Narrating the Present

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    This is where someone In-Universe narrates the present, or the possibly future - and when that future eventually becomes the present, the narration in question will be revealed. It's usually stated in past tense, but not always. A Fourth Wall Observer or Third Person Person might do this; expect them to be called on it by another character. Can overlap with Posthumous Narration.

    Note that this is for narration, not a prophecy. Compare Thinking Out Loud. Contrast Present Tense Narrative.

    Examples of Narrating the Present include:

    Anime & Manga

    • This is the Verbal Tic of the Sisters clones in A Certain Magical Index. They will say a sentence then go on to describe what they're doing or feeling at the time as if reading it from a book.
    • Bokurano starts with narration that seems to look back from sometime after the events in the story. then the narrator dies and the narration stops.
    • Azumanga Daioh: While the girls are getting excited over their impending trip to Okinawa, the action freezes and Tomo starts narrating about how the trip would end in tragedy. Yomi tells her to knock it off.

    Comic Books

    Film

    • The Invention of Lying: Mark has created a document he pretends to have "discovered" which tells a magnificent story of aliens, ninjas, and robot dinosaurs, which was allegedly written in the 14th century. The document ends with:

    One day, a great writer by the name of Mark Bellison, would stumble upon them in the desert, after being fired by his shit boss Anthony and mocked by Rob and Shelly, two huge douche bags. Lecture Films Motion Picture Studios would go on to make the picture and it would be a big success, and Mark would become very wealthy and famous from it. The End.

    • In the movie Eat and Run the main character, Detective McSorely, would often narrate the events of his own life. Most of his monologues end with someone asking him who he's talking to.
    • Stranger Than Fiction is on the border. The "narrator" in that case is actually the author and is thus making things happen, not just narrating on them. It could be argued that she's just writing what she "sees" as many authors claim to do, but it is largely implied that she is the creator of the events in the story, and not just the reporter.
    • The Incredible Shrinking Man: Scott narrates the entire movie, but it's strongly implied at the end that he'll shrink down to a subatomic size - so when does he have time to write down what he's saying?

    Literature

    • Alan Mendelsohn, the Boy from Mars by Daniel Pinkwater: Leonard & Alan buy a manuscript on Hyperstellar Archeology and read it, in which it mentions them by name buying the manuscript and reading it.
    • In Discworld the books in Death's library write someone's life as a narratitive as it happens. The last scene of Mort is actually Mort reading that scene from his own book.
    • The Night Circus: (major spoiler) At the end of the book we find out that Widgett, a character whose magic manifests as being able to read people's pasts, is actually retelling the story to Mr. A. H-- because he's collected the pasts of all the characters involved in the story. Doubles with a healthy serving of Mind Screw.

    Live Action TV

    • Omnipresent in the Star Trek franchise, where Captains Logs are recited even when there is no recording device anywhere near and the Logs tend to narrate what's going on at that precise moment. No matter how urgent the matter, there's always time to make a log about it - and no matter how dire the situation, it will be logged in a deadpan tone. In the TOS episode "The Naked Time" Kirk says that something is unknowningly brought aboard - how would he know that?

    Captain's Log, supplemental. Our orbit tightening. Our need for efficiency, critical. But unknown to us, a totally new and unusual disease has been brought aboard.

    • Ultimately subverted in Supernatural where it turns out Chuck really is a Prophet and not just a bad author, as he thinks of himself.
    • Doctor Who: the first episode of "The End of Time" is bookended by seemingly out of universe narration of what is going on in the episode. We discover at the end of the episode that the narrator is the Lord President of Gallifrey, who is the Big Bad of the 2nd episode.
    • Quantum Leap sometimes has Sam giving a past-tense narration in voiceover, although it's unclear when he would have found time to go back and write any of these events down. There's one particularly odd moment in the episode "Play It Again, Seymour:" Sam catches himself using hard-boiled detective slang in the narration, and Sam-on-screen reacts to this, leading to the Fridge Logic conclusion that Sam just walks around mentally narrating his own life in the past tense.
    • In Episode 33 of Monty Python's Flying Circus, an announcer delivers a recap of "The Show So Far," which leads all the way up to:

    "...and a man told us about what happened on the show so far and a great hammer came down and hit him on the head... I don't remember that."

    Newspaper Comics

    Web Comics

    • In Sword And Sarcasm, it's common knowledge that mysterious invisible beings called the Choral Djinn secretly chronicle all the events of our lives. Part of Herbert's curse is that he and anyone standing near him can hear them. That is, they can hear the comic's caption boxes.

    Web Original

    • This is an unconscious habit of the man known as "Kyon" from Fenspace, who keeps up an unconscious running commentary of his life under his breath.

    Western Animation

    • Family Guy, in a Manatee Gag where Peter spent two weeks narrating his life. We see him walk into the kitchen and say aloud:

    I walked into the kitchen and sat down at the table. I looked with a grimace at the questionable meal Lois had placed in front of me. Of course I would never tell her how disgusted I was with her cooking, but somehow I think she knew. Lois had always been full of energy and life, but lately I had begun to grow more aware of her aging: the bright exuberant eyes that I had fallen in love with were now beginning to grow dull and listless with the long fatigue of a weary life. Lois knocks Peter out. Time passes I awoke several hours later in a daze.

    • An episode of American Dad had Klaus doing this. When asked what he was doing he explained he was pretending his life was a DVD and he was doing the audio commentary. Later in the episode Klaus' voice is head narrating over the scene so that we can't hear what anyone is saying. According to Klaus we miss the funniest line in the episode because of this.
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