I wrote a story from third person limited, very close to the character's thoughts. I've struck a literary conundrum. There's this scene where the POV pours herself a glass of liquor and starts contemplates stuff. I'm not a fan of using italics or "X thought" so I'd rather just write the thoughts as a stream of consciousness with the implicit understanding that it's the character speaking. Because of that there's a switch from past tense to present tense. I'll mark the tense shift in italics: "Joan whipped up a cocktail of ‘something strong’, as the saying goes, and swirled the contents in her glass. “Cantankerous bitch, was it? Huh.” Had Cooper viewed her that way? Surely not. You don't waste twenty years beside a person if you hold such a low opinion of them, do you? The alternative would be, of course, to write: "Joan whipped up a cocktail of ‘something strong’, as the saying went, and swirled the contents in her glass. “Cantankerous bitch, was it? Huh.” Had Cooper viewed her that way? Surely not. You wouldn't waste twenty years beside a person if you held such a low opinion of them, would you? The first one sounds more natural to me, and I do recall having come across instances of "fact-stating" (people don't do X, etc...) present tense thoughts in popular books (or maybe I'm fooling myself?), and it never bothered me. However, I did receive some feedback the above paragraph, telling me it's an unacceptable tense shift. Thoughts?
Either way is fine, it just depends on what you want to do. The first example is what's called directly reported thoughts (or direct inner monologue) and the second is called indirect. It just means in one case you're telling us (reporting) the person's thoughts, exactly as they thought them (directly), and in the other you report them indirectly, through narration. The real difference (and it's subtle, kind of hard to tell), is that in your first example it's the character 'speaking' (internally), and in the second it's the narrator. Narration is being done in past tense in this story, and a person's thoughts are in present, unless they're thinking about something from the past. I don't know if you saw the blog post I made (was it yesterday or the day before?) on this subject, but you might get some better clarification from it or the article I linked to: Free Indirect Discourse. For even better clarification click on through on the two links at the top of the blog post.
I just realized—due to the way it's written it's possible even the first example is done by the narrator. This is a little strange, but hear me out. You can use present tense if the situation you're talking about is a 'typical' one, rather than a specfic event that happened at a specific time. I call it the general tense or the generic tense (just my own name for it, I don't know if there's an official name or not). For instance—If it snows too much they call school off for the day. This is in the generic tense, meaning it's a situation that has happened in the past many times, could be happening right now, and will undoubtedly happen in the future many times as well. On the other hand, for a specific event that happened in the past—They called school off last thursday because it snowed too much. That's got to be in past tense, no matter who's saying it—narrator or character. Same applies if you're talking about the future too—If it snows enough next Tuesday they'll call school off. (That tricky little 'll!) Your sentence under scrutiny here is definitely a generic situation, something that's always beeen true and always will. It isn't a specific moment in time or a singular event. It's a human truism, like People are strange when you're a stranger.
Damn. That's insightful as hell. You're always very thorough in your responses. I appreciate that! I read the blog post, and yes, that's the kind of narration I'm going for, the kind I find and favor in the writings of Joe Abercrombie and his ilk. It sounds like you're describing exactly how I viewed this situation - as a truism, or as I called it: a fact-statement. In that case, I'm struggling to differentiate between feedback readers who might be looking too hard to find faults with stuff, any stuff, and concrete problems with my writing. How would you respond to the following feedback I received on the aforementioned paragraph? "I am only going to say this once, but the personal pronouns and the verb tense need to be consistent in the narration, or otherwise it will not work."
How I would respond depends on who I'm saying it to and my relationship with them. If I want to remain friends I'd just say "Thank you," because they did take the time to read and comment. But that's the critique of a person who either isn't aware of these techniques, or is rigid and controlling and thinks what they've already learned is all there is, and everyone must obey the rules as they understand them. Their opening statement makes it pretty clear which one it is. Usually in fact the best bet is to just thank everyone who responds, and then follow Bruce Lee's advice—"Take what is useful and discard the rest." No need to let them know what you think. Lol, in fact, maybe when you say "Thank you," it's actually for promising they're only going to say it once. Now you don't have to worry about hearing it again.
Nothing like a nugget of wisdom from Bruce Lee. I thought you were going with "Be like water, my friend." I apologize for the confusion. I didn't mean literally respond, but more in a general sense of how to process the feedback. You provided me with an answer to both, so thank you!
I think you want to stick to past tense. Tense switching is very hard to get right, and, IMO, very unnecessary. Sorry if this isn't what you want to hear, but I think using italics and/or she thought, is really the best way to keep things clear and easy to follow for your reader. And without clarity, a story is always going to be shit (not directed at anyone personally).
I haven't read your writing, but I agree with this statement as a blanket piece of advice. If I received this feedback I would go through my story looking to correct these things. You need to get the basics like this down before anyone is going to be able to really focus on your story I know the way you want them to.
I wrote my response to the comment before I read yours so I didn't know we would be in complete disagreement. If someone took the time to say this, I'm guessing it's an issue the writer needs to address on a sentence level. That says nothing about the story other than this could be an issue that will prevent people from even getting to the story. I can't see a reason for this confusion going on other than it's most likely a problem with the writing. It's at least something to consider before just dismissing it.
Except in dialogue, of course. People don't say "Came over here." It would be "Come over here." We always switch to present tense for dialogue, and internal monologue is a form of dialogue. It depends on how close you want to go with the POV shift. If your'e dropping all the way into the character's head, so we hear his thoughts exactly as he does, then they're going to be in present tense and 1st person. If you keep everything (except dialogue) in past tense, then you probably tend to remain in a more distant POV for internal monologue. Which is perfectly viable of course, but there's also what's called deep or close POV, which requires a shift to present tense and first person for thoughts.
It's not the dialog in quotes that makes it past or present tense but the dialog tag. "Come over here," he said. (past tense) "Come over here," he says. (present tense) I don't think tense has anything to do with POV or narrative distance. Personally, I think switching tenses is a problem 99 percent of the time. It can all too easily fuck with the clarity of the writing and the story. I think this is an area where you really want consistency.
That's true in a more distant/traditional POV. But you can also let inner monologue drop into direct address (present tense and first person), exactly like in dialogue. And you don't need to use dialogue tags, those would tend to distance the reader from the immediacy of the thoughts as they occur. So you're directly showing the character's thoughts to the reader, exactly as he experiences them (Do I want to risk it? Maybe not...). Here's an article: Character Thoughts: Direct and Indirect Interior Monologues —I'm not making this stuff up! It's clear you favor a more traditional and indirect approach to inner monologue, I just want to make sure people understand that's not all there is.
