How to do Historical Present?

Michelle D. · Aug 1, 2014

hi folks,

I want to write my memoir in the present tense. eat pray love is in the present tense. but she seems to switch back and forth. So I don't really know how to do it. Is everything in present tense?

or do I pretend I'm writing a journal entry for today, so everything from today is in present tense, and everything I talk about from yesterday or last week is in past tense?

many thanks!!

Michelle

Bufty · Aug 2, 2014

Writing a Journal -in which you presumably have recorded 'what you have done on any particular day' - in present tense doesn't seem the easiest approach to me at all.

Your logic seems a tad off to me. Why on earth do you want to use present tense at all? Even what you have done 'today' is still in past tense when you record it in a Journal.

Captcha · Aug 2, 2014

I haven't read Eat, Pray, Love, but in general for present tense, you pick the time when your story is happening. Whatever the main narrative thread is will be your present tense parts. And then anything that happened before or after that thread is past or future tense.

eg. A story about an upset (and melodramatic) teenager:

I flop down on the bed and bury my head under the pillows. I wish I could travel back in time. When I was a kid, I'd build a fort with my mattress and blankets and it was the only protection I'd need from anything. But today, pillows do me no good. Someday I suppose they'll cushion my aching, aged bones as I lie dying of old age or whatever. They'll be useful again, then. But now? I throw them across the room and they don't even produce a satisfying thud against the door.

I'd probably break that up into different paragraphs if it were in a story, but hopefully you get the idea. Pick your main time that the story is set, and change tense when you leave that main time.

King Neptune · Aug 2, 2014

I agree with Bufty. Even though the historical present is frequently used in history, it seems clumsy and inaccurate to me. If something already happened, then it is past and should be written in the past tense.

Captcha · Aug 2, 2014

King Neptune said:
I agree with Bufty. Even though the historical present is frequently used in history, it seems clumsy and inaccurate to me. If something already happened, then it is past and should be written in the past tense.

This argument never makes sense to me. If we follow the "things from the past should be written in past tense" rule, does that mean "things from the future should be written in future tense"?

That'd make for some hard-to-read scifi, wouldn't it?

Verb tense is a stylistic choice. There are those who don't like present tense, but in some genres it's very common and popular. I don't think it has anything to do with when the actions being described are actually set.

Bufty · Aug 2, 2014

I can see where some Journal notes may suit present tense-Must remember to...and similar things but to describe events in present tense seems foreign to me.

Captcha · Aug 2, 2014

No, I agree, it would be weird to write a journal in present tense.

I was just responding to the idea that verb tense in narrative should always match the time when the actions actually took place.

ETA: although for a fictionalized or voice-heavy 'journal', I can see present tense working. A lot of people tell stories about their adventures in present tense, orally, so if the journal was echoing that oral tradition, it might work?

King Neptune · Aug 2, 2014

Captcha said:
This argument never makes sense to me. If we follow the "things from the past should be written in past tense" rule, does that mean "things from the future should be written in future tense"?

That'd make for some hard-to-read scifi, wouldn't it?

No, not at all.

Verb tense is a stylistic choice. There are those who don't like present tense, but in some genres it's very common and popular. I don't think it has anything to do with when the actions being described are actually set.

Tense is a matter of grammar and logic.

Captcha · Aug 2, 2014

King Neptune said:
No, not at all.

Tense is a matter of grammar and logic.

Really? So are you saying books set in the future SHOULD be written in future tense?

Michelle D. · Aug 2, 2014

hehe loving the lively discussion this morning. thanks for the tip Captcha

Captcha said:
I haven't read Eat, Pray, Love, but in general for present tense, you pick the time when your story is happening. Whatever the main narrative thread is will be your present tense parts. And then anything that happened before or after that thread is past or future tense.

eg. A story about an upset (and melodramatic) teenager:

I flop down on the bed and bury my head under the pillows. I wish I could travel back in time. When I was a kid, I'd build a fort with my mattress and blankets and it was the only protection I'd need from anything. But today, pillows do me no good. Someday I suppose they'll cushion my aching, aged bones as I lie dying of old age or whatever. They'll be useful again, then. But now? I throw them across the room and they don't even produce a satisfying thud against the door.

I'd probably break that up into different paragraphs if it were in a story, but hopefully you get the idea. Pick your main time that the story is set, and change tense when you leave that main time.

Nualláin · Aug 2, 2014

Just as a point of order, there's a difference between the use of the "historic present" and composing a novel in the present tense.

The historic present in fiction is typically a shift tense, where a writer or speaker will narrate events in a past tense by default and then shift at some point to using the present tense for some purpose -- foregrounding, dramatic effect, vividness, etc. This was a common practice in Latin and Greek literature, and can be very effective in English writing when handled with great skill, but can be difficult to do well. It's also extremely common in spoken English to achieve similar effects; many people will say things like "So, I was standing at the bus stop this morning, and this girl walks up and smiles at me..." when telling stories about the past in conversational context. It makes the story seem more immediate to the speaker's interlocutors.

However, if composing an entire work in the present tense, that's not really an historic present. You're simply writing, as Captcha says above, as if the main events of the story are happening in present time, then referring in past tense to anything prior to the established present. It's been a fairly common stylistic choice in English for a few decades now.

Rufus Coppertop · Aug 2, 2014

King Neptune said:
No, not at all.
Tense is a matter of grammar and logic.

Dune in future tense would look like this.

In the week before their departure to Arrakis, when all the final scurrying about will have reached a nearly unbearable frenzy, an old crone will come to visit the mother of the boy, Paul.

It will be a warm night at Castle Caladan and the ancient pile of stone that will have served the Atreides family as home for twenty-six generations will bear that cooled-sweat feeling it acquires before a change in the weather.

The old woman will be let in by the side down down the vaulted passage by Paul's room and she will be allowed a moment to peer in at him where he will be lying in bed.

As long as character's don't start using the future tense as well, it could work. At a logical and grammatical level it could.

I think we'd be asking too much of our readers though, if we were to start writing our sci-fi in future tense.

eyeblink · Aug 3, 2014

Captcha said:
No, I agree, it would be weird to write a journal in present tense.

I must be weird then. I used to keep journals on holiday and I found myself naturally writing them in present.

I haven't read Eat Pray Love, but Eva Hoffman's autobiography Lost in Translation is in present tense. That book is about someone cut off from her past - she emigrated from Poland to the USA and found herself losing fluency in her native language without (yet) being fluent in English, so had to deal with the fear that she might have no language to express herself in. In that case the use of first present is entirely appropriate IMO.

Rufus Coppertop said:
I think we'd be asking too much of our readers though, if we were to start writing our sci-fi in future tense.

Someone - was it Brian Aldiss? - once wrote a SF short story in second person future tense. That is a short, though - doing that for a full-length novel would be hard work, but never say never.

King Neptune · Aug 3, 2014

Nualláin said:
Just as a point of order, there's a difference between the use of the "historic present" and composing a novel in the present tense.

The historic present in fiction is typically a shift tense, where a writer or speaker will narrate events in a past tense by default and then shift at some point to using the present tense for some purpose -- foregrounding, dramatic effect, vividness, etc. This was a common practice in Latin and Greek literature, and can be very effective in English writing when handled with great skill, but can be difficult to do well. It's also extremely c0ommon in spoken English to achieve similar effects; many people will say things like "So, I was standing at the bus stop this morning, and this girl walks up and smiles at me..." when telling stories about the past in conversational context. It makes the story seem more immediate to the speaker's interlocutors.

However, if composing an entire work in the present tense, that's not really an historic present. You're simply writing, as Captcha says above, as if the main events of the story are happening in present time, then referring in past tense to anything prior to the established present. It's been a fairly common stylistic choice in English for a few decades now.

Good points, apparently some people have trouble telling the difference.

Chase · Aug 3, 2014

Nualláin said:
The historic present in fiction is typically a shift tense, where a writer or speaker will narrate events in a past tense by default and then shift at some point to using the present tense for some purpose -- foregrounding, dramatic effect, vividness, etc. This was a common practice in Latin and Greek literature, and can be very effective in English writing when handled with great skill, but can be difficult to do well. It's also extremely common in spoken English to achieve similar effects; many people will say things like "So, I was standing at the bus stop this morning, and this girl walks up and smiles at me..." when telling stories about the past in conversational context. It makes the story seem more immediate to the speaker's interlocutors.

Guy walks into a grammar discussion. After trying to pronounce Nualláin, he gives up and wonders aloud, "Why the comma after So? It ain't right."

Bartender says, "Neither is ain't"

The derail goes on for a while before someone raises a glass and says, "Good explanation of historical present, though."

He's spot on.

How to do Historical Present?

Michelle D.

Bufty

Where have the last ten years gone?

Captcha

King Neptune

Captcha

Bufty

Where have the last ten years gone?

Captcha

King Neptune

Captcha

Michelle D.

Nualláin

Rufus Coppertop

eyeblink

Barbara says hi

King Neptune

Chase

It Takes All of Us to End Racism