How do you feel about present tense?

[Xitra_Blud]

I'm writing my novel in first person present tense because this particular story wouldn't work in past tense, but I'm reading a lot of bad things about present tense. What do you think?

 

[TWErvin2]

First person present tense is difficult to write...far more so than past tense.

It's not the most common format for a story, but not unheard of.

The problem with first person present tense is that it often comes off sounding forced or 'play-by-play' to the reader.

The best thing to avoid the pitfalls is to read authors who've managed to do it successfully. Study how they worded dialogue, actions, thoughts and observations, etc. Then apply it to your story and writing style.


A couple that examples believe have been done well:
The Zombie Driven Life by David Wood
Carry Me Home by Sandra Kring

 

[Feo Takahari]

Present tense feels tenser to me, especially in first person. If your story is in past tense, someone survived to tell it. If it's in present tense, you can kill off the narrator and have someone else pick up the slack.

More general, present tense feels less like a story to me, and more like a waking dream. This can be good or bad.

 

[SensibleRin]

Present tense lives up to it name. It is more immediate.
I think where the big problem enters in is that most of our storytelling is done via post-tense. Simply retelling something that happened to us is post-tense. With the exceptions of commentators, humans do not naturally tell tales blow-by-blow as they happen to us in the present. In nonfiction, there is no need to, as the present is immediately apparent to anyone nearby.
That is where the artifice of fiction enters in. Present-tense must construct for the reader a reality playing out right in front of us. So there is a higher level of difficulty in getting away with present tense.
So if you are using a lot of action, and need a faster-paced prose, tenser, that allows for less reflection, present tense is suitable. Imagery is key, in my opinion.
They say in a story you should show, not tell. Present tense definitely involves more showing than telling, in comparison to post-tense.
You also have to be very careful to keep from switching your tenses . I always have trouble with that.

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

If your story is in past tense, someone survived to tell it.

Although this is mostly the case, it isn't always true. There are clever ways that this assumption can be circumvented, or even used as misdirection. An example that comes to mind is the opening line of the movie Fallen with Danzel Washington. Every human character of any importance dies.

 

[Steerpike]

Present and past both work fine, though I doubt that many stories simply wouldn't work in past. Its a matter of preference. I agree with T.Allen.Smith that no POV or tense necessarily means someone survived to tell the story.

 

[Penpilot]

I wrote a lot in present tense, and I found it good for immediacy, but bad for introspection. Not to say you can't do introspection with present tense, but it didn't quite flow as easily into introspection for me.

I also found that writing in present tense disguised some of my flaws, making my story feel more tense than it actually was. If someone read short snippets, the story would be tense and immediate but over the long haul it got old quick because present tense could only hide my flaws in story for so long.

For me, when I read present tense, there's an adjustment period because at first it feels weird. I've heard some people just can't stand reading present tense. That's a barrier that must be faced.

 

[buyjupiter]

I just finished reading a zombie apocalypse novel Until the End of the World that was mostly written in present tense. It was a good story, but writing in first person present can lead to a lot of flashback scenes. Which is ok if you can write them and make it clear that you're taking the reader back in the narrative timeline. But if every chapter requires them for the first half of the book, I think you might have started in the wrong place. And I think that they're a device that should be used sparingly, because each time the narrative jerks like that I'm struggling to figure out when something is happening and not focused on the what. I expect this kind of wobble wobble with time travel stories and thus read more carefully, but in other genres it drives me nuts.

 

[skip.knox]

Most of the time -- not all of the time! -- I find stories written in the present tense are written that way because the author desires to create a sense of tension but doesn't know how to achieve it through good story-telling techniques. She or he goes for present tense in hopes of somehow mysteriously achieving tension.

I also blame television for the trend. History Channel comes to mind, where most of the narration is done in present tense. News stories are often done the same way. The delivery is done in a kind of breathless manner, with an "isn't this exciting?" tone that again tries to create a sense of tension without actually writing well. I put it in the same category with overusing italics or exclamation marks for emphasis, when the better choice would be to write stronger sentences.

I have a list of books I keep, a list of what I've read over my lifetime and what I intend still to read. A quickly browse down the list shows very, very few were written in the present tense. From H.G. Wells to Jack London to Joseph Conrad to Isaac Asimov to J.R.R. Tolkien to Raymond Chandler to Patrick Fermor. Nope, nary a one. There have been books that were an easy, fun read written in first person (can't think of any off-hand, but I'm willing to grant they exist), but I can't think of any really good stuff written that way. YMMV, natch.

 

[Xitra_Blud]

Most of the time -- not all of the time! -- I find stories written in the present tense are written that way because the author desires to create a sense of tension but doesn't know how to achieve it through good story-telling techniques. She or he goes for present tense in hopes of somehow mysteriously achieving tension. .

I normally write in past tense, but I decided to write in present tense because it fits better for this particular story.

 

[Malik]

The first five hundred words of my first book are in present tense; the narrator is describing something that exists, right now, on another world. From time to time during the book the narration drops into present tense when describing something that still happens, or still exists, on the fictional world where the book happens.

I have toyed with this a hundred times, taking it out and putting it back, and finally decided to leave it in, hoping that it's subtle enough to give the fictional world a stronger sense of realism, as if the narrator has been there. If an editor hates it, I'll remove it, but I'm leaving it for now. It's a gimmick if it's done too much but I only use it in a couple of places. It also firmly establishes the narrator as omniscient and removes the narrator from the story completely for a moment, which can be jarring if it's done too often or not well.

* * * *

Jarrod had been to castles; he knew a big castle when he saw one.

No Cinderella Special, Gateskeep Palace is squarish and massive, with thick walls and fat square towers that give her a squat, broad-shouldered appearance. The keep is squarish as well, and the great tower’s silhouette can be seen for miles.

The night had cleared to a cold wind as they’d traveled the last half-mile along the lake. The moon, a full tenth of the horizon, was magenta with splotches of white, its ring clearly visible and its light so strong that it cast slate shadows.

Jarrod saw very well by the moonlight.

* * * *

EDIT: I'd be really, really careful with trying this. I've been working on this approach for twenty years and I still don't know if I have the chops to pull it off.

 

[buyjupiter]

Jarrod had been to castles; he knew a big castle when he saw one.

No Cinderella Special, Gateskeep Palace is squarish and massive, with thick walls and fat square towers that give her a squat, broad-shouldered appearance. The keep is squarish as well, and the great tower’s silhouette can be seen for miles.

The night had cleared to a cold wind as they’d traveled the last half-mile along the lake. The moon, a full tenth of the horizon, was magenta with splotches of white, its ring clearly visible and its light so strong that it cast slate shadows.

Jarrod saw very well by the moonlight.

I see conditional past, present conditional, simple past, passive past (not that it's really a tense, just a construction), and present tense. I'm not trying to be critical here, but after studying a few foreign languages and tense construction, I'm more aware of what tenses are being used.

I think this combination of tenses is infinitely more readable than your passage done up completely in present tense like I'll do below:

Jarrod knows a big castle when he sees one.

No Cinderella Special, Gateskeep Palace is squarish and massive, with thick walls and fat square towers that give her a squat, broad-shouldered appearance. The keep is squarish as well, and the great tower’s silhouette dominates the landscape.

The night clears to a cold wind as they travel the last half-mile along the lake. The moon, a full tenth of the horizon, is magenta with splotches of white, its ring clearly visible and its light so strong that it cast slate shadows.

Jarrod sees very well by moonlight.

Using present tense exclusively leads to some very odd constructions, and there wasn't a good way to phrase some of the conditional past "had beens" and conditional present "can bes" in the present tense. Which lead me to rewriting a little bit.

So maybe, what the OP is looking for after all isn't strictly present tense, but a simple past that's fairly close to the present as well as present tense for some of the more immediate action scenes.

ETA: I hope you don't mind me using your work as an example and somewhat mangling it, Malik.

 

[Malik]

No worries.

For those of you who aren't English or linguistics majors, let's break it down a bit.

The night that "cleared to a cold wind" has long done so. That action in the story, including everything Jarrod ever did in that world, is all past tense. The palace, however, is still standing as the narrator tells the story. This is why there are so many tense formations in that passage; I specifically chose it as an example because from a temporal narrative standpoint, it's a train wreck. Clever wordplay can tell a convoluted story without losing anybody.

I see now that there's a typo in there, too. "They'd" should be "they." Gaaah.

The other points in the book where this happens are much clearer. I hope.

The way you mauled it all into present clarifies the OP's original question, though. I was just pointing out that there is a time to use present tense, and it's even possible, under the right circumstances, to mix tenses. But it's not easy, and it's not for the faint-hearted.

 

[buyjupiter]

The way you mauled it all into present clarifies the OP's original question, though. I was just pointing out that there is a time to use present tense, and it's even possible, under the right circumstances, to mix tenses. But it's not easy, and it's not for the faint-hearted.

It definitely felt like I mauled it. I sat for ten minutes trying to figure out how to shift conditional tense to present before giving up.

With your explanation above it makes a lot more sense what you were attempting with the use of present tense.

PS: Most of my linguistics knowledge comes from studying post-structuralist literary theory in one semester of English, a podcast on the history of English, and learning rudimentary French/Italian/Spanish/German, and Latin structure. If my phrase order ever seems off, it's because I have four sets of language rules floating around in my head, and sometimes English doesn't come first.