present tense
Ben Crowell
of the WIP I'm trying to get going on, written both ways. The POV
is omni.
present:
An oxcart jolts up a hot and dusty mountain road, carrying hot
and dusty melons and a hot and dusty French priest. It's noon on
Saint Gervase's Day of Anno Domini 1354, here in Valencia, on the
front lines of Christendom. If it rains on Saint Gervase's Day, it
will portend rain for another forty days and forty nights, but there's
little risk of that. The ox's owner plods along beside it, and
the passenger, meanwhile, begins to feel a kinship with the insensate
melons. The heat hasn't gone down at all since before the siesta, and
as the priest, a Dominican named Bernard, roasts in the sun like a
pig, it seems easier to imagine that he'll be sold at the market than
that he'll dismount from the cart and spring into action against
heresy.
past:
An oxcart jolted up a hot and dusty mountain road, carrying hot
and dusty melons and a hot and dusty French priest. It was noon on
Saint Gervase's Day of Anno Domini 1354, there in Valencia, on the
front lines of Christendom. If it rained on Saint Gervase's Day, it
would portend rain for another forty days and forty nights, but there
was little risk of that. The ox's owner plodded along beside it, and
the passenger, meanwhile, began to feel a kinship with the insensate
melons. The heat hadn't gone down at all since before the siesta, and
as the priest, a Dominican named Bernard, roasted in the sun like a
pig, it seemed easier to imagine that he'd be sold at the market than
that he'd dismount from the cart and spring into action against
heresy.
One thing I like about the present-tense version is that it makes the
omnisicient narrator belong to the time period of the story, so that
it's easier for the reader to accept omniscient assertions that are
made from within the medieval mind-view. Also, I kind of like the
juxtaposition of the modern style with the period, which makes it
feel more like a detective/spy/UFO story (which is what it is) than
a plain old piece of historical fiction. There's a sense of
immediacy, and, e.g., it sounds good to say "here in Valencia,"
rather than "there in Valencia." OTOH, I do find it somewhat
awkward managing the coordination of tenses; e.g., when I read back
over my writing, the use of past rather than past perfect for recounting
earlier events tends to make my mind mistakenly slip into the more
familiar mode where past tense is what's presently going on in the
story.
This is meant to be a piece set in real history, not alternate
history, and I'm shooting for a length of about 20,000 words.
BTW, thanks, all, for the many productive and helpful discussions
when I posted regarding my novel, Have Dominion -- I've just kicked
it out the door today to begin the submission process.
Christopher B. Wright
know why, but it does -- and I suffer from readers fatigue a lot
faster.
Which doesn't mean it can't work, it just means you have that working
against you from the outset.
Christopher B. Wright (ubersoft -at- gmail -dot- com)
nyra
>
> Any opinions on writing in present tense? Here's the first paragraph
> of the WIP I'm trying to get going on, written both ways. The POV
> is omni.
It may be just me, but with the perspective used, i prefer the
past-tense version. Present would work better for me if the
perspective were that of a participant in the events (first person, or
third through the eyes of one character). Present tense to me feels
"close" to events; and i find it causes a sort of friction with the
"distant" PoV.
--
Jos ei sika syö, niin kyllähän piika syö.
Suzanne A Blom
Ben Crowell <"crowell05 at lightSPAMandISmatterEVIL.com"> wrote in message
news:PvKdnf74acb...@adelphia.com...
> Any opinions on writing in present tense? Here's the first paragraph
> of the WIP I'm trying to get going on, written both ways. The POV
> is omni.
>
> present:
> An oxcart jolts up a hot and dusty mountain road, carrying hot
> and dusty melons and a hot and dusty French priest. It's noon on
> Saint Gervase's Day of Anno Domini 1354, here in Valencia, on the
> front lines of Christendom. If it rains on Saint Gervase's Day, it
> will portend rain for another forty days and forty nights, but there's
> little risk of that. The ox's owner plods along beside it, and
> the passenger, meanwhile, begins to feel a kinship with the insensate
> melons. The heat hasn't gone down at all since before the siesta, and
> as the priest, a Dominican named Bernard, roasts in the sun like a
> pig, it seems easier to imagine that he'll be sold at the market than
> that he'll dismount from the cart and spring into action against
> heresy.
I like this BUT I expect an "I" to pop into view in the next paragraph or
so--a watcher on a nearby hill, perhaps.
>
> past:
> An oxcart jolted up a hot and dusty mountain road, carrying hot
> and dusty melons and a hot and dusty French priest. It was noon on
> Saint Gervase's Day of Anno Domini 1354, there in Valencia, on the
> front lines of Christendom. If it rained on Saint Gervase's Day, it
> would portend rain for another forty days and forty nights, but there
> was little risk of that. The ox's owner plodded along beside it, and
> the passenger, meanwhile, began to feel a kinship with the insensate
> melons. The heat hadn't gone down at all since before the siesta, and
> as the priest, a Dominican named Bernard, roasted in the sun like a
> pig, it seemed easier to imagine that he'd be sold at the market than
> that he'd dismount from the cart and spring into action against
> heresy.
You're right this is a bit distancing, but rewording would likely fix that.
>
> One thing I like about the present-tense version is that it makes the
> omnisicient narrator belong to the time period of the story, so that
> it's easier for the reader to accept omniscient assertions that are
> made from within the medieval mind-view. Also, I kind of like the
> juxtaposition of the modern style with the period, which makes it
> feel more like a detective/spy/UFO story (which is what it is) than
> a plain old piece of historical fiction. There's a sense of
> immediacy, and, e.g., it sounds good to say "here in Valencia,"
> rather than "there in Valencia." OTOH, I do find it somewhat
> awkward managing the coordination of tenses; e.g., when I read back
> over my writing, the use of past rather than past perfect for recounting
> earlier events tends to make my mind mistakenly slip into the more
> familiar mode where past tense is what's presently going on in the
> story.
If the omniscient narrator is a real character of sorts--not necessarily a
person but definitely a chatterer, I believe I could go with the present
tense.
Fixing tense lapses is for 2nd draft(or even 3d); &, of course, one can do
it one way now, decide you don't like it, &--after saving the 1st
version--try the other way.
> This is meant to be a piece set in real history, not alternate
> history, and I'm shooting for a length of about 20,000 words.
>
Yeah, if our narrator, says things like, "You may not have heard of.... Of
course, Don Bernardo says...." It would add a nice touch if they're real
events & real cites.
Sea Wasp
> Any opinions on writing in present tense?
If you feel it works better, go for it. But that should be a STRONG
feeling; present tense IS jarring for most people to read.
It CAN work -- Modesitt got away with it quite nicely (IMCGO) in some
of his Recluce books.
--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Live Journal: http://www.livejournal.com/users/seawasp/
Brian M. Scott
at lightSPAMandISmatterEVIL.com> wrote in
<news:PvKdnf74acb...@adelphia.com> in
rec.arts.sf.composition:
> Any opinions on writing in present tense?
Yes: in general I dislike it a great deal, especially at
novel length. There have been rare exceptions -- some of
Modesitt's novels come to mind -- but they are very
definitely exceptions.
[...]
Brian
Patricia C. Wrede
news:PvKdnf74acb...@adelphia.com...
> Any opinions on writing in present tense?
Present tense, like second-person POV, is a lot more common than it used to
be, especially in shorter fiction. Bear in mind that "a lot more common" is
on the order of doubling from 1% to 2%, not from 10% to 20%; it's still not
something a lot of readers are accustomed to seeing or are comfortable with.
If it feels better to *you* in present tense, write it that way. If present
tense "just feels right", you will probably write the story slightly
differently in ways you might not realize, simply because this is how your
backbrain wants to tell the story. You can always switch it back later, if
it doesn't seem to work when the piece is finished. Trust your instincts.
Patricia C. Wrede
lclough
> Any opinions on writing in present tense? Here's the first paragraph
> of the WIP I'm trying to get going on, written both ways. The POV
> is omni.
>
If you must use present tense, do not try and carry it over a
long work.
I've only done it once. The story is up on the CHRISTIANITY
TODAY web site.
Brenda
--
---------
Brenda W. Clough
http://www.sff.net/people/Brenda/
Recent short fiction: PARADOX, Autumn 2003
http://home.nyc.rr.com/paradoxmag//index.html
Upcoming short fiction in FIRST HEROES (TOR, May '04)
http://members.aol.com/wenamun/firstheroes.html
Brooks Moses
[...]
> past:
> An oxcart jolted up a hot and dusty mountain road, carrying hot
> and dusty melons and a hot and dusty French priest. It was noon on
> Saint Gervase's Day of Anno Domini 1354, there in Valencia, on the
> front lines of Christendom.
> One thing I like about the present-tense version is that it makes the
> omnisicient narrator belong to the time period of the story, so that
> it's easier for the reader to accept omniscient assertions that are
> made from within the medieval mind-view. Also, I kind of like the
> juxtaposition of the modern style with the period, which makes it
> feel more like a detective/spy/UFO story (which is what it is) than
> a plain old piece of historical fiction. There's a sense of
> immediacy, and, e.g., it sounds good to say "here in Valencia,"
> rather than "there in Valencia."
One thing I want to pick out to comment on: I definitely agree that
"here in Valencia" sounds better. However, that's a completely separate
axis from the present/past tense thing; you can perfectly well say "here
in Valencia" in past tense as well as present. (Or, for that matter,
"there in Valencia" in present tense.)
Personally, in the snippets that you've posted, the present-tense
doesn't make the narrator sound like he belongs to the time period; it
makes him sound like a television reporter covering it "on the scene".
I think a lot of that's in the details of how it's handled, though -- it
comes off a bit as "It's noon on Saint Gervase's day of 1354, here at
the Valencia sports pavilion, and, Bob, it's a very hot day today, with
no chance of rain...." That sort of attention to the time and generic
aspects of the weather seems a bit off to me, because if this were
really being told in present tense to a present listener, they'd _know_
what day it was.
- Brooks
--
The "bmoses-nospam" address is valid; no unmunging needed.
Zeborah
> Ben Crowell wrote:
> > Any opinions on writing in present tense? Here's the first paragraph
> > of the WIP I'm trying to get going on, written both ways. The POV
> > is omni.
>
> If you must use present tense, do not try and carry it over a
> long work.
Some hate it, some are okay with it, some like it. I wrote a novel in
first person present; it refused to work any other way. It mightn't get
published as is, but certainly wouldn't have been published otherwise,
because I couldn't fix it or even quite intuit what I was doing wrong.
All else being equal, I'd probably write in past; but if the story wants
to be in present you may not be able to argue.
Zeborah
--
Gravity is no joke.
http://www.geocities.com/zeborahnz/
Gerry Quinn
<"crowell05 at lightSPAMandISmatterEVIL.com"> says...
> Any opinions on writing in present tense? Here's the first paragraph
> of the WIP I'm trying to get going on, written both ways. The POV
> is omni.
When I'm thinking of an idea, or at least an action scene, I write it
on my brain-pad in present tense.
My instinct is that when you write, however, you should use past tense
by default, and only use present tense when it is really demanded for
stylistic reasons. (One example might be at the end of a story to
describe an ongoing repetitive situation.)
Perhaps the definitive argument is based on the Golden Rule: what if
everyone did it?
- Gerry Quinn
wen...@cix.compulink.co.uk
lightSPAMandISmatterEVIL.com" (Ben Crowell) wrote:
> it sounds good to say "here in Valencia,"
> rather than "there in Valencia."
Well, you don't have to say "there in Valencia". You can just say "in
Valencia"
wg
Darkhawk (H. Nicoll)
> lclough <clo...@erols.com> wrote:
> > Ben Crowell wrote:
> > > Any opinions on writing in present tense? Here's the first paragraph
> > > of the WIP I'm trying to get going on, written both ways. The POV
> > > is omni.
> >
> > If you must use present tense, do not try and carry it over a
> > long work.
>
> Some hate it, some are okay with it, some like it.
I was well over halfway through . . . the hell was it. _Snow Crash_,
that was it, before I noticed it was in present.
The WIP is based on a present tense short; I suspect that that's why I
keep having tense errors in it.
--
Darkhawk - H. A. Nicoll - http://aelfhame.net/~darkhawk/
They are one person, they are two alone
They are three together, they are for each other
- "Helplessly Hoping", Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young
Catja Pafort
> Any opinions on writing in present tense? Here's the first paragraph
> of the WIP I'm trying to get going on, written both ways. The POV
> is omni.
<snip samples>
I've written present (short), past (usually, any length), and mixed
(Valendon's diary. And, incidentally, although I've only just realised
it, the internal dialogue [1st person] in Source of Evil. I don't
recommend it.)
What strikes me is that you've simply flipped the verbs from one state
to another. In my experience, both past and present have their own
rhythm, and while you can certainly write in either (my personal
preference is for past tense) you need to find the right voice to go
with the tense, and the story will end up slightly differently, just as
you can't supplant 'he went' for 'I went' to rewrite from a different
PoV.
I'm finding past tense standing out less; I don't think about it, it
blends into the background. Present tense somehow seems less flexible to
me, less intimate.
Catja
Carl Dershem
news:PvKdnf74acb...@adelphia.com:
> Any opinions on writing in present tense? Here's the first paragraph
> of the WIP I'm trying to get going on, written both ways. The POV
> is omni.
The problem I have with present tense is that it's damned hard to maintain
for any great length.
Well, that, and that it's so often horribly badly done. Your example
worked, but... it would usually be difficult to keep it going very long.
cd
--
The difference between immorality and immortality is "T". I like Earl
Grey.
Patricia C. Wrede
news:Xns96AF99F62CD...@68.6.19.6...
> Ben Crowell <"crowell05 at lightSPAMandISmatterEVIL.com"> wrote in
> news:PvKdnf74acb...@adelphia.com:
>
>> Any opinions on writing in present tense? Here's the first paragraph
>> of the WIP I'm trying to get going on, written both ways. The POV
>> is omni.
>
> The problem I have with present tense is that it's damned hard to maintain
> for any great length.
That is not, IMO, a good reason not to try.
"It's not right for the story" is a really good reason. "I don't have the
chops yet" might be a good reason, if one doesn't think one can learn the
chops on the job this go-around, so to speak. "I don't want to write it
that way" is a fairly good reason for a lot of things. But "It's too hard"
is just whining.
Patricia C. Wrede
Mary K. Kuhner
There's another sense of "hard to maintain" here, though. I can't speak
for present tense in general, but I found the specific present-tense
sample, while enjoyable, something that would fatigue me *as a reader*
if the story went on and on like that. To me it's very strongly
flavored, and as with spicy food, a little is nice but a lot is
overwhelming. (Also as with spicy food, some readers/eaters will
disagree.)
To make this work in present tense, for me as a reader, you'd have
to break up the tone of the passage we've seen with stretches that
were less...I'm not sure what to call it. Passages with less attitude,
where the prose drew less attention to itself, and the filtering was
less intense. Otherwise it had better be a short story or I'm likely
to stop reading out of exhaustion. It's like having someone very
vivacious talk to you--after a while it's just too much, nice though
it may be at the start.
For whatever reason, the past-tense version didn't seem quite so
strongly flavored. It would probably be even less so if rewritten
to be more natively past tense (am I right in guessing that the
present-tense version is the original?)
So "hard to maintain" might mean "hard to make palatable to the reader
over the long haul" and I think that that's a legitimate concern.
(To the extent that thinking about the reader is ever a legitimate
concern--that's been debated aplenty here too.)
I have a novel that's ruthlessly in first person present: it doesn't
work in past. I don't have much perspective to know if it's too
spicy yet; I figure I'll worry about that when I figure out the
ending, without which it's not going to fly no matter what tense it's
in....
Mary Kuhner mkku...@eskimo.com
Carl Dershem
> over the long haul" and I think that that's a legitimate concern.
> (To the extent that thinking about the reader is ever a legitimate
> concern--that's been debated aplenty here too.)
I find it both difficult to write (which just means working harder) and
difficult to read. It's rare to find an instance where something in that
style could not be done just as well in a different style.
Of course, I like to mix things up, using a bit of this and a bit of that,
but generally *for spice* - not as the main flavor.
Anna Mazzoldi
> Personally, in the snippets that you've posted, the present-tense
> doesn't make the narrator sound like he belongs to the time period;
> it makes him sound like a television reporter covering it "on the
> scene".
That was also my exact reaction -- which became really strong with that
"here in Valencia".
--
Anna Mazzoldi <http://aynathie.livejournal.com/>
It's difficult to unsee what you've once seen.
-- Mary Gentle on rasfc
Patricia C. Wrede
>> So "hard to maintain" might mean "hard to make palatable to the reader
>> over the long haul" and I think that that's a legitimate concern.
>> (To the extent that thinking about the reader is ever a legitimate
>> concern--that's been debated aplenty here too.)
>
> I find it both difficult to write (which just means working harder) and
> difficult to read. It's rare to find an instance where something in that
> style could not be done just as well in a different style.
>
> Of course, I like to mix things up, using a bit of this and a bit of that,
> but generally *for spice* - not as the main flavor.
There was a really effective little mainstream story I read once that
switched tenses as a way of emphasizing structure. The story had two
parallel plots, one in "present day" and one in twenty-years-ago flashback,
told in alternating scenes. And the "present day" part was in simple past
tense, and all the flashbacks were in present tense. It worked *really*
well, for that story.
Patricia C. Wrede
Patricia C. Wrede
news:ddgn0a$2me$1...@gnus01.u.washington.edu...
> So "hard to maintain" might mean "hard to make palatable to the reader
> over the long haul" and I think that that's a legitimate concern.
> (To the extent that thinking about the reader is ever a legitimate
> concern--that's been debated aplenty here too.)
"This is hard for me to read" is a legitimate reader's concern, and useful
writer feedback. For the writer, it translates to "does not work for this
reader yet; needs more work," which, for me, is part of "hard to do."
You're right, though; it's a slightly different *sort* of hard to do from
"hard to keep tense and voice consistent over the writing of many pages."
It's ... I suppose I'd call it the next step up. First, you have to be able
to *do* it consistently, all the way through; after that, you have to make
it *work* for the reader(s). (Assuming, of course, that both things don't
just sort of jumble themselves together as part of the writing process,
which is how it frequently seems to work for me. There are times when I
wish my backbrain was...tidier.)
> I have a novel that's ruthlessly in first person present: it doesn't
> work in past. I don't have much perspective to know if it's too
> spicy yet; I figure I'll worry about that when I figure out the
> ending, without which it's not going to fly no matter what tense it's
> in....
First-person, present-tense seems to me to be a fairly natural fit; the only
thing that seems more inevitable (to me, anyway) is second-person, present
tense, and that's *really* uncommon. So I think you have good odds. You're
right about the ending, though.
Patricia C. Wrede
R. L.
lightSPAMandISmatterEVIL.com"> wrote:
>Any opinions on writing in present tense? Here's the first paragraph
>of the WIP I'm trying to get going on, written both ways. The POV
>is omni.
>
>present:
> An oxcart jolts up a hot and dusty mountain road, carrying hot
> and dusty melons and a hot and dusty French priest. It's noon on
> Saint Gervase's Day of Anno Domini 1354, here in Valencia, on the
> front lines of Christendom.
Personallly I don't like it. Sounds like a travelog, or some sort of
preface in a dull semi-historical.
> If it rains on Saint Gervase's Day, it
> will portend rain for another forty days and forty nights, but there's
> little risk of that.
This is a different sort of tense that's hard to distinguish from the
present above.
> The ox's owner plods along beside it, and
> the passenger, meanwhile, begins to feel a kinship with the insensate
> melons.
Bwuh.
> The heat hasn't gone down at all since before the siesta, and
> as the priest, a Dominican named Bernard, roasts in the sun like a
> pig, it seems easier to imagine
For whom to imagine? For a moment I thought you were dipping into the
priest's POV.
> that he'll be sold at the market than
> that he'll dismount from the cart and spring into action against
> heresy.
This sounds like the Travelog Narrator telling us about what is fated to
happen, or about something that we already know happened in history.. The
other version might be letting us into Bernard's thoughts about what he
intends to do, or has been sent to do.
>
>past:
> An oxcart jolted up a hot and dusty mountain road, carrying hot
> and dusty melons and a hot and dusty French priest.
I like that. It establishes a tone loud and clear. Kind of 1950s quaint,
era of THE MOUSE THAT ROARED.
> It was noon on
> Saint Gervase's Day of Anno Domini 1354, there in Valencia, on the
> front lines of Christendom.
I like that line.
> If it rained on Saint Gervase's Day, it
> would portend rain for another forty days and forty nights, but there
> was little risk of that.
Saying 'little risk' makes me expect further exposition about just how much
risk and why. Maybe it's ironic but I still hesitate.
I'd like something stronger than a comma before 'but'. Also the sentence
has too many empty words like 'it', 'there', 'that.' How about something
like this:
Rain on St Gervase's Day would have portended rain for another forty days
and forty nights: but today there was little risk of rain.
That would continue your pattern of repetition: hot and dusty / forty and
forty / rain.
>The ox's owner plodded along beside it, and
> the passenger, meanwhile, began to feel a kinship with the insensate
> melons.
Tenses a bit wonky. Meanwhile? That seems a bit too specific.
> The heat hadn't gone down at all since before the siesta, and
> as the priest, a Dominican named Bernard, roasted in the sun like a
> pig, it seemed easier to imagine that he'd be sold at the market than
> that he'd dismount from the cart and spring into action against
> heresy.
Ok, now here it does seem like a drop into Bernard's POV, no problem.
>One thing I like about the present-tense version is that it makes the
>omnisicient narrator belong to the time period of the story, so that
>it's easier for the reader to accept omniscient assertions that are
>made from within the medieval mind-view.
Not for me. A conventional past tense narrator is less visible. Present
makes him unusual, visible -- and he sounds like a narrator in a
documentary or something.
> Also, I kind of like the
>juxtaposition of the modern style with the period, which makes it
>feel more like a detective/spy/UFO story (which is what it is) than
>a plain old piece of historical fiction. There's a sense of
>immediacy, and, e.g., it sounds good to say "here in Valencia,"
>rather than "there in Valencia."
If it feels good to you, go for it! Whatever makes the first draft flow.
You can decide and change the tense later.
R.L.
--
RL at houseboatontheganges dot com
for Indian river read styx
Zeborah
> There was a really effective little mainstream story I read once that
> switched tenses as a way of emphasizing structure. The story had two
> parallel plots, one in "present day" and one in twenty-years-ago flashback,
> told in alternating scenes. And the "present day" part was in simple past
> tense, and all the flashbacks were in present tense. It worked *really*
> well, for that story.
<twitch> As a reader, even if it worked, I'd be internally demanding to
know why the writer didn't do it the other way around: present tense
for present day, simple past for flashbacks.
If there's a reason, that's cool; thematic/emotional reasons about the
flashbacks being of events that are "still with" the protag in some
important way, for example. But... it still makes me twitchy.
Brian M. Scott
<pwred...@aol.com> wrote in
<news:11fo0k8...@corp.supernews.com> in
rec.arts.sf.composition:
[...]
> First-person, present-tense seems to me to be a fairly
> natural fit;
Can you say why? From my point of view first person is a
*very* bad fit for present tense narration of any length,
almost guaranteed to take me out of the story.
[...]
Brian
Brooks Moses
> There was a really effective little mainstream story I read once that
> switched tenses as a way of emphasizing structure. The story had two
> parallel plots, one in "present day" and one in twenty-years-ago flashback,
> told in alternating scenes. And the "present day" part was in simple past
> tense, and all the flashbacks were in present tense. It worked *really*
> well, for that story.
Interesting -- logically, it would seem that that's "backwards" from how
it should be, but even in that short description it seeems that it works
better that way, and I'm sure it definitely works better in the actual
story. I wonder why that is -- it seems like there's something
meaningful there, but I'm not sure what.
Brooks Moses
Now that _is_ amusing -- here I was, at the same time, having exactly
the opposite reaction!
Thinking about that a bit more, I think what the use of present tense
for the flashbacks does for me is make them feel somewhat dreamlike and
detached from time, when contrasted against the "normal" past tense of
the present-day part of the story. It's explicitly setting the
flashbacks off as fitting in _differently_ from the current-day stuff,
which is a very different effect from the usage -- somewhat more
familiar in SF, I think -- of using "flashbacks" merely as a way of
telling the story in a non-linear fashion.
R. L.
<ger...@DELETETHISindigo.ie> wrote:
/snip/
>When I'm thinking of an idea, or at least an action scene, I write it
>on my brain-pad in present tense.
Brain pad?
When I'm trying to record the content of an action scene or such, often I
use present to remind myself this is just a note, not to get hung up on
making the words final perfect. Using placemarkers and not correcting
spelling helps also.
>My instinct is that when you write, however, you should use past tense
>by default, and only use present tense when it is really demanded for
>stylistic reasons.
Me too. Kind of the grammatical equivalent of italics. :-)
R. L.
<bmoses...@cits1.stanford.edu> wrote:
>Ben Crowell wrote:
>[...]
>> past:
>> An oxcart jolted up a hot and dusty mountain road, carrying hot
>> and dusty melons and a hot and dusty French priest. It was noon on
>> Saint Gervase's Day of Anno Domini 1354, there in Valencia, on the
>> front lines of Christendom.
Seeing this again I had another thought. As this is, it is rather
mannered, distant: the repetition, the nice phrase about 'front lines o
Christendom.' Highly colored, highly flavored. (I like it. :-)
But being in present tense is also a mannered, distant, highly flavored
thing. I won't say the two flavors are too much, but rather the present
tense detracts from the flavor of the other, sort of cancels it out.
>[...]
>> One thing I like about the present-tense version is that it makes the
>> omnisicient narrator belong to the time period of the story, so that
>> it's easier for the reader to accept omniscient assertions that are
>> made from within the medieval mind-view. Also, I kind of like the
>> juxtaposition of the modern style with the period, which makes it
>> feel more like a detective/spy/UFO story (which is what it is) than
>> a plain old piece of historical fiction. There's a sense of
>> immediacy, and, e.g., it sounds good to say "here in Valencia,"
>> rather than "there in Valencia."
>[...]
>
>One thing I want to pick out to comment on: I definitely agree that
>"here in Valencia" sounds better. However, that's a completely separate
>axis from the present/past tense thing; you can perfectly well say "here
>in Valencia" in past tense as well as present. (Or, for that matter,
>"there in Valencia" in present tense.)
As someone said, he could also leave out 'here' or 'there' and just have
'in Valencia.' Fresher, cleaner, less pretentious.
>
>Personally, in the snippets that you've posted, the present-tense
>doesn't make the narrator sound like he belongs to the time period; it
>makes him sound like a television reporter covering it "on the scene".
>I think a lot of that's in the details of how it's handled, though -- it
>comes off a bit as "It's noon on Saint Gervase's day of 1354, here at
>the Valencia sports pavilion, and, Bob, it's a very hot day today, with
>no chance of rain...." That sort of attention to the time and generic
>aspects of the weather seems a bit off to me, because if this were
>really being told in present tense to a present listener, they'd _know_
>what day it was.
Very good point about content. Doesn't the present tense increase this
effect, Bob?
R.L.
--
RL at houseboatontheganges dot com
for Indian river read styx
>
>- Brooks
Zeborah
> On Thu, 11 Aug 2005 20:52:32 -0500, "Patricia C. Wrede"
> <pwred...@aol.com> wrote in
> <news:11fo0k8...@corp.supernews.com> in
> rec.arts.sf.composition:
>
> > First-person, present-tense seems to me to be a fairly
> > natural fit;
>
> Can you say why? From my point of view first person is a
> *very* bad fit for present tense narration of any length,
> almost guaranteed to take me out of the story.
For me myself, it's not so much that first person naturally fits present
tense, but that present tense naturally fits first person.
When I started writing the Darn Book as first person, it downright
*refused* to be past tense. It wanted to be stream-of-consciousness,
present tense only (flashbacks aside; those were past).
This is because for me I need to know, with first person and omniscient
and even camera-eye(1), who is telling the story and why. (With tight
third I don't.) And I knew subconsciously -- and consciously, when I
tried to figure out what was going on -- that the Darn Book's narrator
would _never_ tell that story in the same way she experienced it.
(She might tell a symbolic, mythologised version of it, but that wasn't
the story I wanted to tell. Or she might tell an abbreviated censored
version of it, but that wasn't the story I wanted to tell either.)
So the only way to get the story the way she experienced it using first
person was to take it straight from her brain the instant it all
happened, using stream-of-consciousness (edited for readability) and
present tense.
Zeborah
(1) Every time I've attempted camera-eye, it's with a literal camera,
and I've always known why the cameras were there.
Zeborah
> Thinking about that a bit more, I think what the use of present tense
> for the flashbacks does for me is make them feel somewhat dreamlike and
> detached from time, when contrasted against the "normal" past tense of
> the present-day part of the story.
Ah, that's right. Some people made comments about the phenomenon in
relation to my present-tense novel, but I forgot about it, since I tend
to think about tenses much more pragmatically.
R. L.
<bmoses...@cits1.stanford.edu> wrote:
>Zeborah wrote:
>> Patricia C. Wrede <pwred...@aol.com> wrote:
>>>There was a really effective little mainstream story I read once that
>>>switched tenses as a way of emphasizing structure. The story had two
>>>parallel plots, one in "present day" and one in twenty-years-ago flashback,
>>>told in alternating scenes. And the "present day" part was in simple past
>>>tense, and all the flashbacks were in present tense. It worked *really*
>>>well, for that story.
I can imagine it working well. Tho I'm not sure I'd like the story, if that
makes any sense.
/snip/
>> If there's a reason, that's cool; thematic/emotional reasons about the
>> flashbacks being of events that are "still with" the protag in some
>> important way, for example.
I thought that was sort of a trope.
I tend to associate present tense with arty/pretentious or ominous, etc.
Or with dreams, memories, which are all too often syrupy or traumatic. Too
much of that sort of content might make me itchy, anyway.
/snip/
>Thinking about that a bit more, I think what the use of present tense
>for the flashbacks does for me is make them feel somewhat dreamlike and
>detached from time,
Yes. That's my main reaction.
>when contrasted against the "normal" past tense of
>the present-day part of the story. It's explicitly setting the
>flashbacks off as fitting in _differently_ from the current-day stuff,
>which is a very different effect from the usage -- somewhat more
>familiar in SF, I think -- of using "flashbacks" merely as a way of
>telling the story in a non-linear fashion.
Yes. That puts well something I felt but was too lazy to dig into.
Brian M. Scott
<zeb...@gmail.com> wrote in
<news:1h16vao.1dh843iodk7r0N%zeb...@gmail.com> in
rec.arts.sf.composition:
> Brian M. Scott <b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote:
>> On Thu, 11 Aug 2005 20:52:32 -0500, "Patricia C. Wrede"
>> <pwred...@aol.com> wrote in
>> <news:11fo0k8...@corp.supernews.com> in
>> rec.arts.sf.composition:
>>> First-person, present-tense seems to me to be a fairly
>>> natural fit;
>> Can you say why? From my point of view first person is a
>> *very* bad fit for present tense narration of any length,
>> almost guaranteed to take me out of the story.
> For me myself, it's not so much that first person
> naturally fits present tense, but that present tense
> naturally fits first person.
> When I started writing the Darn Book as first person, it
> downright *refused* to be past tense. It wanted to be
> stream-of-consciousness, present tense only (flashbacks
> aside; those were past).
> This is because for me I need to know, with first person
> and omniscient and even camera-eye(1), who is telling the
> story and why. (With tight third I don't.) And I knew
> subconsciously -- and consciously, when I tried to figure
> out what was going on -- that the Darn Book's narrator
> would _never_ tell that story in the same way she
> experienced it.
[...]
> So the only way to get the story the way she experienced
> it using first person was to take it straight from her
> brain the instant it all happened, using
> stream-of-consciousness (edited for readability) and
> present tense.
I simply can't imagine (myself) writing such a story. If
anything remotely similar wanted to be written, I'm pretty
sure that it would present itself as omni.
Brian
Ben Crowell
that the sample present-tense paragraph I gave creates
a lot of strong impressions, many of them negative. On
the other hand, a strong impression is at least better than
a weak one.
Experimenting with the technique, one thing I'm finding is
that the present tense needs to be asserted frequently
in order to stick. A few sentences in some other tense, and
all of a sudden it's lost. It's sort of like playing music in a
Church mode (i.e., not the standard major or minor, but
mixolydian or something) --- our ears don't want to believe
that the tonic is really the tonic, unless the composer
really REALLY *R*E*A*L*L*Y* emphasize it.
I think I'm going to stick with present, for the present,
and see if it drives me crazy trying to keep it up.
My wife (she of the PhD in literature) is about ready to
stab me in the eyeballs with a pencil for doing
something so idiotic :-) Somehow it just seems to fit my
characters, theme, and setting. This is just a few years
after the first outbreak of the Black Death, and people
are living for the present, because there may be no
tomorrow. Bernard, the main character, is someone who
needs to wake up from a life of sleepwalking and change
his life, and the present tense has that dreamlike quality
to it.
Lucy Kemnitzer
When a regular ordinary flesh and blood person tells a story about
something they've done or experienced, they will often slip into
present tense when the story gets interesting, scary, overwhelming,
funny, or enraging.
So if a written story is being told in either a colloquial register or
a less-colloquial, but intimate register, it just works that way,
sometimes.
I don't, myself, think this makes a story more realistic and
immediate: I think it makes the story more dreamlike and out of the
ordinary.
Lucy Kemnitzer, still
http://www.baymoon.com/~ritaxis
http://www.livejournal.com/users/ritaxis
Irina Rempt
> "This is hard for me to read" is a legitimate reader's concern, and
> useful
> writer feedback. For the writer, it translates to "does not work for
> this reader yet; needs more work," which, for me, is part of "hard to
> do."
That something doesn't work for one particular reader isn't reason enough
to think that it needs more work, no? I thought *you* were the person who
said that it's impossible to please all readers anyway, so it's an
unprofitable thing to aspire to.
Irina
--
Vesta veran, terna puran, farenin. http://www.valdyas.org/irina/
Beghinnen can ick, volherden will' ick, volbringhen sal ick.
http://www.valdyas.org/foundobjects/index.cgi Latest: 10-Aug-2005
Gerry Quinn
spams.coms says...
> On Thu, 11 Aug 2005 11:59:11 +0100, Gerry Quinn
> <ger...@DELETETHISindigo.ie> wrote:
>
> >When I'm thinking of an idea, or at least an action scene, I write it
> >on my brain-pad in present tense.
>
> Brain pad?
I can sit musing in the bar over a pint and create several paragraphs,
or at least a number of sentences, that I'll remember fairly well when
the time comes to write them down.
If I ever get published, I won't be too self-conscious to keep a
notebook ;-)
> When I'm trying to record the content of an action scene or such, often I
> use present to remind myself this is just a note, not to get hung up on
> making the words final perfect. Using placemarkers and not correcting
> spelling helps also.
>
> >My instinct is that when you write, however, you should use past tense
> >by default, and only use present tense when it is really demanded for
> >stylistic reasons.
>
> Me too. Kind of the grammatical equivalent of italics. :-)
Yes, that's a good metaphor for what I was thinking.
- Gerry Quinn
Zeborah
> On Fri, 12 Aug 2005 16:13:05 +1200, Zeborah
> <zeb...@gmail.com> wrote in
> <news:1h16vao.1dh843iodk7r0N%zeb...@gmail.com> in
> rec.arts.sf.composition:
>
> > So the only way to get the story the way she experienced
> > it using first person was to take it straight from her
> > brain the instant it all happened, using
> > stream-of-consciousness (edited for readability) and
> > present tense.
>
> I simply can't imagine (myself) writing such a story. If
> anything remotely similar wanted to be written, I'm pretty
> sure that it would present itself as omni.
It started as omni, sort of. Dreadfully written omni. Then I tried
multi-pov. Then I tried an odd mixture of omni and camera-eye. Then I
tried single pov tight third. At every stage my crit group screamed and
shouted and threw things at me because my protag was showing no emotion;
I was thoroughly stuck on showing her thought processes through even
that thin filter of tight third. So in desperation I tried first, and
it was a hundred-fold improvement.
Zeborah
Michelle Bottorff
> That is not, IMO, a good reason not to try.
>
> "It's not right for the story" is a really good reason. "I don't have the
> chops yet" might be a good reason, if one doesn't think one can learn the
> chops on the job this go-around, so to speak.
Yeah, but if that's the case, you might want to try writing something
else first instead.
> But "It's too hard" is just whining.
I wish I was in your crit group instead of mine.
I want an in-person group, I need to get out and be with people. (I
haven't had a face to face conversation with someone other than my
husband and kids for three weeks now.)
But the only group I've found that actually *crits* stuff, and is
speculative fiction focused, has this one person who goes around saying
"You can't *do* that. That will never sell." If you point out that
someone else did it *and* sold it, she says something like, "yes, but
he's a genius, you aren't," or "after you have proven yourself you
might be able to get away with stuff like that."
Makes me mad.
--
Michelle Bottorff -> Chelle B. -> Shelby
L. Shelby, Writer http://homepage.mac.com/mbottorff/Writing/
http://homepage.mac.com/mbottorff/Writing/rasfcFAQ.html
Livejournal http://www.livejournal.com/users/lavenderbard/
Carl Dershem
news:42FC19FA...@cits1.stanford.edu:
> Zeborah wrote:
>> Patricia C. Wrede <pwred...@aol.com> wrote:
>>>There was a really effective little mainstream story I read once that
>>>switched tenses as a way of emphasizing structure. The story had two
>>>parallel plots, one in "present day" and one in twenty-years-ago
>>>flashback, told in alternating scenes. And the "present day" part
>>>was in simple past tense, and all the flashbacks were in present
>>>tense. It worked *really* well, for that story.
>>
>> <twitch> As a reader, even if it worked, I'd be internally demanding
>> to know why the writer didn't do it the other way around: present
>> tense for present day, simple past for flashbacks.
>>
>> If there's a reason, that's cool; thematic/emotional reasons about
>> the flashbacks being of events that are "still with" the protag in
>> some important way, for example. But... it still makes me twitchy.
>
> Now that _is_ amusing -- here I was, at the same time, having exactly
> the opposite reaction!
And that's why writing is an art. Different (brush)strokes for different
folks, and all that. Either way would work if done right.
I'd be interested if Patricia can name the story - I'd like to take a look
at it.
Carl Dershem
news:1h16ebh.w8ed6e13dtar8N%mbot...@mac.com:
> But the only group I've found that actually *crits* stuff, and is
> speculative fiction focused, has this one person who goes around
> saying "You can't *do* that. That will never sell." If you point out
> that someone else did it *and* sold it, she says something like, "yes,
> but he's a genius, you aren't," or "after you have proven yourself
> you might be able to get away with stuff like that."
The difficult part about having someone like that in your gropup is
(generally) finding a place to hide the body.
OOps - I forgot this wasn't the mystery writers group! ;>
Patricia C. Wrede
news:42FC1848...@cits1.stanford.edu...
It's a bit difficult to describe -- it made the flashbacks into enormously
vivid, very personal memories; less like a literary technique and more like
the way people sometimes get ambushed by re-experiencing some emotionally
tense moment in their past. (The POV character was the same in both
sections.) I've seen stories that did similar things -- using present-tense
for dream-sequences, for instance -- that ended up having a completely
different but equally useful effect. I think it's at least partially the
added contrast (and for that, the style has to fit whatever the author is
trying to achieve, too).
Patricia C. Wrede
Patricia C. Wrede
"Brian M. Scott" <b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote in message
news:i9nhmcymr6to.w...@40tude.net...
Some of the ones I've seen work as...sort of more-that-usually-organized,
more-readable stream-of-consciousness. (Stream-of-consciousness is one of
those viewpoints that, like second person, just seems *wrong* to me in past
tense, though I'm sure there's *somebody* who could make it work.)
The others...well, there's Damon Runyon as the prime example. That "So I am
thinking maybe I should send Big Louie to have a little conversation with
the guy, when Maxie comes in with this dame" voice/style/viewpoint is one of
those love-it-or-hate-it things, but it really, really wouldn't be the same
in any other tense.
Patricia C. Wrede
Patricia C. Wrede
news:42fc4541$0$11061$e4fe...@news.xs4all.nl...
> Patricia C. Wrede wrote:
>
>> "This is hard for me to read" is a legitimate reader's concern, and
>> useful
>> writer feedback. For the writer, it translates to "does not work for
>> this reader yet; needs more work," which, for me, is part of "hard to
>> do."
>
> That something doesn't work for one particular reader isn't reason enough
> to think that it needs more work, no?
True, but the fact that only one particular reader complains about something
isn't a reason to think the something can be ignored, either. Even if
something *is* the concern of only one reader, it's still useful feedback,
and the writer may decide that the one reader has put his/her finger on some
aspect that still needs work, even if nobody else noticed it. (You're
right, though; I was assuming that it was a concern of more than one reader
[which, in this specific instance, it has been, but the discussion has
passed beyond focusing strictly on Ben's paragraphs, and I ought to have
been clear].)
> I thought *you* were the person who
> said that it's impossible to please all readers anyway, so it's an
> unprofitable thing to aspire to.
One can't please *everybody*, but that doesn't mean one should ignore all
comments that don't come from X many people, either. There are times when
the right thing to do is to ignore the ten people screaming about POV, and
listen carefully to the one person who's complaining about structure.
Patricia C. Wrede
Bill Swears
> But the only group I've found that actually *crits* stuff, and is
> speculative fiction focused, has this one person who goes around saying
> "You can't *do* that. That will never sell." If you point out that
> someone else did it *and* sold it, she says something like, "yes, but
> he's a genius, you aren't," or "after you have proven yourself you
> might be able to get away with stuff like that."
>
> Makes me mad.
I'd have to agree with CD that hiding the body sounds like a plausible
final solution. But, I'd tend to say to the individual, just once,
"No, You can't do that. I can write in any way my readers will find
engaging. I can't speak for your level of competence."
Or words to that effect.
Bill
--
Bill Swears
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Ben Franklin, 1755 "Historical Review of Pennsylvania"
To think that was once a right wing comment. In the land of Homeland
Security it seems.. Suspiciously left-wing.
Bill Swears
> One can't please *everybody*, but that doesn't mean one should ignore all
> comments that don't come from X many people, either. There are times when
> the right thing to do is to ignore the ten people screaming about POV, and
> listen carefully to the one person who's complaining about structure.
And remember this golden phrase. "Thank you for your input. I'll add
that to my bag of tricks."
Brian M. Scott
<rit...@cruzio.com> wrote in
<news:5dbof1dl0ft17g8f6...@4ax.com> in
rec.arts.sf.composition:
> On Thu, 11 Aug 2005 23:27:34 -0400, "Brian M. Scott"
> <b.s...@csuohio.edu> seems to have said:
>>On Thu, 11 Aug 2005 20:52:32 -0500, "Patricia C. Wrede"
>><pwred...@aol.com> wrote in
>><news:11fo0k8...@corp.supernews.com> in
>>rec.arts.sf.composition:
>>[...]
>>> First-person, present-tense seems to me to be a fairly
>>> natural fit;
>>Can you say why? From my point of view first person is a
>>*very* bad fit for present tense narration of any length,
>>almost guaranteed to take me out of the story.
> When a regular ordinary flesh and blood person tells a story about
> something they've done or experienced, they will often slip into
> present tense when the story gets interesting, scary, overwhelming,
> funny, or enraging.
> So if a written story is being told in either a colloquial register or
> a less-colloquial, but intimate register, it just works that way,
> sometimes.
But I think that this really applies only to short stories.
For something longer, the conversational model just doesn't
fit.
[...]
Brian
R. L.
lightSPAMandISmatterEVIL.com"> wrote:
/snip/
>present:
> An oxcart jolts up a hot and dusty mountain road, carrying hot
> and dusty melons and a hot and dusty French priest.
Maybe another reason present bothers me is that it's too effective in
making me feel like I'm there, caught in the same slowness and heat, which
I hate.
/snip/
>past:
> An oxcart jolted up a hot and dusty mountain road, carrying hot
> and dusty melons and a hot and dusty French priest. It was noon on
> Saint Gervase's Day of Anno Domini 1354, there in Valencia, on the
> front lines of Christendom. If it rained on Saint Gervase's Day, it
> would portend rain for another forty days and forty nights, but there
> was little risk of that. The ox's owner plodded along beside it, and
> the passenger, meanwhile, began to feel a kinship with the insensate
> melons.
This boggled me a minute, wondering if there was another passenger besides
the priest.
> The heat hadn't gone down at all since before the siesta, and
> as the priest, a Dominican named Bernard, roasted in the sun like a
> pig, it seemed easier to imagine that he'd be sold at the market than
> that he'd dismount from the cart and spring into action against
> heresy.
Forgot to mention that "imagine ... that he'd dismount from the cart and
spring into action against heresy." is a great hook, especially combined
with "front lines of Christendom" earlier. I really would read on to find
what this is all about (real world history makes it more interesting too),
even if I had to slog through a bit more present tense.
Mary K. Kuhner
Zeborah <zeb...@gmail.com> wrote:
>When I started writing the Darn Book as first person, it downright
>*refused* to be past tense. It wanted to be stream-of-consciousness,
>present tense only (flashbacks aside; those were past).
>This is because for me I need to know, with first person and omniscient
>and even camera-eye(1), who is telling the story and why. (With tight
>third I don't.) And I knew subconsciously -- and consciously, when I
>tried to figure out what was going on -- that the Darn Book's narrator
>would _never_ tell that story in the same way she experienced it.
I can easily see this. I don't use Vikki as a POV character much,
because if she is "telling" there is no way to escape her, by
human standards, flattened affect and total lack of introspection.
In first/present there might be more vividness there.
My first/present story is about someone whose relationship with
her past, even her immediate past, is very shaky. I can't write
it in past tense because that gives too much anchoring. In
particular, the scene which starts up a month after the previous
one, with Catalina in the middle of doing something, and only
reveals slowly that she remembers nothing between the previous
scene and this one--that has to be in present. Present is all
she's got. If it were past, she would already know that she
didn't remember the context, and that would be a totally different
scene.
Mary Kuhner mkku...@eskimo.com
Patricia C. Wrede
news:Xns96B05609142...@68.6.19.6...
> mbot...@mac.com (Michelle Bottorff) wrote in
> news:1h16ebh.w8ed6e13dtar8N%mbot...@mac.com:
>
>> But the only group I've found that actually *crits* stuff, and is
>> speculative fiction focused, has this one person who goes around
>> saying "You can't *do* that. That will never sell." If you point out
>> that someone else did it *and* sold it, she says something like, "yes,
>> but he's a genius, you aren't," or "after you have proven yourself
>> you might be able to get away with stuff like that."
>
> The difficult part about having someone like that in your gropup is
> (generally) finding a place to hide the body.
Actually, I was going to suggest presenting the story as "an exercise that I
*don't* *intend* to sell" and then going off quietly and selling it later,
if the group is useful critically in other ways. Some people, there's just
no point in arguing with; one can only ignore them most of the time.
Patricia C. Wrede
Dorothy J Heydt
Patricia C. Wrede <pwred...@aol.com> wrote:
>
>"Brian M. Scott" <b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote in message
>news:i9nhmcymr6to.w...@40tude.net...
>> On Thu, 11 Aug 2005 20:52:32 -0500, "Patricia C. Wrede"
>> <pwred...@aol.com> wrote in
>> <news:11fo0k8...@corp.supernews.com> in
>> rec.arts.sf.composition:
>>
>> [...]
>>
>>> First-person, present-tense seems to me to be a fairly
>>> natural fit;
>>
>> Can you say why? From my point of view first person is a
>> *very* bad fit for present tense narration of any length,
>> almost guaranteed to take me out of the story.
>
>Some of the ones I've seen work as...sort of more-that-usually-organized,
>more-readable stream-of-consciousness. (Stream-of-consciousness is one of
>those viewpoints that, like second person, just seems *wrong* to me in past
>tense, though I'm sure there's *somebody* who could make it work.)
>
>The others...well, there's Damon Runyon as the prime example. That "So I am
>thinking maybe I should send Big Louie to have a little conversation with
I've already mentioned passim my favorite Runyon story, "The Old
Doll's House," whose last sentence turns historical present into
eternal present; it could not work any other way.
Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
djh...@kithrup.com
Zeborah
> I've already mentioned passim my favorite Runyon story, "The Old
> Doll's House," whose last sentence turns historical present into
> eternal present; it could not work any other way.
I tried to do that with a story once, more or less: I started in
eternal present, switched into what would appear to the reader to be
historic present, and at the end made it clear that it was still eternal
present.
Except that I didn't make it clear; my reader didn't get that. It would
be fixable, of course, but it's not the sort of thing I want to go to
great lengths to publish anyway.
R. L.
>Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote:
>
>> I've already mentioned passim my favorite Runyon story, "The Old
>> Doll's House," whose last sentence turns historical present into
>> eternal present; it could not work any other way.
>
>I tried to do that with a story once, more or less: I started in
>eternal present, switched into what would appear to the reader to be
>historic present, and at the end made it clear that it was still eternal
>present.
If anyone's collecting instances, I kind of have the impression that the
beginning and ending of MARVIN'S ROOM might be playing such a trick.
Brooks Moses
> When I'm thinking of an idea, or at least an action scene, I write it
> on my brain-pad in present tense.
>
> by default, and only use present tense when it is really demanded for
> describe an ongoing repetitive situation.)
>
> Perhaps the definitive argument is based on the Golden Rule: what if
> everyone did it?
Well, if everyone wrote in present tense, then it would seem perfectly
transparent and normal to readers, much as past tense third person does
today. A lot of the effect of tense choice comes from conventions
rather than from anything inherent (insofar as there _is_ anything
inherent in language other than convention).
So I'm not at all sure I agree that there's anything definitive there.
- Brooks
--
The "bmoses-nospam" address is valid; no unmunging needed.
Kai Henningsen
> When a regular ordinary flesh and blood person tells a story about
> something they've done or experienced, they will often slip into
> present tense when the story gets interesting, scary, overwhelming,
> funny, or enraging.
I've often heard this claim. I've seen stories where people do that.
I don't remember having this happen in real life, ever.
So I'm extremely doubtful about the "often".
Kai
--
http://www.westfalen.de/private/khms/
"... by God I *KNOW* what this network is for, and you can't have it."
- Russ Allbery (r...@stanford.edu)
Michelle Bottorff
> I'd have to agree with CD that hiding the body sounds like a plausible
> final solution. But, I'd tend to say to the individual, just once,
> "No, You can't do that. I can write in any way my readers will find
> engaging. I can't speak for your level of competence."
>
> Or words to that effect.
My hope is to prove it by deed, and actually sell something that does
some of the stuff she says it isn't possible to do. *Then* I can say,
"but that's what you said about..."
Lucy Kemnitzer
Henningsen) seems to have said:
>rit...@cruzio.com (Lucy Kemnitzer) wrote on 11.08.05 in <5dbof1dl0ft17g8f6...@4ax.com>:
>
>> When a regular ordinary flesh and blood person tells a story about
>> something they've done or experienced, they will often slip into
>> present tense when the story gets interesting, scary, overwhelming,
>> funny, or enraging.
>
>I've often heard this claim. I've seen stories where people do that.
>
>I don't remember having this happen in real life, ever.
>
>So I'm extremely doubtful about the "often".
>
I think it depends a lot on social milieu and register. I hear it a
lot. I do it sometimes.
Stories that switch tenses like that could be interesting . . . I
can't think of any that did it in a deliberate and graceful way.
Brian M. Scott
<rit...@cruzio.com> wrote in
<news:2phqf1p7k9eg7t3sh...@4ax.com> in
rec.arts.sf.composition:
> On 12 Aug 2005 23:01:00 +0200,
> kaih=9bhwc...@khms.westfalen.de (Kai Henningsen) seems
> to have said:
>> rit...@cruzio.com (Lucy Kemnitzer) wrote on 11.08.05 in
>> <5dbof1dl0ft17g8f6...@4ax.com>:
>>> When a regular ordinary flesh and blood person tells a
>>> story about something they've done or experienced, they
>>> will often slip into present tense when the story gets
>>> interesting, scary, overwhelming, funny, or enraging.
>>I've often heard this claim. I've seen stories where people do that.
>>I don't remember having this happen in real life, ever.
>>So I'm extremely doubtful about the "often".
> I think it depends a lot on social milieu and register. I hear it a
> lot. I do it sometimes.
I rarely if ever do it, but I hear it very frequently. It's
possible, of course, that it's much less common in German.
[...]
Brian
Ben Crowell
> I've often heard this claim. I've seen stories where people do that.
>
> I don't remember having this happen in real life, ever.
>
> So I'm extremely doubtful about the "often".
>
> Kai
I do it all the time. I did it the other day at the breakfast table
with some friends we were visiting. You know, we're sitting there
eating our cereal, and I start telling this story, and
it's just really the natural way to say it, in present tense.
No, seriously!
Bill Swears
>
> I think it depends a lot on social milieu and register. I hear it a
> lot. I do it sometimes.
> Stories that switch tenses like that could be interesting . . . I
> can't think of any that did it in a deliberate and graceful way.
>
be graceful, but it is a person slipping into present tense, reliably,
while talking about past tense issues. I have no idea if it really
happens, I've never been a psychiatrist, or a psychologist.
Bill
nyra
I find it quite natural to hear (switching into) present tense in
'lively' accounts of past events, and i do it myself not-too-rarely.
Can't comment on how common it is compared to other languages, but it
may well be that it ranges anywhere from inexistant to frequent
depending on who's doing the talking.
--
Jos ei sika syö, niin kyllähän piika syö.
Kai Henningsen
So maybe it *is* done that way over there ...
Still, to me it sounds ... well, maybe like if you peppered every other
sentence with "like" and "man" and "you know".
In fact, thinking about this, that's exactly the context in which this
might work for me. If not overdone, that is, as that mode of speech
already starts out overdone, to my ears.
Neil Barnes
and produced:
> I find it quite natural to hear (switching into) present tense in
> 'lively' accounts of past events, and i do it myself not-too-rarely.
> Can't comment on how common it is compared to other languages, but it
> may well be that it ranges anywhere from inexistant to frequent
> depending on who's doing the talking.
It's becoming frequent in historical documentaries, where it is marginally
acceptable to my ears, but also in news reportage, where it isn't.
Neil
--
If you saw him, you'd think he was some kind of goose,
But the wise men all know he's a barnacle.
Gerry Quinn
nos...@cits1.stanford.edu says...
> Gerry Quinn wrote:
> > When I'm thinking of an idea, or at least an action scene, I write it
> > on my brain-pad in present tense.
> >
> > My instinct is that when you write, however, you should use past tense
> > by default, and only use present tense when it is really demanded for
> > stylistic reasons. (One example might be at the end of a story to
> > describe an ongoing repetitive situation.)
> >
> > Perhaps the definitive argument is based on the Golden Rule: what if
> > everyone did it?
>
> Well, if everyone wrote in present tense, then it would seem perfectly
> transparent and normal to readers, much as past tense third person does
> today. A lot of the effect of tense choice comes from conventions
> rather than from anything inherent (insofar as there _is_ anything
> inherent in language other than convention).
You could say the same of writing in hieroglyphics, or driving on the
'wrong' side of the road.
> So I'm not at all sure I agree that there's anything definitive there.
There may be extra expressiveness in past tense, though - in English
it's hard to distinguish present perfect from present imperfect tense.
(My example is a case in point, in fact.)
- Gerry Quinn
Joann Zimmerman
<"crowell05 at lightSPAMandISmatterEVIL.com"> says...
> I do it all the time. I did it the other day at the breakfast table
> with some friends we were visiting. You know, we're sitting there
> eating our cereal, and I start telling this story, and
> it's just really the natural way to say it, in present tense.
>
> No, seriously!
Yesterday evening, while we were in the kitchen trading "how was your
day", we both had traffic stories. I noticed that we both told them in
present tense. "So I'm at the corner of Shoal Creek and 45th, and
there's this car making a right turn ..."
--
"I never understood people who don't have bookshelves."
--George Plimpton
Joann Zimmerman jz...@bellereti.com
Pat Bowne
"Kai Henningsen" <kaih=9bnM-...@khms.westfalen.de> wrote
>
> So maybe it *is* done that way over there ...
>
> Still, to me it sounds ... well, maybe like if you peppered every other
> sentence with "like" and "man" and "you know".
>
> In fact, thinking about this, that's exactly the context in which this
> might work for me. If not overdone, that is, as that mode of speech
> already starts out overdone, to my ears.
You can hear that quite a lot, especially from teenagers on cell phones.
'So I'm like, Oh my God, and she's like, Really!'
Pat
Bill Swears
about something where I want to get my facts straight. Somehow it seems
easier to remember the details in order if I'm reliving them.
Helen Hall
<rit...@cruzio.com> writes
>On 12 Aug 2005 23:01:00 +0200, kaih=9bhwc...@khms.westfalen.de (Kai
>Henningsen) seems to have said:
>>
>>I've often heard this claim. I've seen stories where people do that.
>>
>>I don't remember having this happen in real life, ever.
>>
>>So I'm extremely doubtful about the "often".
>>
>
>
>I think it depends a lot on social milieu and register. I hear it a
>lot. I do it sometimes.
>Stories that switch tenses like that could be interesting . . . I
>can't think of any that did it in a deliberate and graceful way.
You hear it in the UK a lot too. Strangely, though use of present tense
in fiction is usually thought of as a more "literary" device, use of
present tense in anecdote telling is a more colloquial/working class
thing. (Generalising hugely, of course.)
So whereas a more educated/middle class person might say: "So there I
was, standing in the middle of Sauchie Hall street in Glasgow, when what
should I see getting out of a taxi, but two Klingons in kilts."
A more colloquial version would be: "So there I am, standing in the
middle of Sauchie Hall street in Glasgow when -- and you'll never
believe this in a million years -- two Klingons in kilts get out of a
taxi."
Helen
--
Helen, Gwynedd, Wales *** http://www.baradel.demon.co.uk
R. L.
<mh...@baradel.demon.co.uk.please.delete.this> wrote:
>In article <2phqf1p7k9eg7t3sh...@4ax.com>, Lucy Kemnitzer
><rit...@cruzio.com> writes
>>On 12 Aug 2005 23:01:00 +0200, kaih=9bhwc...@khms.westfalen.de (Kai
>>Henningsen) seems to have said:
>>>
>>>I've often heard this claim. I've seen stories where people do that.
>>>
>>>I don't remember having this happen in real life, ever.
>>>
>>>So I'm extremely doubtful about the "often".
>>>
>>
>>
>>I think it depends a lot on social milieu and register. I hear it a
>>lot. I do it sometimes.
>>Stories that switch tenses like that could be interesting . . . I
>>can't think of any that did it in a deliberate and graceful way.
>
>You hear it in the UK a lot too. Strangely, though use of present tense
>in fiction is usually thought of as a more "literary" device, use of
>present tense in anecdote telling is a more colloquial/working class
>thing. (Generalising hugely, of course.)
That's my impression too (western US now, southern US previously). I'd feel
uncomfortable doing it myself, and sometimes I'm surprised by hearing
someone well-educated do it.
Not that it's a big issue; for all I know, I may hear it and not notice it,
or slip into it myself. Hm, if I was trying to explain something carefully,
maybe with a sketch, I could say "No, I'm *here* and the other car was
*there*." Woops, I slipped back into 'was'. Well, the 'here' was what I was
trying to emphasize.
>
>So whereas a more educated/middle class person might say: "So there I
>was, standing in the middle of Sauchie Hall street in Glasgow, when what
>should I see getting out of a taxi, but two Klingons in kilts."
>
>A more colloquial version would be: "So there I am, standing in the
>middle of Sauchie Hall street in Glasgow when -- and you'll never
>believe this in a million years -- two Klingons in kilts get out of a
>taxi."
"There I was, right in the middle of /wherever/, and a taxi stopped, and
would you believe two Klingons in kilts got out?"
Lucy Kemnitzer
to have said:
>Brooks Moses <bmoses...@cits1.stanford.edu> wrote:
>
>> Thinking about that a bit more, I think what the use of present tense
>> for the flashbacks does for me is make them feel somewhat dreamlike and
>> detached from time, when contrasted against the "normal" past tense of
>> the present-day part of the story.
>
>Ah, that's right. Some people made comments about the phenomenon in
>relation to my present-tense novel, but I forgot about it, since I tend
>to think about tenses much more pragmatically.
I don't understand what you mean by pragmatically here. I read
present tense like Brooks does -- since it's the less common way to
tell a story, it calls a little attention to itself and puts me in a
timeless, dreamlike place. BUt it seems pragmatic to me to use tenses
to do mechanical things, and that seems to me to be part of the
mechanics of a story.
Look at my new sig:
Lucy Kemnitzer, still
http://www.baymoon.com/%7Eritaxis/donor/donorweb/donorindex.html
http://www.livejournal.com/users/ritaxis
Charlie Stross
as <clo...@erols.com> declared:
> Ben Crowell wrote:
>> Any opinions on writing in present tense? Here's the first paragraph
>> of the WIP I'm trying to get going on, written both ways. The POV
>> is omni.
>>
>
> If you must use present tense, do not try and carry it over a
> long work.
Such rules are made for breaking.
Present tense is my natural writing form; I have to work
hard to do past tense at all. ACCELERANDO is entirely
present tense third person; GLASSHOUSE, THE ATROCITY
ARCHIVES, and THE JENNIFER MORGUE are present tense first
person. All four novels are sold (and in two cases, have
received award nominations) so it's no impediment to
success. Caveat: it's necessary to remember not to overload
the reader, and when writing in the first person it's useful
to bear in mind that you've undercut one of the usual
supports for suspense -- namely, wondering whether the
narrator will survive. (Except in GLASSHOUSE, where the
narrator gets to die at least once in the course of the
book.)
-- Charlie
Lucy Kemnitzer
You could also have the first-person narrator start out by claiming to
be dead, and have the meaning of that word unfold as the story goes
on: perhaps the narrator is literally dead, and a ghost, or something
like it: perhaps literally dead, and uploaded: perhaps literally dead,
and a figment of a to-be-revealed character's imagination: perhaps
literally dead, but having composed these words before dying: or
perhaps, socially dead, which could mean having killed off one's
identity to start over somewhere, or ostracization in a society that
does that: or perhaps only metaphorically dead.
Dang, I can think of more and more variations on those above.
Furthermore, the meaning of deadness for the sake of the story can be
something that is revealed early or late, or never revealed but there
for the reader to deduce: it can be the question of the story, or a
supporting detail, or incidental: and the meaning of deadness can
shift as the story is told, too.
Now I want to write one. Not till after I finish with a bunch of
other things, though.
Actually, come to think of it, the current work, while in fairly
normal tight third and story past, does start with the burial of one
of the most major characters. Though the very next chapter-like
object dips back fifty years, and the character that is buried in the
first one won't have been born for eight years. So that's an instance
where the story isn't about whether the characters live or die.
Ben Crowell
> Present tense is my natural writing form; I have to work
> hard to do past tense at all. ACCELERANDO is entirely
> present tense third person; GLASSHOUSE, THE ATROCITY
> ARCHIVES, and THE JENNIFER MORGUE are present tense first
> person. All four novels are sold (and in two cases, have
> received award nominations) so it's no impediment to
> success. Caveat: it's necessary to remember not to overload
> the reader, and when writing in the first person it's useful
> to bear in mind that you've undercut one of the usual
> supports for suspense -- namely, wondering whether the
> narrator will survive. (Except in GLASSHOUSE, where the
> narrator gets to die at least once in the course of the
> book.)
and had to go back and check to see that they were in past
tense. I guess the default aesthetic for SF is that the prose
is supposed to be invisible, so maybe my having to go back and
look is a sign of your good craftsmanship :-) If you see present
tense as your default tense, why did you write those two in past?
In a similar vein, I think the idea of writing in present tense
may have popped into my mind from having just started Cabell's
Jurgen while on a backpacking trip. I seem to have misplaced it
now, and I'm having a hard time remembering if it really was in
present tense.
Zeborah
> On Fri, 12 Aug 2005 16:13:04 +1200, zeb...@gmail.com (Zeborah) seems
> to have said:
>
> >Brooks Moses <bmoses...@cits1.stanford.edu> wrote:
> >
> >> Thinking about that a bit more, I think what the use of present tense
> >> for the flashbacks does for me is make them feel somewhat dreamlike and
> >> detached from time, when contrasted against the "normal" past tense of
> >> the present-day part of the story.
> >
> >Ah, that's right. Some people made comments about the phenomenon in
> >relation to my present-tense novel, but I forgot about it, since I tend
> >to think about tenses much more pragmatically.
>
> I don't understand what you mean by pragmatically here.
I hesitated over the word. I meant, in a way that corresponds to the
normal pragmatic meaning of the tenses, ie past tense referring to
something that happened _before_ whatever the present tense refers to.
David Goldfarb
Ben Crowell <"crowell05 at lightSPAMandISmatterEVIL.com"> wrote:
>In a similar vein, I think the idea of writing in present tense
>may have popped into my mind from having just started Cabell's
>Jurgen while on a backpacking trip. I seem to have misplaced it
>now, and I'm having a hard time remembering if it really was in
>present tense.
It isn't.
--
David Goldfarb |"Just once I'd like to battle an alien menace
gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu | that *wasn't* immune to bullets."
gold...@csua.berkeley.edu | -- Brigadier Lethbridge-Stuart
| Doctor Who: "Robot"
David Goldfarb
Neil Barnes <nailed_...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>and lo, on Sat, 13 Aug 2005 09:25:00 +0200, nyra scraped chalk on slate
>and produced:
>
>> I find it quite natural to hear (switching into) present tense in
>> 'lively' accounts of past events, and i do it myself not-too-rarely.
>> Can't comment on how common it is compared to other languages, but it
>> may well be that it ranges anywhere from inexistant to frequent
>> depending on who's doing the talking.
>
>It's becoming frequent in historical documentaries, where it is marginally
>acceptable to my ears, but also in news reportage, where it isn't.
I've read some bits of Livy in the original, and he slipped into and
out of it all the time.
--
David Goldfarb |"I'm married to a woman I met through the computer
gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu | on the Internet."
gold...@csua.berkeley.edu | "How interesting! I'd love to meet her!"
|"So would I -- we're trying to arrange something
| now." -- Bizarro
Brian M. Scott
at lightSPAMandISmatterEVIL.com> wrote in
<news:jeOdnUz6de8...@adelphia.com> in
rec.arts.sf.composition:
[...]
> In a similar vein, I think the idea of writing in present tense
> may have popped into my mind from having just started Cabell's
> Jurgen while on a backpacking trip. I seem to have misplaced it
> now, and I'm having a hard time remembering if it really was in
> present tense.
It's not. I've read a fair bit of Cabell, and I don't think
that any of it is in present tense.
Brian
Brian M. Scott
<gold...@OCF.Berkeley.EDU> wrote in
<news:ddoj89$2mmj$1...@agate.berkeley.edu> in
rec.arts.sf.composition:
> In article <pan.2005.08.13....@hotmail.com>,
> Neil Barnes <nailed_...@hotmail.com> wrote:
[...]
>> [Present tense is] becoming frequent in historical
>> documentaries, where it is marginally acceptable to my
>> ears, but also in news reportage, where it isn't.
> I've read some bits of Livy in the original, and he
> slipped into and out of it all the time.
The Norse sagas do this routinely.
Brian
sharkey
> rit...@cruzio.com (Lucy Kemnitzer) wrote:
> >
> > When a regular ordinary flesh and blood person tells a story about
> > something they've done or experienced, they will often slip into
> > present tense when the story gets interesting, scary, overwhelming,
> > funny, or enraging.
>
> I've often heard this claim. I've seen stories where people do that.
> I don't remember having this happen in real life, ever.
So I reply, "Sure, I do that".
-----sharks "This horse will walk into a bar, and the barman will say
'why so tense?' ..."
Khiem Tran
> Kai Henningsen <kaih=9bhwc...@khms.westfalen.de> wrote:
>> I've often heard this claim. I've seen stories where people do that.
>> I don't remember having this happen in real life, ever.
>
>
> So I reply, "Sure, I do that".
>
> -----sharks "This horse will walk into a bar, and the barman will say
> 'why so tense?' ..."
A shark, a hedgehog and a barnacle walk into a tapas bar.
"I love Spanish," says the shark. "But, I couldn't eat a whole Juan..."
Charlie Stross
> Charlie Stross wrote:
> Interesting. I just read The Family Trade and Iron Sunrise,
> and had to go back and check to see that they were in past
> tense. I guess the default aesthetic for SF is that the prose
> is supposed to be invisible, so maybe my having to go back and
> look is a sign of your good craftsmanship :-) If you see present
> tense as your default tense, why did you write those two in past?
In the case of TFT (and sequelae) it's because I figured
third person past with a touch of omniscience is about the
right mode for telling a big wide-screen epic story that
splits (eventually -- some books in) into multiple strands.
(It begins to do so in book 1 but the secondary plot strands
remain secondary until book 4, at which point it begins to
do the usual multi-stranded fantasy series thing.) It's a
history, not a personal story. Ditto Iron Sunrise.
Present tense works best when you want to give a sense of
immediacy and speed, just as first person works best when
you want to navigate through the action while tightly
tracking a single character. Past tense is better for epic
scope and slow pacing, and third person works best for
multiple plot threads. Or at least, that's how I use them.
-- Charlie
Chris Dollin
>
>
> sharkey wrote:
>> Kai Henningsen <kaih=9bhwc...@khms.westfalen.de> wrote:
>
>>> I've often heard this claim. I've seen stories where people do that.
>>> I don't remember having this happen in real life, ever.
>>
>>
>> So I reply, "Sure, I do that".
>>
>> -----sharks "This horse will walk into a bar, and the barman will say
>> 'why so tense?' ..."
>
> A shark, a hedgehog and a barnacle walk into a tapas bar.
What? Eh? OK, I'll have a half.
--
Hedgehog
Notmuchhere: http://www.electric-hedgehog.net/
Otherface: Jena RDF/Owl toolkit http://jena.sourceforge.net/
Neil Barnes
slate and produced:
> Khiem Tran wrote:
>
>
>>
>> sharkey wrote:
>>> Kai Henningsen <kaih=9bhwc...@khms.westfalen.de> wrote:
>>
>>>> I've often heard this claim. I've seen stories where people do that. I
>>>> don't remember having this happen in real life, ever.
>>>
>>>
>>> So I reply, "Sure, I do that".
>>>
>>> -----sharks "This horse will walk into a bar, and the barman will say
>>> 'why so tense?' ..."
>>
>> A shark, a hedgehog and a barnacle walk into a tapas bar.
>
> What? Eh? OK, I'll have a half.
Pint for me please, I'm a growing lad.
Khiem Tran
> and lo, on Wed, 17 Aug 2005 05:45:26 +0000, Chris Dollin scraped chalk on
> slate and produced:
>
>
>>Khiem Tran wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>sharkey wrote:
>>>
>>>>Kai Henningsen <kaih=9bhwc...@khms.westfalen.de> wrote:
>>>
>>>>>I've often heard this claim. I've seen stories where people do that. I
>>>>>don't remember having this happen in real life, ever.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>So I reply, "Sure, I do that".
>>>>
>>>>-----sharks "This horse will walk into a bar, and the barman will say
>>>>'why so tense?' ..."
>>>
>>>A shark, a hedgehog and a barnacle walk into a tapas bar.
>>
>>What? Eh? OK, I'll have a half.
"A half pint?" says the barman. "Here you go."
And he hands him a pie.
> Pint for me please, I'm a growing lad.
Thought you'd rather have something on the rocks.
Khiem.
Catja Pafort
[Lucy]
> > When a regular ordinary flesh and blood person tells a story about
> > something they've done or experienced, they will often slip into
> > present tense when the story gets interesting, scary, overwhelming,
> > funny, or enraging.
>
> I've often heard this claim. I've seen stories where people do that.
>
> I don't remember having this happen in real life, ever.
>
> So I'm extremely doubtful about the "often".
How often do you consciously analyse conversation in English? Germans
will sometimes slip into a participial construction 'am + verb' under
similar circumstances; but most people are completely unaware of these
things.
Heck, it was two passes into Valendon's Diary before I noticed that *he*
will slip between past and present; and for the diary, that's fine.
Catja