Hopefully not too stupid question follows:

A novel written mainly in the present tense, interspersed with past tense flashbacks.

Can this work, or would it be more effective in reverse, i.e. the flashback sections in the present, to give them a film-like, immediate quality?

I'm bashing on with a new idea, but it really seems to work better the first way round. But would this format become incredibly tiresome to read after the first few chapters?

I honestly don't know, so any comments gratefully received.

Yes, seems logical to me. I'm sure I've read an example recently, but frustratingly can't remember the author.


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- that was in answer to flashbacks in past tense. I wouldn't be surprised if there are examples of both formats.

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1st person, present tense works really well, so if the Flashbacks are in 1st person I can see how present tense would make it more imediate. Maybe use past tense if you're telling it in the 3rd person.

Yes, I think it can work very well, but like Naomi, can't think of an example, except two strands of my own ASA...

I was thinking around these issues in this blog post, from a while back:

Emma

Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow is written in 1st person, present tense, but the author doesn't follow a straight forward chronology in the opening chapters. There's a lot of jumping backwards and forwards as he relates the main character's memories of the boy.

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Jennifer Donnelly uses past tense for flashbacks, and present tense for current events in her novel A Gathering Light.

Stef Penney uses 1st person, present tense for the main character's narrative; 3rd person present tense for other characters' narratives; and past tense for flashbacks in her novel The Tenderness of Wolves.

Practically speaking, you may want to use it ... when the novel is structured round a shortish 'now' skeleton, when a lot of the action, as it were, slides fluidly to and fro between 'now' and 'then', and it's easier to keep the reader on track without slabs of the pluperfect

Aha, the above quote from Emma's blog (is it okay to quote it?) is exactly what I was thinking of. I will be jumping back and fore between two (possibly three) time periods quite a bit, and was worried that the pluperfect would seem horribly unwieldy after a while.

Whether a whole novel written like this will end up driving people crazy, I don't know, but I suppose I just have to 'suck it and see' ...

(is it okay to quote it?)

yes, of course.

Emma

I'm only just getting used to stories written in the present tense. The past tense feels more natural to me somehow.

Mind you, I really enjoyed Charles Stross' Halting State, and that's not only written in the present tense it's written in the second person. I've very rarely seen that one work!

My WIP has somehow become present tense and it's working thus far. It's not a tense I would normally write in. I am, as many writers here appear to be, a died in the wool fan of past tense. With this novel however, past tense just felt awkward, I had some sections in present tense that worked beautifully and one day thought 'sod it' and switched the tense of the awkward sections. BAM! Suddenly it all flowed perfectly!

Admittedly it's harder to write in, it requires on occasion a great deal more thought to achieve the flow you're aiming for but whilst it continues to work I will keep employing it for this WIP. I submitted a section of it (admittedly re-worked to a story but all still present tense) for my final piece at uni and managed to grab a first so I'm hoping other readers will be as pleased as my tutors were with it.

If not I can always work on changing it but I must say I'd be upset about it... it's such an interesting writing experiment to write in an entirely new tense for the length of a novel. I won't do it on every WIP, that's for certain, but I truly hope to be told by any readers/crits that it's working in this one so I'm able to keep it ;p

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I should probably add that I'm writing the novel in limited third person with a few diff POVs, which in limited has proven essential for explication, though the theme itself calls for POV shifts.

Emily Diamand's Flood Child (aka Reaver's Ransom) is first person, present tense, and it works beautifully.

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(Much prefer the original title. Chicken House were silly to change it).

Just an update on this - I went ahead and posted the intro to my new NiP (also changed the title, Naomi, as per your wise advice) and absolutely no-one has queried it being in the present, so I'll take it that it works