i am having a bit of a dilemma here about whether i should write my story in present tense like i have with chapter one, or go back to past tense as i had originally done in all my other chapters. its not like its hard to change back from one to the other, but i just dont want it sound - weird, i guess. i sometimes get too strung up on what other authors do with their novels and then i think 'oh that seems like a good idea' and so i try it and then i get half way through the story and it some how turns not so right, if that makes sense.
i just need a bit of advice, im not that good when it comes to the overall sound of a story. sure im okay at writing it but after a while even i start to drift in and out of tenses lol

would be grateful for any replies.. thanks
xx
:-)

Your chapter is written in 1st person, present, which I think works fine.

I have more of a problem with 3rd person present which often sounds clunky to my ear.



- NaomIM

Katheryn, no time to explore this one in detail, but this is something I posted on my blog a while back, after a writer friend asked what I thought

Emma

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Oooh, and found the comments link back to a terrific WW thread from a while back.

http://www.writewords.org.uk/forum/65_51010.asp

Emma

hmm that article was interesting. im still torn. :/
i am pretty used to writing in first person past tense but at the same time, some of my story sounds better in present tense. arrrrghhh sooo confusing!
why i couldnt have just stuck with past tense and be done with it - i. do. not. know!
but none the less, i have pretty much got to decide now - either i stick with present tense and edit the rest of my story or i go back to past tense and only edit some of my story haha....

well, we'll see how things go yeah.
wish me luck :/

My tuppence is that the story dictates.

Unless I have a good reason to do otherwise, I keep third person past, but when I need first it just has to be done. Rarely, but sometimes, I also need present tense.

For example, to get really intimate with a sociopath, there is no way to achieve it when looking on from outside and really personal experiences are in the present as they occur.

I'm not sure how others think on this, but I can see a number of ways to work first and third in together, even if only by quoting the first person stuff in italics.

It's all just another set of tools to make communicating your story more fun.

Gaius

Katheryn, I don't think it matters which of those two you choose, but the important thing is that you make it consistent.

Past is probably more common than present, for a story, but both are fine in first person.

So I suggest you just decide, and stick with it, and if you decide eventually that you want to change your mind then you just have to go through and change it all. Not ideal, but possible.

Are you writing a full-length novel?

Deb

I would go with whichever conveys the best 'voice' for your mc, and as the chapter stands I think your mc does have an engaging 'voice'.

You wouldn't be the first writer to have a mixture of tenses. I've recently read The Smiling Affair, by Jeremy Sheldon, and this has an unusual mix of tenses. Most of the story is told in 3rd person past tense, but there are occasional interludes (which I understood to be when the main character was dreaming) when it changes to 1st person present. However, there is one interlude of this nature which is told in 3rd person past tense.

Alex

Joan Lindsay also mixed tenses within the same scene in Picnic At Hanging Rock...

Not to mention our Lord. (Speaking as an atheist, by "our" I of course don't actually mean "our" so much as "some of your". )

"Before Abraham ever was, I am."

I really wouldn't recommend mixing tenses, though, unless you make a very clear delineation between bits in past and bits in present - such as that one represents dreams and the other reality.

Apart from that kind of thing, I would suggest that mixing tenses is more for experimental writing from very experienced writers, because otherwise you simply risk it looking as if you don't know what you're doing.

Deb

"Before Abraham ever was, I am."

The context of that quote is that "I am" is from a Hebrew verb which means "to be permanently" (like the Spanish verb "ser", for those who know Spanish). It only looks like a weird mixture of tenses when translated into a language (i.e. English) which doesn't easily convey the sense of what was being said (and whose theologians are too afraid of paraphrasing in order to convey the meaning more precisely).

Alex

I really wouldn't recommend mixing tenses, though, unless you make a very clear delineation between bits in past and bits in present - such as that one represents dreams and the other reality.

I don't think it's that hard to do, though it does entail keeping your head, if you see what I mean, which may be antithetical to the let-it-all-hang-out spirit of a first draft. But nothing a trawl through with a fine-toothed comb won't sort out.

As I said in that blog post, I'm not mad about huge slabs of present tense, but I do think it has its uses, specially if what you're up to in any given story is very much about the interplay of past and present.

To defent my proposition, I've uploaded a little bit of A Secret Alchemy into the archive. It involves present-tense 'now', and two kinds of past-tense 'then', one a full-on flashback scene to childhood, and one more fluid memories/reflection of the recent past.

http://www.writewords.org.uk/archive/24964.asp

Two of the three strands of ASA have this structure of 'now' and 'then', in different balances: in the strand I've posted here, Now dominates, with bits of Then embedded. In the other one, Now is a much slighter frame for Then, which is the real meat of the story.

Emma



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Alex, I love that phrase in English - gorgeously paradoxical, even if that isn't quite the flavour of the original.

is from a Hebrew verb which means "to be permanently"

I'm sure you are right, but not so convinced it makes any difference, it still comes out roughly as; "I exist, will always exist, and have existed since before Abraham."

It's not as much fun as implying time as a navigable fourth dimension either (and, really, if people will insist on there being a god, s/he/it should at least be capable of time travel even if only because it makes omnipotence and omniscience much more readily explainable).

I'm not mad about huge slabs of present tense, but I do think it has its uses

At least one of which is to amuse the writer; I always find I get "into character" when I write first person present. Sometimes a little scary, but hey...

At least one of which is to amuse the writer; I always find I get "into character" when I write first person present.

I do think that, by and large, first person is by far the easiest in which to evoke character and voice - that's probably why most writing students immediately gravitate towards it (because who do we know better than ourselves? and who doesn't love to write about "me"?).

But it's not always necessarily the best voice for the story, IYSWIM...and I agree with Emma that the combination of first person and present can get to be a bit much for a reader (and arguably, over-indulgent of the writer!)