Hello

I'm not sure I can even explain my question. I'll have a go.

Okay, so I'm writing in the past tense, 1st person POV. My sentence is this... 'But I'd come to say goodbye and now that I was HERE I had to stay.'

Is that clumsy? Should I be writing 'But I'd come to say goodbye and now that I was THERE I had to stay.'

And if it should be the latter then should the word 'come' change even if I have to rejig the wording?

I do hope that makes sense to someone

Thanks
Sharon

But I'd gone to say goodbye and once I was there I had to stay?

Thanks, Shika. That looks better.

Do you know, should I always be avoiding words like 'come' and 'here' and 'now' if writing in the past tense, such as in my example? I tend to do it a lot, I think.

For instance:

'Now he'd seen her, he guessed he ought to speak to her'

becoming

'Since he'd seen her, he guessed he ought to speak to her.'

Sharon

Sharon,

I get mixed up over the use of 'now' as well in my writing. I don't know the rule.

As for the 'here' or 'there' I think it would depend on whether you wanted to imply distance or proximity of the narrator to the place at the time of recounting. (Does that make sense?) Like 'I had simply come to say goodbye but two years later I was still here, unable to leave....' or 'I had gone to say goodbye but when I got there I found I couldn't leave..' i.e. is the narrator still in the place or not?

Sharon, I reckon I'd put EITHER 'I'd come.... here...' or 'I'd gone.... there'. The first is much closer in, in terms of your charcater's POV, the latter perhaps more traditional and formally corrcet.

I have the same problem with whether to say, for example, 'tomorrow' or 'the next day' (e.g. 'Esmerelda wondered whether she ought to come back tomorrow' or 'Esmerelda wondered whether she ought to come back the next day'. Or 'she'd been up late every night this week' versus '...every night that week'. In both cases the second sounds more correct, but the first brings you closer into your character's personal POV. It's a choice, depending on the effect you want, but you need to be consistent.

Well, that's what I think, anyway.

Rosy.

Sharon, I get tied up in knots over this one too, but I suspect that readers don't! I think Rosy's right - it depends how far inside the character's head you are. In this instance I'd go with 'here', but I think it's more a case of both rather than neither being right.

If it's any comfort a good copyeditor should pick up anything that's radically wrong.

Emma

Ah, thanks so much Ashlinn, Rosy and Emma. I'm glad I'm not the only one who gets confused

Yes, that's a good point about how close to POV I want to be so I think in this case the 'come' and 'here' are right as I really am writing from inside my MC's head.

Sharon
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I'll second Shika's suggestion.

The trouble with "here" is that you're writing in the past tense, so if you imagine this being a real person who's telling you what happened to them in the past, they are unlikely to be at that location as they tell you.

So if I was telling you what happened this afternoon at the supermarket, I'd say, "I got a migraine on the way there, but thought I may as well buy some food once I was there". I wouldn't use "here", because when I'm telling you I'm not there.

That's how I think of it, anyway.

Deb

<Added>

Just another thought: I'm not entirely certain your original example sentence is past tense, Sharon. Not conventional standard past tense, anyway. It's one of those complicated ones.

But my understanding of grammar is instinctive because we were never taught it the other way, so I'm happy to be corrected!

Thanks, Deb

I do think it's very confusing. The thing is yes, it's in the past tense, and yes, in a way, my MC is relating a story and so theoretically she should be saying 'I'd gone there to say goodbye...'

But looking at it from another angle, I have this notion of my MC bringing the reader into her experience, taking them on her journey from start to end, and so if I use 'I'd come to say goodbye' then it seems so much more personal to me - almost like the here and now but in the past tense.

Hmm, I never have been that great at explaining myself. Would that have made any sense?



Sharon

I quite often write sentences that I know don't say exactly what I want them to - or words. If I'm in the middle of something and really don't want to stop or even just stuck for the moment I leave it as 'best fit for now' and usuually find that later when I come back to it I realise what it should say and why.

Sometimes takes a while...

Sarah

Wise words, Sarah - I was just thinking that myself. When you come back to it it often seems obvious.

Deb

Sarah - and Deb

Yes, you're right there, although if I leave things they don't half play on my mind.

But then my inner critic is alive and well at the moment and turning into a bit of a monster if I'm honest.

I've made a decision to sit on my novel for a while - maybe that'll squash the monster out.

Sharon
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squash the monster out

Lovely image! I do hope so.

I find I get more obsessive about details when I'm overtired, either mentally, physically or emotionally. I'm always reasonably obsessive but there's a point when it becomes counter-productive instead of useful. So a break from the novel sounds a good plan.

Deb

Just to add my two penneth - I think the rough rule for this is went there/come here.

Have you tried reading the passage aloud? That usually helps me out of such tricky situations.

Nik.

Deb, thanks for that.

Nik, I've just seen your reply. Thank you so much and I think a 'reading aloud' session will definitely help in due course. Although I really really really HATE my reading aloud voice in anything but the stories I read to my kids. I seem to make any adult novel sound flat and lifeless - guess I'll have to read my drafts to my kids instead of their stories using my 'character voices' - hee hee.

Sharon
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