I don't think it's that hard to do

No, not hard to do badly, but harder to do in a way that works and seems to make sense to the reader.

That why I'd say it was best left to experienced writers. You have to learn the rules before you break them and all that....

Deb

<Added>

... it *is* best, even...

haha thanks you guys... i love the way you're all sort of, debating it between each other. very amusing, especially since i didnt check this site for a few days and then before i know it, theres 2 pages of replies.

ive decided to just write the story as i feel it flows first, then once ive written a fair amount, if i feel one tense works better than the other, then i'll change it. its not critical at this stage for it to be one or the other, well, not in my head. i'm sort of, writing as it comes, if that makes sense.

I think what we're saying is that it's nothing to get too tense over.

(Dives for cover)

Alex

Katheryn, the 'suck it and see' approach sounds a good idea. You can always change things once you've figured out which bits work best.

Deb

*Revives thread out of total insecurity*

Sorry to be late to this one, but it's making me a little nervous. Two of my first person narrators 'tense-jump' in my first book, and I'm now worrying that's a complete turn-off for readers.

Does it make a difference, do you think, if it's meant to be a transcript of an interview - ie it's effectively 'speech' rather than formal prose? (Please say yes, oh please, oh please...)

I know it's hard to tell without reading it, but basically one of the characters occasionally drops into what I'd call 'anecdotal present', much as people often do when describing something that happened. I'll usually try to get a segue by having him address the interviewer just before, so a typical change would read something like '..all we could do was wait. But I ask you, Senor, what sense does that make, the two of us sitting like pigeons waiting for someone to shoot us? My Capitan, he says 'You don't understand these things, Carlos,' so we sit there all day and...'
That's rubbish, obviously, I just made it up for the example, but do you think in principle it's all right?

The other narrator switches to present tense very rarely, and only when a memory he's recounting becomes so vivid he is effectively reliving it as he speaks. He uses a lot of 'run-one sentences' anyway, so I'm hoping the informality of his speech makes it more forgiveable. I also try to segue it by non-tense specific exclamations, eg untagged dialogue, or most often by past continuous, so we gradually become more and more immediate, eg 'There was nothing but this great black shape blotting out the light and the air and everything, then his hand shooting out with the sword in it, and I'm grabbing at it and screaming...'
Again, rubbish example - but do you think the theory's sound?

It's too late for me to change the first book, but I could revise the second if people think this is really hateworthy...

*crosses fingers and prays*

Louise

<Added>

That would be 'run-on', of course, rather than 'run-one.' He's illiterate, but not that illiterate...

If I understand you correctly, Chevalier, you're talking about dialogue, rather than narrative? Personally, I feel that almost anything goes within dialogue, because people do use very informal grammar and mixed tenses when they speak. The only criterion, in fact, is that it sounds like a real person talking. Narrative is different, as it has to be more coherent than speech, so you need to stick to a single tense for the most part. If you change tenses within the narrative, there needs to be a reason for doing it, and that reason needs to be fairly evident to the reader, otherwise they will get confused (or just think it's badly written, which is possibly worse).

Alex

That's what I'm hoping, Alex.

Strictly speaking it's first person narrative rather than dialogue, but because it's sourced as the transcripts of interviews I'm hoping that will count as dialogue in terms of the rules I'm breaking. I think (hope!) the 'epistolary' type of novel has that little bit more leeway.

I would certainly find it very disconcerting in third-person narrative, or in any more formal first-person approach.

I think it sounds fine to me. If it's held together by being all one person 'speaking', then I suspect we'll just take it as it comes - as Alex says, as informal, colloquial, casual narration.

Emma

Emma, I love you.

Sorry to be a needy wimp over this, but I'm in that 'two months to publication panic' which is when you (of the generic type) suddenly see all the things that really stink about your book and become convinced everyone who reads it will hate it.

Of course they still might, but at least I now have serious authority for Being Right.

Thank you, and thank you, Alex. The advice is much appreciated.

Louise

Ah, the public display of self-inflicted emotional collapse and the inherent low self-esteem of writers as a species... it's what the Internet was invented for.

Good luck with your tense publication.

Past tense, future imperfect