Getting fed up with present-tense writing
- Thread starter Extollager
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Extollager
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That's close to my view, Swank. Of course there's nothing wrong with present tense itself. It's a necessary part of grammar. Could any culture even exist without it, in some form?
I wouldn't even say the writers who abuse it are "untalented." They may well be talented, but unduly imitative of other writers. Everyone's susceptible to fads, particularly spoken and written ones. Twenty years ago nobody said, of something about which he or she lacked expertise, that it wasn't his or her "wheelhouse." Then you saw it everywhere. There was no real gain to lucid communication. It was people being "in." Myself, as someone who was never "in," I often don't find these verbal fads attractive, and yet I may catch myself using them too.
I wouldn't even say the writers who abuse it are "untalented." They may well be talented, but unduly imitative of other writers. Everyone's susceptible to fads, particularly spoken and written ones. Twenty years ago nobody said, of something about which he or she lacked expertise, that it wasn't his or her "wheelhouse." Then you saw it everywhere. There was no real gain to lucid communication. It was people being "in." Myself, as someone who was never "in," I often don't find these verbal fads attractive, and yet I may catch myself using them too.
As seems to be the case with many things in writing: they shouldn't be used unless they work.
tinkerdan
∞<Q-Satis
I'm all for putting this discussion in the past and moving on 
Laura R Hepworth
Lady of the Rings (chainmaille rings that is)
I'll read or write present tense, but it's definitely not my favorite. It can be done very well, but, other times, it's just jarring. For me, past tense just feels more natural and works better for longer, descriptive passages and worldbuilding.
I haven't had this happen to me yet with my books, but I have seen a piece of my jewellery at a flea market 10+ years after making it. My first reaction was to burst out laughing. I did feel a little sad that the person I'd made it for hadn't held on to it, but it didn't bother me too much as it was a super early piece of mine and one of my first custom orders.
I haven't had this happen to me yet with my books, but I have seen a piece of my jewellery at a flea market 10+ years after making it. My first reaction was to burst out laughing. I did feel a little sad that the person I'd made it for hadn't held on to it, but it didn't bother me too much as it was a super early piece of mine and one of my first custom orders.
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Did you buy it? I'd be sorely tempted to do so, then tell the original recipient that you've another piece just like theirs, and were they interested in buying it, to make the pair...
Laura R Hepworth
Lady of the Rings (chainmaille rings that is)
Lol! No, I didn't, but that would have been hilarious to do if I were still in contact with the original buyer. I did get the fun of the booth owner's reaction though and he tried to sell it back to me
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msstice
200 words a day = 1 novel/year
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I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;
And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea’s face, and a grey dawn breaking.
- John Masefield (1878)
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;
And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea’s face, and a grey dawn breaking.
- John Masefield (1878)
Future tense. Interesting notion. I checked it out.
I'm not sure that statements of intent or prediction are actually future tense as they are being made in present tense.
Good brain teaser though.
I'm not sure that statements of intent or prediction are actually future tense as they are being made in present tense.
Good brain teaser though.
Fiberglass Cyborg
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- 504
In future, all prose written by me shall be written in the passive voice.
Perhaps, but that doesn’t necessarily excuse it, or mean it isn’t usually a bad way of writing. I read and review a lot of new short fiction, and at least half the work being published these days (a) meets the current style fashions, and (b) is poorly written ‘style’ over substance.
Phillip Pullman on the subject:
‘I don’t care how many people enjoy it, fiction in the present tense is an ABDICATION OF NARRATIVE RESPONSIBILITY. I resent having to re-calibrate my entire attitude to time whenever I open a novel in the present tense. Away with them!’ (Twitter, 18 August)
‘I don’t care how many people enjoy it, fiction in the present tense is an ABDICATION OF NARRATIVE RESPONSIBILITY. I resent having to re-calibrate my entire attitude to time whenever I open a novel in the present tense. Away with them!’ (Twitter, 18 August)
Talk about someone living in the past!
In the dusty past....
tinkerdan
∞<Q-Satis
Writing in the present tense: The good and the bad
What are the pros and cons of writing a story or novel in present tense?
www.writers-online.co.uk
My Problem with Present Tense in Fiction
Steve types, and as he types unease settles over him, a layer of disquiet added to the quiet and emptiness of the room. A problem nags at his concentration but he continues, knowing sometimes the act of writing answers questions. Steve types even as hears a key in the lock and the door opens.
Mike enters, glances at Steve and closes the door. Steve types as Mike crosses to their mini-bar, takes a glass and fills it with two fingers of bourbon. A premonition seems to shiver through Mike as he glances at Steve again and he adds a finger more then takes a gulp. “What’s up, bro?”
Steve finds the question banal, its phrasing too tied to its period in time, and types, “What are you doing, Steve?” Still dissatisfied, he knows he will return to it later.
“I’m writing about the here and now and us. I just typed, ‘What are you doing, Steve?’”
“That’s not what I said.”
“It’s what you should have said.”
“Really?”
“Yes,” Steve types, then realizes he should say something: “Yes.”
Mike takes a bigger swallow. They have had similar conversations and Steve has seen that expression on Mike’s face before, an expression suggesting perplexity seasoned with suspicion of Steve’s sanity.
“Dude, why?”
“To capture a sense of life as lived in the moment it’s lived, to place the reader in events happening even as the reader reads them. Call it verisimilitude.”
“Uh huh. But what if nothing happens?”
Steve sits stunned as he types, “Steve sits stunned.”
Draining his glass, Mike crosses to the door. He shakes his head as he leaves.
The quiet, the emptiness seem ready to thwart him but Steve types, fighting against the return of his unease, but experiencing a sense of something wrong, some piece of logic eluding him. But what? … what?
The problem suddenly manifests in his mind, the trap laid by himself for himself resolved in one crystalline sentence: I need something more portable than my laptop!
Steve types, and as he types unease settles over him, a layer of disquiet added to the quiet and emptiness of the room. A problem nags at his concentration but he continues, knowing sometimes the act of writing answers questions. Steve types even as hears a key in the lock and the door opens.
Mike enters, glances at Steve and closes the door. Steve types as Mike crosses to their mini-bar, takes a glass and fills it with two fingers of bourbon. A premonition seems to shiver through Mike as he glances at Steve again and he adds a finger more then takes a gulp. “What’s up, bro?”
Steve finds the question banal, its phrasing too tied to its period in time, and types, “What are you doing, Steve?” Still dissatisfied, he knows he will return to it later.
“I’m writing about the here and now and us. I just typed, ‘What are you doing, Steve?’”
“That’s not what I said.”
“It’s what you should have said.”
“Really?”
“Yes,” Steve types, then realizes he should say something: “Yes.”
Mike takes a bigger swallow. They have had similar conversations and Steve has seen that expression on Mike’s face before, an expression suggesting perplexity seasoned with suspicion of Steve’s sanity.
“Dude, why?”
“To capture a sense of life as lived in the moment it’s lived, to place the reader in events happening even as the reader reads them. Call it verisimilitude.”
“Uh huh. But what if nothing happens?”
Steve sits stunned as he types, “Steve sits stunned.”
Draining his glass, Mike crosses to the door. He shakes his head as he leaves.
The quiet, the emptiness seem ready to thwart him but Steve types, fighting against the return of his unease, but experiencing a sense of something wrong, some piece of logic eluding him. But what? … what?
The problem suddenly manifests in his mind, the trap laid by himself for himself resolved in one crystalline sentence: I need something more portable than my laptop!
Sorry, but I haven't read this whole thread. I would also find the present tense odd if reading a book. I just wondered whether, if it really has become more common, if one reason might be because of role-playing-games? I take part in an online role-playing website and this is all done in the present tense by convention. It makes sense to do that, because what you write is always happening right now.
The previous suggestions of it reflecting modern, dialogue-heavy cinema, and of YA fiction could also be related to that. I don't have children or grandchildren that age, but my next door neighbours do, and I can hear that they play games almost constantly 24/7, all of which appear to be some variety of the first-person shooter perspective. Films based upon such Games, and YA fiction book tie-ins would also follow the first-person perspective.
The previous suggestions of it reflecting modern, dialogue-heavy cinema, and of YA fiction could also be related to that. I don't have children or grandchildren that age, but my next door neighbours do, and I can hear that they play games almost constantly 24/7, all of which appear to be some variety of the first-person shooter perspective. Films based upon such Games, and YA fiction book tie-ins would also follow the first-person perspective.
That's a possibility Dave. Although use of present tense goes back a long way, it was never before as popular as it has been in recent years.
I know that Dickens, for instance, used it sometimes for long passages and even whole scenes, but never for an entire novel, so far as I remember. But when I was reading those bits it never took me out of the story and I think it was years and several readings before it occurred to me that he was doing it at all. For me, at least, he made it feel natural.
Bick, I used to work for a small press magazine, back in the 1990s. More than half of the stories submitted were poorly written and full of tricks and gimmicks the authors did not pull-off but nevertheless felt immensely proud of their own daring and originality, though they were usually the same tricks and gimmicks that many, many others were using.
So I don't think it's because present tense has become so popular that so many writers choose poorly-written style over substance. Style has long been considered more "literary" (therefore better) than mere substance, and it can take a long time and a lot of experience for most writers to unlearn that idea. Some of them never get over it. If present tense was not the new style thing, something else (possibly better, possibly infinitely worse) would hold that distinction.
I know that Dickens, for instance, used it sometimes for long passages and even whole scenes, but never for an entire novel, so far as I remember. But when I was reading those bits it never took me out of the story and I think it was years and several readings before it occurred to me that he was doing it at all. For me, at least, he made it feel natural.
Bick, I used to work for a small press magazine, back in the 1990s. More than half of the stories submitted were poorly written and full of tricks and gimmicks the authors did not pull-off but nevertheless felt immensely proud of their own daring and originality, though they were usually the same tricks and gimmicks that many, many others were using.
So I don't think it's because present tense has become so popular that so many writers choose poorly-written style over substance. Style has long been considered more "literary" (therefore better) than mere substance, and it can take a long time and a lot of experience for most writers to unlearn that idea. Some of them never get over it. If present tense was not the new style thing, something else (possibly better, possibly infinitely worse) would hold that distinction.
AnyaKimlin
Confuddled
Given the trend is about 11 years old I don't think it's going anywhere. It was The Hunger Games that changed things.
I had an interesting couple of years trying to sell a present tense book back in 2010/11 - half way through Hunger Games went from selling well to massive and agents stopped mentioning the tense (they still didn't like the time period). That year I also stopped being the odd one out on NaNoWriMo as lots of kids/YA were trying it - those kids will now be in their 20s and 30s.
I love reading present tense when I am editing present tense because my brain doesn't keep trying to change the tense of the book I am reading. In between editing times I like the book to suit the tense and some characters/stories just suit present tense better than past tense.
I had an interesting couple of years trying to sell a present tense book back in 2010/11 - half way through Hunger Games went from selling well to massive and agents stopped mentioning the tense (they still didn't like the time period). That year I also stopped being the odd one out on NaNoWriMo as lots of kids/YA were trying it - those kids will now be in their 20s and 30s.
I love reading present tense when I am editing present tense because my brain doesn't keep trying to change the tense of the book I am reading. In between editing times I like the book to suit the tense and some characters/stories just suit present tense better than past tense.
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