only ever accept senseless praise to their work?
I used to do 1st person a lot but switched to 3rd person, past tense. It flowed a lot better when you think like the story has already happened and is being told to someone else. 1st person POV is tricky. I've read a couple of stories where the writer does a good job with it and you are experiencing everything with the MC. Other stories use what I call the "laundry list", which is their paragraphs basically are: "I ate a banana and then I took a shower. After a shower, I did..." this is more with the experience of an author than anything.
