Present tense

What?!

Not sure which side of the pond you are, but many folk this side of the pond still do use present tense when verbally relating past events in which they were involved.

morngnstar said:

Present tense as usually done in prose is actually a very abnormal form of English. People almost never use it when they speak. The plain present form of verbs is mostly used for habitual actions ("I play chess") and a few particular verbs ("see", "know", "like"). If people are really narrating the present, they use present progressive. "I'm making a sandwich."

It's just more common when we tell stories in conversation to tell a story that happened in the past. There's rarely a reason to narrate the present. However, it's popular to write fiction as if it's in a present POV. Even though the grammatical POV might be third-person past, the narration is done as the character would do it and with the thoughts, attitudes, and emotions that they had at the time, not how they would view the events some time after their happy ending. So in that sense, third person past POV is an affectation.

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I've read quite a number of present tense books. Actually, recently it's felt like I almost can't escape it. I don't mind reading it. I recently dipped my toe into those waters again and it feels nice.

Every story is different. Some stories may work best in present, some work best in past. It depends on the story. If you think the story would be best told in present, I don't see any reason why you shouldn't. Sometimes it takes gtting the words out to really see how it should be written.

Elladog said:

I can't think of a single novel I've enjoyed that has been written in present tense, but my WIP is aggressively presenting itself to me that way. What are your feelings on reading present tense narration? I'm torn - I'm fighting it because it's not generally my preference as a reader, but part of me wants to embrace it and just see where it goes.

Also, the narration will be switching perspective between three characters. Can I change tense within that? What are your feelings on multiple first-person perspectives? Can I have one character narrate in first person but the other two in third?

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When I pick up a book and find it it written in present, I put it back where I got it. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with it. In fact, in YA it is quite popular at present (no pun intended). It comes down to personal taste, just like I prefer purple to yellow, or fantasy to romance. Can't help it. I like what I like.

Multiple 1st person POV is done all the time. No problem with that, but switching tense too? You are asking the reader to settle into present tense, then switch them to past and back again? Some will not mind, some will be irritated, some will not finish your book.

Can you have one character narrate in 1st and others in 3rd? You can. I am currently reading a book, Emperor of Thorns by Mark Lawrence, that does just that. Can't say I like it — I hrumph every time it switches — but he did it, and he got it published, and I am reading it. So.

Ken said:

Basically, readers will just have to deal with anything you have to offer. You call the shots. If they don't like it, tough. It is your story; not theirs. If they want something different then let them write a danged story of their own.

My two cents

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Actually, no we don't have to deal with it. We don't have to read it at all.

morngnstar said:

Present tense as usually done in prose is actually a very abnormal form of English. People almost never use it when they speak. The plain present form of verbs is mostly used for habitual actions ("I play chess") and a few particular verbs ("see", "know", "like"). If people are really narrating the present, they use present progressive. "I'm making a sandwich."

It's just more common when we tell stories in conversation to tell a story that happened in the past. There's rarely a reason to narrate the present. However, it's popular to write fiction as if it's in a present POV. Even though the grammatical POV might be third-person past, the narration is done as the character would do it and with the thoughts, attitudes, and emotions that they had at the time, not how they would view the events some time after their happy ending. So in that sense, third person past POV is an affectation.

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Agreed.

Bufty said:

What?!

Not sure which side of the pond you are, but many folk this side of the pond still do use present tense when verbally relating past events in which they were involved.

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I'm over here in the U.S. where English is still new to us.

BethS said:

Surely someone has the right to dislike a particular style or presentation? That's not being condescending; it's just stating a personal preference.

Speaking for myself, I avoid novels written in present tense. I have read a few, but present tense just doesn't work for me. I'm constantly trying to "translate" it to past tense in the back of my brain. It's exhausting, so I just don't try any more.

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There's a difference between catergorically dimissing a particular style of writing as annoying and saying it doesn't work for you. Like with me and first present Romance, I don't like it. But just because I don't like it doesn't mean it can't work or is annoying, it just isn't my cup of tea. I've found plenty of first present in other genres where it works better that I enjoy. Horror especially can lend itself to first present, crime told through the eyes of a criminal, thrillers, war stories both modern and historical etc.

I would also say that if you are able to articulate why something bothers you (general you), then you really aren't just wholesale dismissing it.

Lillith1991 said:

There's a difference between catergorically dimissing a particular style of writing as annoying and saying it doesn't work for you. Like with me and first present Romance, I don't like it. But just because I don't like it doesn't mean it can't work or is annoying, it just isn't my cup of tea. I've found plenty of first present in other genres where it works better that I enjoy. Horror especially can lend itself to first present, crime told through the eyes of a criminal, thrillers, war stories both modern and historical etc.

I would also say that if you are able to articulate why something bothers you (general you), then you really aren't just wholesale dismissing it.

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What I said was: "I will slip into present tense for some high action or emotional scenes but staying in present tense for the entire story is nearly as annoying as 2nd person POV."

Seeing how I qualified that statement by using the word "I" it's therefore obvious that I was stating my opinion.

Also as it should be obvious as well, I write in present tense when apocopate, and do it well. So I am not categorically dismissing any linguistic device that may be useful in composition.

And even if I did, what’s it to you that you would get so up-set by it?

Well the wording is ambiguous tbh -- your "I" refers to what you do, not what you like/find annoying to read. So it reads as though you (might be - ambiguous) are dissing a whole thing there. As t9o what;s wrong with it? Well if you casually dismiss a lot of people's work on an arbitrary basis-- RYFW, you didn't

And present is abnormal? Tell that to pretty much everyone I know, who all use it a LOT


I used to think I didn't like it in fiction (probably cos I hadn't read any)

Then I read a book where it was done well and I'm fine with it.

It's a stylistic choice. Not everyone will like it. But enough do (see sales of Hunger Games etc) that it's a perfectly valid choice*



*May depend on genre/category. Some are more open to it than others

Neegh said:

What I said was: "I will slip into present tense for some high action or emotional scenes but staying in present tense for the entire story is nearly as annoying as 2nd person POV."

Seeing how I qualified that statement by using the word "I" it's therefore obvious that I was stating my opinion.

Also as it should be obvious as well, I write in present tense when apocopate, and do it well. So I am not categorically dismissing any linguistic device that may be useful in composition.

And even if I did, what’s it to you that you would get so up-set by it?

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I'm not upset by anything you said, I just think dismissing things out of hand is condescending and arrogant. I in the context of your statement hardly signals what you think it does. Simply saying what you do is not the same as saying what you read and why. If you want to call fowl, then word things better.

WriteMinded said:

Multiple 1st person POV is done all the time. No problem with that, but switching tense too? You are asking the reader to settle into present tense, then switch them to past and back again? Some will not mind, some will be irritated, some will not finish your book.

Can you have one character narrate in 1st and others in 3rd? You can.

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THE WAR AT THE END OF THE WORLD switches between 1st person, 3rd person, present, and past, and won a Nobel Prize.

I was.


I'm done now.


Peace love and butter cookies.

*raises eyebrow*

*raises other eyebrow*

*tries to resist popcorn emote*





All of us fail at times at coming across as we think we are.

But our responses to that can be good. Or not.

Bufty said:

What?!

Not sure which side of the pond you are, but many folk this side of the pond still do use present tense when verbally relating past events in which they were involved.

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That's an even more bizarre usage. If things really are in the past, why would you use present?

I do encounter it; it seems more common in young people (American side). Goes like this: "So the other day I'm listening to the radio, and this guy comes on and starts whining about this bad date he had."

It seems that they are leaping into a sort of literary voice when speaking. You only encounter it when people are "telling a story", not simply relating a simple fact. Nobody would say, "Yesterday I eat a muffin for breakfast." If they do say that, then you know to expect that they will now describe something interesting that resulted from eating the muffin. You know it's a story because they are using a story mode of speech.

Legitimizing a literary style based on a mode of speech that derives from a literary style is circular.

Mr Flibble said:

And present is abnormal? Tell that to pretty much everyone I know, who all use it a LOT

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Really? Plain present, not present progressive? In speech?

morngnstar said:

That's an even more bizarre usage. If things really are in the past, why would you use present?

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It's not bizarre if you're used to it. And I suspect it's older than English literature. Certainly it goes back to the 1700s.

First verse of Robert Burn's "Ode to a Louse"
Ha! whaur ye gaun, ye crowlin ferlie?
Your impudence protects you sairly;
I canna say but ye strunt rarely,
Owre gauze and lace;
Tho', faith! I fear ye dine but sparely
On sic a place.


In English:
Ha! Where you going, you crawling oddity.
Your impudence protects you surely.
I cannot say but you strut rarely,
Over gauze and lace;
Though, faith I fear you dine sparely.
On such a place.

morngnstar said:

That's an even more bizarre usage. If things really are in the past, why would you use present?

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So, I'm talking to my mom, and she says, "I need some bananas."

So I go to the store, and the checkout clerk--he's the hottest thing you've ever seen--says, "Hey, gorgeous."

And then I'm all, OMG.

You've never run across anyone who relates personal stories or anecdotes like that? Informal, yes. But so is fiction a lot of the time.

As for present tense not selling. I've been researching a metric shit ton of agents lately. I'm focusing on ones who take adult fantasy, but one thing I look at are wish lists and "seen too much of lately" statements when they make them. I've seen a bewildering range of likes and dislikes, some contradictory, but not a one who says they hate or are tired of present tense. Some short fiction markets I've seen say you'd better do it well if you're going to do it, but that's not the same as saying don't do it. Honestly, you'd better do it well really goes for anything in fiction. So maybe newbies screw up present tense a lot, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't use it.

morngnstar said:

I do encounter it; it seems more common in young people (American side). Goes like this: "So the other day I'm listening to the radio, and this guy comes on and starts whining about this bad date he had."

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I read somewhere (don't remember where) that it is an inherent human trait to tell a story in present tense, and not so much a cultural thing. Meaning, people in many languages, and in many cultures do it for some reason.

I think there's truth to this. When I lived in central America and in Mexico, people did this while telling me about their day ... in Spanish.

morngnstar said:

Really? Plain present, not present progressive? In speech?

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Wait, I know this one

Progressive is where the thing is ongoing, right -- I am walking to the shop as opposed to I walk to the shop. Did I get that right (I know grammar sort of but I don't know the terms)

It's still present and no, not always hearing that, often plain present (so she says to me...) It's even more common than past in anecdotes I head

And often fiction uses both forms. So...what's the problem?

"One flew over the cuckoo's nest" was written present tense.

g.g.

http://ggrebimik.blogspot.com

G.G. Rebimik said:

"One flew over the cuckoo's nest" was written present tense.

g.g.

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And the Handmaid's Tale, Wolf Hall, Sandman Slim, Hunger Games, I Capture the Castle


PS works better if you link in your sig

Mr Flibble said:

Wait, I know this one

Progressive is where the thing is ongoing, right -- I am walking to the shop as opposed to I walk to the shop. Did I get that right (I know grammar sort of but I don't know the terms)

It's still present and no, not always hearing that, often plain present (so she says to me...) It's even more common than past in anecdotes I head

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Going back to what I originally said:

morngnstar said:

If people are really narrating the present, they use present progressive. "I'm making a sandwich."

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So anecdotes are a different story.

Usher said:

It's not bizarre if you're used to it. And I suspect it's older than English literature. Certainly it goes back to the 1700s.

First verse of Robert Burn's "Ode to a Louse"
Ha! whaur ye gaun, ye crowlin ferlie?
Your impudence protects you sairly;
I canna say but ye strunt rarely,
Owre gauze and lace;
Tho', faith! I fear ye dine but sparely
On sic a place.


In English:
Ha! Where you going, you crawling oddity.
Your impudence protects you surely.
I cannot say but you strut rarely,
Over gauze and lace;
Though, faith I fear you dine sparely.
On such a place.

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I think the tendency to use present progressive is a modern one, though even this uses it once. But archaism is not usually cited as a justification for correctness. I think plain present tense persists in written language because written language tends to be more conservative. That's why we have words written like "knight" but not pronounced like "connigit".

Brutal Mustang said:

I read somewhere (don't remember where) that it is an inherent human trait to tell a story in present tense, and not so much a cultural thing. Meaning, people in many languages, and in many cultures do it for some reason.

I think there's truth to this. When I lived in central America and in Mexico, people did this while telling me about their day ... in Spanish.

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Interesting. So the only thing abnormal about it is that we use an archaic way of speaking about the present when we do it.

WriteMinded said:

Actually, no we don't have to deal with it. We don't have to read it at all.

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Quite true. You can pick up the audiotape and listen instead ;-)

Mr Flibble said:

And the Handmaid's Tale, Wolf Hall, Sandman Slim, Hunger Games, I Capture the Castle


PS works better if you link in your sig

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Half of Bleak House is in present tense (third omni). I'm just imagining someone on Victorian Absolute Write telling Dickens that would never sell.

I'd like to see citations for the claims that present tense is not acceptable to publishers and agents, and that readers won't read it, when I see new novels in present published just about every month. I'll accept that it's more popular in some genres than others, and has been especially popular for several years in YA.

As for readers not reading it, until I joined AW I hadn't come across people who refused to read first person, and how many first-person novels and stories are published each year? I call spherical objects.

(The two novels in my sig are both in first present.)

morngnstar said:

I think the tendency to use present progressive is a modern one, though even this uses it once. But archaism is not usually cited as a justification for correctness. I think plain present tense persists in written language because written language tends to be more conservative. That's why we have words written like "knight" but not pronounced like "connigit".

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My comment was intended to show that the use of present tense isn't a modern affectation it is something deeply ingrained in the English language -- depending on the dialect. Scots hasn't changed much since the 1700s.

Bothy ballads and other old forms of storytelling (which Burns poetry is basically a form of) are often recorded in the present tense.

Maybe in America it is a modern thing but not every writer or reader is American. To some of us it is a perfectly natural and very well established way of telling a story. I wrote mine in present tense because my character isn't the sort to sit down and go "Well when I were a lad and your nana were a slip of a lass..." He'd live his life.

Languages have tenses.

Use them.