Hi all, Very new to all this so please bear with me... I've dabbled with what I laughingly refer to as "my novel" for years now. It's gone through many changes and to be honest been binned on more than one occasion. I'm revisiting it (again, not hopeful though...) and I've decided to write the story as diary entries from the main character. My problem is that during his recollections I want to return to his childhood. It's an issue of mixing tenses and I'm really not sure how to approach this. Thanks in advance for any help or advice. MJ
Hi @MJI, and welcome to the forum. You might need to clarify what you mean by "an issue of mixing tenses" If you write "tomorrow I will get up early for the sunset - it was beautiful" you have mixed future and past and created nonsense If you write "he looked at the page he had written in his diary; Billy came round for tea, he's a jerk!" you have mixed past with past-perfect, and then added past and present in the diary entry but it is all ok
Apologies for not explaining exactly. For instance most of the story takes place in one room with the main character (who I'll call Derek for the sake of argument.) speaking to a doctor in the present. (Eg, I asked the doctor if my experiences as a teenager could have been real. He asked me to recall the first time I met Mr Smith...) Then I want to take the story back to the main characters teenage years. Do I still refer to him in the first person? (Eg, I got up early for school that day...) OR ( Derek got up early for school that day...)
None of your story is happening in the present - see above - it's past and further past... I know what you mean though, takes a bit of getting your head around sometimes. The more you write the more natural it will feel writing in the present tense can be very effective but - INHO - an acquired taste - "I ask the doctor if my experiences could have been real. He asks me to recall the first time I met Mr Smith" For some reason, whenever I read narrative in present, I always hear Michael J Fox's voice in my head
Past tense for the default. Dear Diary, Today I ate some nachos. Past perfect for flashbacks. If you're entering a large flashback, you use enough had's to establish it. Some adverb phrases showing when help too (re: Just last week). Dr. K. had warned me of the dangers of queso poisoning, but he was always carrying on that way. Just last week he'd lectured me on . . . Then back to past tense when you've established the fallback. His wondrous machine could solve all my problems, he said, but I doubted his sincerity. He seemed too eager and the machine was . . . The trick is when you drop the had's in the flashback. (I feel like I need another above before committing to past tense again, but I'm just messing around.) For the most part, it's played by ear. I've heard it said that you only need one had, but I'm not sure I would go with that. Sometimes the reader has to be reminded where they're at.
Get rid of the doctor. Read Catcher In The Rye. Holden is essentially telling the story to a psychiatrist, but nothing about the psychiatrist or the room they are in is even mentioned, but that's First Person POV. You can do it 3rd Person POV with omni narrator if you want but I think First Person is a more interesting read.
Also, is the doctor a character that has dialogue? Does the doctor's opinion matter to the story? Why not just tell the story to the reader and let the reader judge. It sounds like you are using him telling the doctor the story as a technique and it doesn't have to be done that way. Just tell the story you want to tell.
You can also do it third person, limited. But the bigger issue is that you're doing it as reportage, which tends to set the reader at a distance. Doesn't mean you shouldn't, but it's not easy to get right. Unless there's a specific reason you want the doctor involved--if there is some twist at the end involving the doctor, or that has caused the MC to seek medical help--my advice would be to write the story itself as it happened. You mentioned diary entries. Are you writing diary entries telling about the doctor visits where the mc told what happened? That would be compounding the distance problem, in my view.
I'd considered a "diary" method as that's how I'd made my notes when coming up with my story. It seemed a creative way of building my tale. It was only recently I thought about writing the whole thing that way. All work in progress though, all thoughts and ideas greatly appreciated! The doctor, a therapist, is paramount to the story btw...
I would advise anyone considering the epistolary method for an entire novel to read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society for an example of how to do it right.
I'm going to hijack the tenses thread for my own question. This is a line from a WIP with a first person narrator in past tense: A reader asked me to put the "had" in. Another similar line. Similar issue. A reader asked me to put the "had" in. My uneducated feeling is that because the narrator is announcing that what is said already happened, I don't need the "had" for past perfect. The work of the "had" is done by "in battles past," and, "until now." Anyone know the correct answer?
Had is more correct in narration but ok to leave out if dialogue because speakers can break rules. It's like how many times have you heard someone say "Stay out the bushes". The correct way is "Stay out of the bushes" but you can't make people say it right unless you're grading the papers. I think you are right about the second sentence because of the use of "past".
I'd use the "had"s there, for sure. People have stylistic quirks and there's no "wrong" way to write creatively, etc., but... I think the past perfect adds meaning. And I don't think it really works to use other words to substitute for using the proper tense, unless, again, you're using a colloquial style. Like, if I read something that was otherwise grammatically standard, all in present tense, and then saw something like the following, I think it would grate: I go to the store, and I buy cheese and eggs and ham. Yesterday when I go to the bakery I buy bread, so now I have all the ingredients for a delicious breakfast. And if you can't get away with "cue words" to avoid bumping back to past from present, I don't think you should get away with "cue words" to avoid bumping back to past perfect from past.
I kind of agree. I didn't read Catcher in the Rye until I was in my early 40s, and the whole teen angst thing just irritated me. Maybe it would have appealed to me when I was 15, maybe not. I know someone who hated it when she was a teen but loved it in her forties. Go figure.
