Reasons for a present tense narrative?

Not that we need a reason, I suppose, but just out of curiosity what would tempt you to do it? Also, as a reader, would the tense be something that would put you off buying a book?

 

I recently wrote a present tense story, posted here in the forum. Under normal circumstances, I would typically say that present tense is a deal-breaker for me, and to a certain extent I still hold to that, but the story in question wanted present tense because I wanted the characters to depart from the reader in the temporal now, not in some past then.

 

I've read a few novels written in present tense and don't mind it at all. Michael Frayn's Headlong immediately springs to mind. What I find so strange is that within a paragraph or two it seems like the most natural voice I can imagine, to such an extent I completely forget it's written in present tense - rather like subtitles on foreign films.

Anyway, thanks for the input.

 

It’s not uncommon, and it sells.

 

Nothing.

I'm with @Wreybies on this - deal breaker.

 

It would be far more productive to explain why.

 

For me, personally, it's the following:

Every narrative mode has its foibles.

3rd omniscient can suffer from head-hopping.
3rd limited can suffer from an inability to stick with the POV character
1st person can suffer from the narrative being "canned" inside the POV character, everything expressed as "I verbed while I verbed and I verbed"

What I find present tense most often suffers from is "blow by blow" narrative where we are given every little articulation and movement. "I lift my finger, first the proximal phalanges, then farther along as my tendon becomes taught, thus pointing at the object of my attention."

And it suffers from that quite a bit. That's what most often breaks the deal for me. This hyper-fixation of ever-more minute mechanical instruction.

 

But why does it have to suffer from this? The only difference between it and the traditional past tense is that you'd use 'open' instead of 'opened', 'take' instead of 'took'. I don't understand why it needs to detail the minute.

I opened the door and stepped inside the room. The air was damp and musty, and cobwebs hung in every corner. I found what I was looking for without too much trouble; the photo-album. I blew the thick dust from its surface but found I was too scared to open the thing.

I open the door and step inside the room. The air's damp and musty, and cobwebs hang in every corner. I find what I'm looking for without too much trouble; the photo-album. I blow the thick dust from its surface but find I'm too scared to open the thing.

 

Well, it certainly doesn't have to. But it very often does. Pure conjecture on my part, but I would say the impetus for this particular phenomenon is the way the narrative is happening now, as we read it, in the present moment. The compression of past events, retold in a more paraphrased mindset isn't present. Like the writer needs to fill in the action as it happens, hence every little aspect of the action.

Again, just supposition.

 

That would put me off in any POV but I’m not sure there is any reason present tense has to be this way. Assuming this is avoided does it still put you off as a style?

 

Again, I didn't use any phrasing that indicates obligation to this end result. But, the end result in question is quite common. If it's not present, no, there would be no deal-breaking. Again, I wrote a story myself in 1st person present tense (aka, kiss of death) and I think it came out pretty well. I tried very, very hard to avoid the typical foibles of both of those dynamics (the canning of 1st person, the blow by blow of present tense).

 

I did a little searching on the subject and found a website detailing the pros and cons of a present tense voice. One of the cons listed was this:

Again, I'm not sure it has to be this way, but it does show it's something experienced by others.

 

Used to write in present tense. Now it's a deal breaker - can't look at it. In fact, I went back and re-wrote most of my pieces to past tense so that when I have to share them, I don't have to share present-tense writing.

I know it will sound cynical; I wrote in present tense because I wanted to be different + read some very enthusiastic tumblr young adult writing blog posts about it.

The deal-breaker detail for me is tenses + grammar. When you're writing in present tense, you either create a half-past through using present perfect, overuse continuous tenses which are highly repetitive or rely solely on the present tense which lacks variety. When writing in past tense, you've got past perfect & present perfect both of which synchronize with past far better. You can also alternate between short words and long words that have -ed past tense.

 

Present tense is such a weird tense. It can sound like stage directions and leave actions hanging - I ran to the store implies an arrival. I run to the store sounds like you're still stuck in a Flintstone loop. I think it's best used for an eccentric mc or an interesting idea. I used it for my robot story Not Pink because it damped the tone enough to sound stunted and yet had the reality that a robot wouldn't think of himself as having done something when he's doing something. I'd definitely practice with it before trying a full length novel. As for reading it - I've actually never ran into a novel with present tense. I'm thinking it's a YA thing. I run into it more on writing sites or in short story collections. It wouldn't turn me off it so long as it benefited the story.

 

Because it's all badly written. I've read exactly one good present tense piece. Everything else has been poor, and the tense gets in the way of the narrative.

 

What a ridiculous sweeping statement.

 

Not at all. In my experience, it's entirely true. If it floats your boat, by all means, I'm not demanding that you hold the same opinion. You wanted to know why *I* dislike it.

 

I hardly run across it at all in the books I consider reading. I think I also tend to avoid it, but of course I'm not opposed to it necessarily. I just find it a little distasteful in the way it sounds.

 

I think it's more prevalent in YA fiction. I don't read that.

 

It may well be, but I don't read YA fiction either, and I've come across it more than once.

 

Every piece of creative writing I've sold has been in present tense. Now, I know I'm talking about shorter works for myself. My short stories tend to range around 20 to 30 pages so that's still a good chunk of writing. I do better with present tense and I don't feel as though I fall into the pitfalls of using this tense that have been brought up. Well, I did sell these stories and they landed in some killer publications. I like present tense. I'm not writing any sort of play-by-play and grammar has always been a strength of mine regardless of tense. It's sort of my natural default to write in present tense. It tends to come easier and work better for me.

The last novel I finished I wrote in past tense. It was a deliberate decision. I know most novels are in past tense, and although I aim for originality, I'm not one to do things just to be different. The novel came out sort of okay, but I think it would have been better if I wrote it in present tense. I'm not going to go back and change it. I'm also not planning to make any attempts to publish it or even have others read it. I'm onto a new novel that I'm trying to keep more novella or short novel length, maybe because I am writing this one in present tense. But, honestly, I hadn't even thought about the tense I was using until coming across this thread. I might have opted to give past tense another go if I had given it more thought, but let's hope it's a good thing I didn't.

I'm not oblivious to the way a lot of people feel about present tense, but it does seem to be what works best for me. I do make myself write in past tense at times, but it's a lot more work for me. And, well, I haven't sold anything in past tense. Even my essays (that sell and can be quite memoir) also all are written in present tense. I think if I writer knows what to do with this tense, there are a lot of benefits.

One of those benefits, for me, is that it helps me stay with the present narrative of the story. It also helps me stick to my intended POV(s). I'm not the most detailed writer. I would say I tend to include more details when I write in past tense. Past tense is just harder for me and my writing is never as smooth and clean as it is in present. Of course, this really just means more editing and more work to get it where it needs to be, but doesn't it make sense to put our strengths to use? I would say one of my strengths is writing in present tense.

Also, I've been in a lot of writing classes and no one has ever brought up present tense as a problem with anyone's work or in general, not the professors or other students. Most people write in past tense, but I don't think it's fair to assume something is going to suck because it's present tense.

 

Everyone has preferences, of course. Things like tense and POV don't hang me up, per se. They're either well-written or they're not. If they are, I'm happy to read them. I don't find anything inherently wrong with any of the choices an author makes along those lines.