Tenses

[Hex]

Hello!

Are there rules governing what you can do with tenses? (except, I know, almost everyone hates my beloved present tense).

I'm writing something just now in (ahem) present and planning to have the odd chapter of back story told in past tense (but by the present tense narrator).

I know there are no rules as such, but would this be likely to come in the same category as headhopping (well, you can, but you need to know exactly what you're doing or the reader will throw your book at the wall)?

 

[HareBrain]

It would be just like a past-tense narrator relating a pluperfect (or whatever it's called these days) flashback. No problem at all that I can see.

(I'd make sure the narrating character is in a situation where it would be believable for him/her to reflect at length on past events, though.)

 

[The Judge]

Not sure what the problem is here, Hex. If you're narrating in present, ie what's happening today, and you want to say it's as a result of something that happened yesterday, you have to go into past tense to do it, (ie "Yesterday we sold the horse, that's why I'm walking") unless you're striving for a "Well, I says to him" or a Damon Runyon effect.

So if the chapters are dealing with things which happened before the story starts, they ought to be written in past tense. As long as you make it clear that these chapters are the past, I don't see why it should cause any difficulty at all.


Gah: HB beat me to it.

 

[Hex]

Excellent, and thank you.

I wasn't sure why it would be a problem, but the same is true of a number of other things (like writing in the present at all), so I was keen to check.

Edit: I wondered also if there would be issues with switching to past in terms of how believable it would be that the narrator remembers things like the details of dialogue.

 

[HareBrain]

Edit: I wondered also if there would be issues with switching to past in terms of how believable it would be that the narrator remembers things like the details of dialogue.

Hardly less believable than the idea that the narrator is translating his experiences into structured English as they happen. If the story draws them in, readers will accept it.

 

[The Judge]

You have that inherent implausibility factor in every story written in first person -- by and large, readers accept the convention. If they are worrying about it, it's perhaps a sign that they're not immersed in the story enough, which is a different problem.


Blinking Hare moves too fast again...

 

[Ursa major]

If you're narrating in present, ie what's happening today, and you want to say it's as a result of something that happened yesterday, you have to go into past tense to do it, (ie "Yesterday we sold the horse, that's why I'm walking") unless you're striving for a "Well, I says to him" or a Damon Runyon effect.

True.

But Damon Runyan is not, sad to say, alone. If the narrator is a UK historian (at least, one of those who appears on Radio Four), there's a good chance that they'll use the present tense for everything and anything in the past.

I assume they do this to give greater immediacy to the past - or to "make it relevant"? - but all it is is very irritating.

[/mild rant]

 

[HareBrain]

Very well said, Ursa. Not just Radio 4, but seemingly every history programme on every channel. (Though I think David Starkey might still be bravely holding out.)

Even more annoying, they don't then maintain consistency by using the future tense to describe the present. They use present tense for everything, like some Amazonian tribes.

 

[iansales]

Adrift on the Sea of Rains alternates between sections set in the present tense and sections written in imperfect (which describe the protagonist's career). No one has complained yet...

 

[ctg]

Just be careful Hex so that you don't get complaints like I do from mixing present and past tense in narrator's voice. If anything I believe that you should follow your artistic vision first and when that's over, you should have a break before you put on your editor's cap and start looking the prose subjectively.

Good luck with the new project. I'll hope it's going to be as impressive as the Dark Circles.

 

[Hex]

Thank you, ctg -- that's very kind