When writing in past tense

Discussion in 'Word Mechanics' started by Terrie000, Jul 24, 2016.

  1. OurJud

    OurJud Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    May 21, 2009
    Messages:
    9,502
    Likes Received:
    9,758
    Location:
    England
    Agreed. 'Crows were omnivores' doesn't read right to me either. This clearly suggests the species is extinct.

    That said, I do feel like present tense in such a case sounds a bit academic-ey, and for that reason I would just find another way to tell the reader the same thing - one that didn't involve any tense.
     
  2. Elven Candy

    Elven Candy Pay no attention to the foot in my mouth Contributor

    Joined:
    Jan 25, 2016
    Messages:
    694
    Likes Received:
    530
    What they said. I've had way too many present tense sentences jump out at me to like them. I like to think of past tense books as just present tense books with different verbs (like how I think of close third person books as first person with different pronouns). "Griffin was a hybrid animal that possessed the body, tail, and back legs of a lion; the head, wings, and talon of an eagle" feels perfectly natural in a past tense book, though that particular example feels a little like someone's reading from a dictionary, so it feels odd no matter what the verb is. In context, it might feel perfectly natural, but I'd have to know the context.

    An example of using a past tense verb to introduce a description:
    Peter slapped his forehead and looked hard at the new student. Griffin looked like a mix between a lion and an eagle, with his body, tail and back legs being lion-like and his head, wings, and talons being eagle-like. He scoffed. Griffin would never be popular.
     
  3. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

    Joined:
    Sep 6, 2014
    Messages:
    10,462
    Likes Received:
    11,689
    I'd use past tense for that example, too. Griffin, presumably, looked like that at the particular time, but we have no idea whether he still does.
     
  4. Elven Candy

    Elven Candy Pay no attention to the foot in my mouth Contributor

    Joined:
    Jan 25, 2016
    Messages:
    694
    Likes Received:
    530
    Heh, well apparently I'm no good at coming up with examples. My opinion still stands, though. Present tense sentences just feel "off" in past tense books. In your example, "Last week I saw William Shakespeare speak. He's the playwright who's currently working on Romeo and Juliet - I think I'm going to love it when it comes out!" I feel like this should be dialogue. If it's the narrative, it just feels off. Outside of dialogue I'd probably write it something like this:

    Last week I saw William Shakespeare speak. He was a playwright working on Romeo and Juliet - I couldn't wait for it to come out!
     
  5. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

    Joined:
    Sep 6, 2014
    Messages:
    10,462
    Likes Received:
    11,689
    If I read it that way, the "last week" would jump out at me, because that "last week" places the time of the narration as a week after this character saw Will. Does that make sense? There's story time, narrator time, and reader time. So for this, story time is, say, second week of May, 1595. Narrator time is third week of May, 1595. And then reader time is, obviously, whenever the book is read - modern day, for a modern book.

    So if the book was written by an immortal creature or a ghost, I'd be fine with:

    The week before I'd seen William Shakespeare speak. He was a playwright working on Romeo and Juliet - I couldn't wait for it to come out.

    But with the "last week" in there to place the narrator time so close to the story time, I'd want the present tense. I want the tense to match reality at the narrator time. Others seem to want the tense to match reality at reader time, which doesn't work with me, not if there's a clear narrative voice placed sometime else.
     
  6. Elven Candy

    Elven Candy Pay no attention to the foot in my mouth Contributor

    Joined:
    Jan 25, 2016
    Messages:
    694
    Likes Received:
    530
    Ah, yes, the "last week" would bother me also, now that you pointed it out. "Tomorrow," "yesterday," "last week" . . . all these kinds of things don't really make sense in the narrative of past tense books, but I tend to not notice them when I need to:dry:. It's hard to change examples without having context and without changing the "voice" of the original example.

    "The Mississippi river runs from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, picking up detritus of all sorts on the way. It spills its nutrients into the Atlantic in a great plume of life and death, decay and rebirth. John Farmer's intake canal was an attempt to channel some of these (I don't know if my gut is right, but this one word helps give this sentence a present-tense oomph) nutrients and use them for human good before they were wasted on nature."
    This example of yours reads very smoothly for me, but it also feels like the body of the book is written in the present tense, for which the past tense of the attempt (which obviously failed) makes sense.

    I just realized that I'd like a little more information on your take on this matter. What if someone wrote, "Rabbits are herbivores, so Peter made sure to only give his rabbit plant-based food," but since the time the book was written, rabbits became carnivores? Does "rabbits are herbivores" still make sense in that book because they were herbivores at the time it was written? Griffins aren't real, so doesn't that mean using present tense to describe them in an otherwise past tense book is wrong, even by your standard? And in past tense books, the characters aren't normally writing the books themselves as a journal or anything, but adding a present tense sentence or two suggests that they are.

    Going by what I understand of your logic, I came up with this:
    Peter liked crows (he may or may not still like them?). Their black feathers, strong beaks, and intellect make them the perfect assassins (because they still have those qualities in real-life real-time, and thus are still the perfect assassins?).

    But this doesn't look right at all:
    A mass of crows perched on the roof. Peter liked crows. Their black feathers, strong beaks, and intellect make them the perfect assassins. Grinning, he blew the whistle that signaled them to kill.
    According to Peter's knowledge, all of this is happen right now, in real time, so shouldn't it all be in the same tense? I mean, it's his POV, and the reader wants to "become" Peter, so doesn't switching to present tense jerk the reader out of that faked reality? It does that to me, which is one reason why it doesn't look right to me.

    The more I think about this, the more confused I get. I may just have to agree to disagree and bow out.

    On a totally unrelated subject: I loved reading your post on ferret trauma:-D
     
  7. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

    Joined:
    Sep 6, 2014
    Messages:
    10,462
    Likes Received:
    11,689
    I think that's part of the trick, though - if the voice of the narration is contemporary to the action, then "last week" does make sense, as long as it's consistent through the book that the narration is coming from a time very close to the action.

    If I'm reading a book from the POV of Anne Boleyn, I expect the perspective to be that of Anne Boleyn at a certain fictional time when she's writing this story, and I expect the tenses to match that. If the Anne Boleyn story was written in present tense, she could say I was so proud when I married him, but that's turned to nothing. I struggle through my days, now, and can only dream that someday my little Elizabeth will find a better man to be her husband. The timing of the narration determines the tenses used, not the timing of the events mentioned.

    Maybe these are artificial examples because they're kind of in the reverse - present tense overall POV with visits to other tenses.

    I can see it being mostly written in past tense, if it then went on to tell about John Farmer's adventure with intake canals (whatever those are). Farmer's first attempt came when he was barely out of the school room. "You're too damn small," his father told him, but that was what his father said to every idea young John came up with, so the negativity was easy to ignore. etc.



    If rabbits are no longer herbivores, then I'd expect the past tense to be used. Rabbits were herbivores, then, and also rodents.

    Griffins, to my mind, are just as real now as they ever were... if the story centered around the idea that griffins used to be real but went extinct, I'd expect past tense. If the idea is that griffins are thought to be mythical but are actually just really good at hiding, then I'd say we should use the present tense, because griffins are still the same as they were in story-time. I don't think you can let the idea of griffins not being real complicate things because the story only makes sense if we accept that at least in this story-universe, they exist.


    Going by what I understand of your logic, I came up with this:
    Peter liked crows (he may or may not still like them?). Their black feathers, strong beaks, and intellect make them the perfect assassins (because they still have those qualities in real-life real-time, and thus are still the perfect assassins?).

    I think the tricky part is that crows aren't actually perfect assassins in our world... which maybe fits into your griffin argument? But I feel like at least the idea of griffins still exists in our world, while the idea of assassin-crows does not (at least in polite company).

    I think you're right that it comes down to POV. Is the narration right close to the POV character and anchored at the exact same time as the events? If that's the case I agree that the tense should stay the same. I just don't think it should always stay the same.


    Don't mess with ferret-people. That's the lesson I've learned from all this.
     
  8. Elven Candy

    Elven Candy Pay no attention to the foot in my mouth Contributor

    Joined:
    Jan 25, 2016
    Messages:
    694
    Likes Received:
    530
    Not sure I fully understand what you're saying here, but I guess that means I have to look into it more.:read::superthink:

    Yeah, I don't think I'm able to use examples in the reverse--it just twists my head around more! That example did help me, though, to realize one of the big issues of using present tense in a past tense book: To me, it feels like a time jump. In your example, what's written in the past tense is in the past, while the present tense is in the now. What does that make the present tense in a past tense book? The future? It feels like a time jump, and since it isn't meant to be one, it just feels awkward and jerks me out of the story.

    Have you ever watched a movie or read a book where someone is telling someone else a story, and that story is the plot of the book? This is what that kind of narration feels like to me, and is thus quite acceptable. It's sort of like a flashback.


    No, rabbits were herbivores when the book was written, but say, twenty years after it was published, rabbits suddenly became carnivores. Would the publishers have to change that present tense sentence into past tense?


    Ah, so it doesn't matter if the creature/place/person is real as long as, at the end of the book, that's still how that creature/place/person is?

    But griffins aren't any more real then assassin crows--they're both fictional, being real only in fictional books.

    A mass of griffins perched on the roof. Peter liked griffins. Their eagle wings, lion claws, and powerful beaks make them the perfect assassins. Grinning, he blew the whistle that signaled them to kill.

    How is this different then the crow example? Or maybe I'm missing something?


    So an omniscient POV will accept the present tense sentence better than a close POV (first or close third)? That makes sense. The books I read tend to be a close POV (or the author was trying to write a close POV), so I don't have a lot of experience with omniscient. I wouldn't know if present tense sentences can be comfortably put in an omniscient book.

    Noted.:superlaugh:
     
  9. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Mar 9, 2010
    Messages:
    15,262
    Likes Received:
    13,084
    To me, it would imply that crows were in the POV character's past, and he rarely encounters crows any more. But it would be a bit of a jolt/stumble.
     
  10. Sack-a-Doo!

    Sack-a-Doo! Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Jun 7, 2015
    Messages:
    2,403
    Likes Received:
    1,647
    Location:
    [unspecified]
    Yup, and when it comes right down to it, there's always a way to word things so they don't come across as a David Attenborough quote. :)
     

Share This Page

  1. This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
    By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
    Dismiss Notice