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I'm writing an SF story set in the near future, but written in the past tense (if that makes sense). The problem is, although not written in the first person, the 'author' must be in the future to write in the past tense, but some of the things written about would/will still be the same when the 'author' is writing, so should they be referred to in the present tense?
The grammars I have say that tense should be consistent, and if I were writing a third person piece set in the past I would use the past tense throughout, however it seems to me that switching tense could make the premise of the story more believable for the reader; then again, it might just bug them.
Not only is this a quandary, it also explains why I post finished pieces infrequently :)
Comments
I'm writing something right now with a similar problem
Reading back over it, I found a single paragraph written in present tense. I didn't know I had done that but the more I re-read that section, the more appropriate it feels. It seems to put the reader into the moment for the length of the paragraph and give a feeling of anticipation to the dramatic developments a few paras further on. I'm going to leave it like that. I think the gestalt is right and my writing muscles did the correct thing without me being aware of it till later.
The rules are guidelines for what generally works best. Breaking the rules causes effects that can be and usually are undesirable, but rule-breaking can also be used for just those effects. Words are tools, not bricks. The thing the writer is creating is in the mind of the reader, not on the page. The more you write, the more tools you can discover how to use, even ones a tyro would be best advised to avoid.
Jonathan Kellerman writes first person mysteries, some of which have an occasional third person chapter to give the reader information or a viewpoint the narrator couldn't know. It sounds clumsy, even more clumsy than a tense change, but it works. We're not all Kellermans but we can try. :)
- Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
past, present, future
In MHO write it the way that feels right. I have written a story that alternated between thrid person and first person.... as long as the two didn't get mixed up, the reader didn't have a problem with it. just don't use both tenses, in the same paragraph...... that does get confusing.
my two bits
A.A.
It all depends.
Writing in the past tense is the most comfortable for most readers. The vast majority of SF is written in the past tense without problems.
However present tense is appropriate when referring to something that is still as it was eg 'Cardiff was the capital of Wales' is nonsense, even when it's in a story written in the past tense. Cardiff was and (presumably) still is the capital of Wales and should therefore be said so in the present tense. Another example 'The road between the two villages is a hilly, twisting lane' is more sensible than ' The road between the two villages was a hilly, twisting lane' because if it was at the time of the story it probably still is. I don't see any lack of consistency there but write what you feel works.
Geoff
Time Travel
I read somewhere (I forget where) that English can't do time travel because it doesn't have enough tenses. That being the case I think you just do whatever seems right,
Joanne
Trips through time?
Ceri, do you mean the author is time traveling? If so, what Joannebarbarella said, just deal with it the best you can. I see no need to vary from standard third person/simple past tense unless you feel impelled from some artistic need. Just be careful and clear.
One thing that might help is standard flashback usage, which is generally written in past perfect, i.e. "We had gone ..." The town had been destroyed ..." and so forth. For extended flashback sections, you can get away with simple past, but make sure the reader understands what you're doing.
Whatever is the clearest to the reader is the bottom line.
Aardvark
"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony."
Mahatma Gandhi
"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony."
Mahatma Gandhi
Sometimes, using present tense in narration MUSt be done
An example beyond Geoff’s good ones, is that while most stories are, as has been said, narrated in past tense, dialog is almost always written present tense, unless the person speaking is speaking of the past.
This is even more the case, in thought dialog. Do you think in past tense? Unless you do, when letting the reader into the thoughts of a character, state the actual thought dialog as present tense, even though the remainder of the sentence may be past tense.
He thought long and hard about it. ‘What am I going to do to get away? Ahhh … If I go in that door and sprint around the corner, I may have a chance to disappear before they know which way I’ve gone.’
He thought long and hard about it. ( past tense)
What am I going to do to get away? Ahhh … If I go in that door and sprint around the corner, I may have a chance to disappear before they know which way I’ve gone.’Present tense, even though the subject thinking about future actions.
Sometimes, mixing tenses is absolutely necessary to say things correctly.
Holly
One of the most difficult things to give away is kindness.
It usually comes back to you.
Holly
Tenses
I've played with narrators. I originally wrote "While Sleeping, Beautified" as an experiment to see if a first person present tense narrator would work, and it sort of did. For its sequel, the narrator game I played was staging it as a monolgue, and casting the reader as the antagonist, so I jumped tenses occasionally as Aurora jumped out of her narrative to comment on her immediate present. I also put the reader in the story in "Domestic Partnership," but in that one I tried to use duelling first person narrators, but that gimmick didn't work as well as I wanted it to; one narrator dominated. (I later realized that since the contest wanted the story posted twice I could have had Lia dominate the narration here and Nat dominate the narration in the version of the story on Stardust.) I did some tense stuff there where the narrator telling the story in the present pointed out things they didn't realize at the time things were happening.
In "Pink Ribbon," I had a similar dilemma to yours. I realized that I was writing it first person past tense, as though the story were being told after it happened. But I had my narrator at the beginning of the story speaking as a male and not knowing the words for things, at the end of the story as fully female. It kind of felt like cheating, but I left it. My rationale to myself was that it was in past tense like a diary is, where the first chapter is written down before the events of later chapters.
Guy walks into the Psychologist's Office...
... he sits down, but seems very high strung.
"So, Mister Brown, what seems to be the problem?" asks the Doc.
The patient makes a strangled, frustrated sound and replies, "I'm a teepee!" then grunts and says, "I'm a wigwam!" and goes back and forth for a moment or two, thus, "I'm a teepee! I'm a wigwam! I'm a teepee! I'm a wigwam! I'm a teepee! I'm a wigwam!" before the Doc stops him.
Gently holding her hand over his mouth she says in a calming manner, "You have to calm down, Mister Brown, you're two tents."
pick a nit
Whenever I hear that joke I want to shout, "A wigwam is not a tent!"
In at least definition
it is. A tent can be defined as an uninsulated structure that can be taken down and moved. Which could be done with a wigwam, and it was not insulated.
A wigwam is not portable.
A wigwam is not portable. It wouldn't be moved as much as taken apart and a new one built from some of its parts.
It's been some time but ...
I think a wigwam is bark covered typically was Elm in the Northern US, sort of a light weight shingled house or Quonset Hut shaped building but with bent poles and lashings and such.
A teepee is a canvas or hide covered tent or tent like structure, the poles being all strait and arrranged in a sor of tripod aset up but with more than three legs.
As to time travel and tenses, I've fooled with it in Timeout and I forget how I did it. Some was past-tense like she was recalling it for her journal/diary, some was present tense, when she interacted with people and the smilodon kittens.
John in Wauwatosa
John in Wauwatosa
wasn't the same guy...
who drank two gallons of Earl Grey and drowned in his own teepee?
Angharad
Angharad
Groan
After that crack young Angharad I'm not sure I'll read another word you write.
Then there was the camper who was arrested for loitering within tent.
Geoff
Ang and Geoff, you had to be in the Boy Scouts
Only they could think of jokes that bad.
John in Wauwatosa
P.S. Eagle Scout 1973
John in Wauwatosa