I couldn't get on with Mr Lanchester at all

what's he ever done to you? sheesh, he's just another honest joe trying to make a dime or two from writing...

For me it feels like writing in the present tense is an extremely difficult trick to carry off, but when it is done well it can produce great results. The master of this for me (and I'm surprised no-one has mentioned him yet) is J.P.Donleavy (whose most famous book The Ginger Man is soon being made into a film with Johnny Depp).

Here's the only extract from The Ginger Man I could find on a quick search of Google Books. It's terribly out of context but does illustrate Donleavy's poetic and ever-so-slightly stream-of-consciousness style:

Entering the taxi. And standing at the door, MacDoon next to Clocklan. MacDoon eating an eclair. Clocklan's hand engages with a haunch of nurse. His other with a cigar. And from the windows I see some of the elderly and the face of that blonde American girl. I think she must be crying. Are they all weeping in there ? O taxi man, away, away, away like a devil shooting between the stars. And don't be making stops for traffic either.

I saw JPD give a reading from The Ginger Man some years ago. He has an extraordinary presence. Not a dry eye in the house.

Yes, the last post showed something that i think is a strength of present tense - its ability to slip seamlessly from thought to action to image. In this it can be like poetry. And this, I think at least, can lend it more immediacy of experience. However, despite my leaning towards it, it is very difficult when moving round the past and future in a novel and past gives you more freedom to play with things and to change place, time mood and tone.

So I'm for and against. Sit on the fencer.

While not generally enamoured of the present tense, I do agree that, in the right circumstances, it is extremely effective. A good example is Taking Comfort by member Roger Morris (reviewed elsewhere on the site) and other have been quoted already in this thread.

I do sometimes feel though that the use of present tense is being 'pushed' as being somehow superior to 'out-moded' past tense narration, i.e. present tense has become fashionable. I can only assume that this is the explanation for what I heard when I tuned into a BBC serialised dramatisation/translation of Flaubert's Madame Bovary this morning. The dialogue sounded fine, but I immediately thought that the narrative text seemed stilted. After a few moments I realised that they had converted poor old Flaubert's past tense narration into the presumably more trendy present. What's the justification for that? Did they think he'd got it wrong and that they knew better?

Chris

Hi Chris, just like to say thank you for your very generous endorsements of my attempt to write in the present tense. I thought I might add a note as to why I did it. The main reason was that I had a real prejudice against books written in the present which I felt, as a writer, I ought to try to overcome. I mean, I kind of resented the fact that everyone said you shouldn't write in the present tense, even though I agreed with them. To be honest, I'm not being wholly honest here (?) - I wrote it in the present tense because I felt it was the right thing to do for the story I was trying to tell. However, I resisted doing for a long long long long time. And that resistance came from a kind of presenttensephobia. It was the realisation that I had to do something to overcome this that made me bite the bullet and do it, despite my own personal distaste. Yet again I suspect I'm probably not making much sense and coming across as a mad person. But I hope you get what I mean.

I have just finished To the Hermitage, by Malcolm Bradbury, which is also in the present tense - Chris, I think it was mentioned another of his books above, also in the present tense. I can see why he did it, I think, and I'm hardly one to criticise him for doing it, but... well, it's kind of tricky as his novel is split between the past (the period of Catherine the Great) and the present (well, 1993) and both bits are in the present. I suppose the point may be that the past was as immediate to those that were living through it as our present is to us. (Soon to be the past of course.)

All I can say, to sum up, is that I'm glad I've got it out of my system and I promise never to do it again.

I think that it can be done very masterfully, and to intense effect. That person who quoted from "The History Man" gave a great example of it being done badly, in my opinion. As they said, it sounded like stage directions.

In contrast, try out Updike's Rabbit, Run or Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow. The present tense contributes immensely to each, and there isn't a single point at which it intrudes or sounds like stage directions.

Just skimmed through posts as have little time today - this is a debate we've had before and suspect will have many times again! I am also writing my novel in present tense and have had mixed responses to this. Some love it, some hate it. Initially, I simply wrote in the style that 'felt' right at the time, and for this story. The story is about the world of television, so it certainly mimics the experience of watching it. I don't think there should be any hard and fast rules - obviously people will have their own opinions, just as they will have opinions about prologues or first-person narrative etc etc. Would just say that clearly large numbers of readers DO enjoy present-tense narrative, or anisoara's list of books above would never have been published - or bought.
Susiex

Well, just to keep the 'argument' rolling:

...clearly large numbers of readers DO enjoy present-tense narrative...

But when taken as a percentage of fiction readers, it is still a small minority.

- NaomiM

Fully subjective response: I love present tense - often write in it naturally but then convert to past for the sole reason that I've heard so many complaints and crits of present tense from editors, agents and writers I respect. They appear to loathe it, and I don't want to scupper my chances by writing something which seems an immediate barrier for so many people.

But truly I can't see why it's a barrier. To those who think it's a false narrative - sit in a pub and eavesdrop. Even people who start a story saying: 'We got woken up in the middle of the night last night,' will by the time they're in the heart of the narrative have slipped into the present tense: 'So the fox has next door's cat by the tail and John is sweeping them out the front door with a mop, stark naked, when the neighbour stops by to...' etc.

It is a valid, instinctive tense for conveying dramatic narrative in our language, I'd say. Sometimes past tense feels staid to me, but it can open a scene up.

Agreed, Cherys, it has a valid place in dialogue and sometimes in narrative, but last year I took a straw poll of friends and relatives, and they all said they do not read books written 100% in the present tense. Multiplied up, that's a significant chunk of the buying market. Nothing, of course, to say you shouldn't write it in the present tense, but as you say, Cherys, you are then significanlty reducing your chances of having it picked up by an Agent, except for those few who have handled such books in the past. You just need to do your homework to find out which Agents don't have a prefeence regarding tense, before submitting.

- NaomiM

I don't mind it when it's used with purpose. What I can't stand is someone who obviously thinks it's somehow clever.
Last Summer I read Relentless ( which I couldn't get along with for reasons I wont pontificate on now) but the use by him of present tense forst person for the MC then past tense third person for the secondary character was interesting. I never would have done that - would have considered it too contrived - but it did imbue the feeling that MC was breathlessly on the run, while side kick was more methodically trying to investigate.
In Damaged Goods I wrote only one character in present because I wanted it to have the 'tap on the head' aspect to it. Something out of kilter with everyone else. But, her passages were always short so it didn't tip into annoying.
HB x

I tend to overuse the present tense - a complaint about my latest ms and the agent has asked me to change all those ing's to ed's. Though before I felt this would be stilted, it actually makes for a more comfortable read.

However, there are some scenes where I use the present tense exclusively - to add impact and immediacy or to show a shift in the character or situation. But I know this can irritate readers and I may still have to adapt.

I love the way Helen Dunmore does this - I think Emma mentioned her earlier. But then again, it can become irritating if not done well.


s

Nice to see this thread resurrected - it's a good one, isn't it.

Helen, I had big reservations about Restless too, mainly to do with it being so insubstantial, tho' I love a good spy thriller. I quite liked the contrast between the tense-and-person of the different sections. It is something I might do myself, though, so I guess I'm predisposed.

I realise since my earlier posts (blimey, were they really 2005? Scary!) that ASA has quite a lot of present tense (all first person), BUT that's because two of the three strands have important past-tense, reflective aspects to them, so it's the cleanest, clearest way of sliding between 'now' and 'then'. It does have to be something substantial in the character's past - a whole story to tell albeit in fragmented form - before I'll do that though. The third strand is past tense, changing to present for the end of the story which turns out to be not quite the end, so there's one important scene in present...

Emma

I agree, Emma, that it was insubstantial - a lot of action not going any where if you know what I mean.
However, I do think the first person present/third person past is an intriguing structure which lends itself to a thriller.
I've been plunging my memory for other books that play with it but can't think of any.
HB x

I felt it was efficiently done, and he writes well, but for me it was the emotional insubstantiality of it. I do remember thinking the same of Stars and Bars too, years ago, which is the only other one of his I've read, but that was comedy and I think I accepted it more. I did wonder if it was partly that, having decided to write from two female PoVs, he'd successfully drained out any masculine voice and thought, but not managed to replace it with anything female, so the characters came over very bloodlessly - neutered, if you like. And the basic premise - that the past never leaves you - was a bit straightforward, and not really enough to sustain the book, unless I was missing something.

But then for me the ultimate spy-story writer is LeCarré, after whom just about any other writer seems a bit bloodless and straightforward.

Emma