Past tense - Present tense?

[Gary Compton]

Hi everbody, I've managed to get out of the Home for the Totally Bewildered for an hour and I havent had my medication yet!

So I'll take advantage of that and ask for some advice.

I'm currently re-writing my book using first person for the three main characters and I wondered should all of it be past tense or present tense or can you change the tenses in different chapters?

Any advice would be gratefully received

 

[Mouse]

I'd say you can probably do what you like, so long as it's done well and makes sense! Personally though, I can't stand present tense!

 

[The Judge]

Present tense is very difficult to maintain properly for any length of time I'd have thought, so if it's an easier life you're after, I'd go with past tense.

If you mix tenses, with character A writing in past and character B in present, then you need to have a good reason, eg B's is in the form of a diary, otherwise it's going to look odd to say the least. You've also got the problem of time, eg if A is relating something which happened in the [unspecified] past, but those same things are happening to B as he writes. It could work, but it'd be a bit of a sod to write so that it isn't immensely confusing for the reader. Are you confident you have the skill to do it? And what's more important to you -- getting the story down and bringing the reader into your world so the pages are turned quickly, or writing an arty book which plays around with form and expectations?

 

[Gary Compton]

I must admit, past tense is a hell of alot easier. I'm already pushing the boat out with 3 first person POV's so I think I'll stick to PAST.

I just wondered

 

[HareBrain]

I'm already pushing the boat out with 3 first person POV's so I think I'll stick to PAST.

I would stick to past.

On the subject of multiple first-person POVs, I've read an excellent example of this since the last discussion on the subject -- Solstice Wood by Patricia McKillip. She has at least five first-person POV's, changing with each chapter, and I can't see any problem with it. True, it's not always obvious from taking a piece of text at random who's speaking -- not that there's ever any confusion as to whose chapter it is, but it would have been nice to have a bit more variety in the voice. But it's so well-written in all other respects, that seems a very minor quibble.

 

[Gary Compton]

I agree with you HB, I've got my protagonist, the Inspector, who I think has a definitive voice but the two baddies who are twins are alot harder to write so that the reader can tell the difference.

It's fun though!!

 

[TheDustyZebra]

I recently finished reading the China Bayles series of mystery novels by Susan Wittig Albert, and one of the last ones drove me batty. It inexplicably switched from past tense told by the usual character (China) to chapters of present tense told by her husband. It was jarring and annoying, and came after more than a dozen books in the series that had done nothing of the sort. I found myself skimming quickly through the present tense chapters to make sure I didn't miss anything important, without actually having to read the whole thing. I don't know why she was experimenting with that, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

 

[Malloriel]

I read a series recently, and by read I mean that I made it through three out of the four books, where the author employed the use of first person, third person, and past and present tense. The first book followed a girl from the Germanies, before the various areas united into one Germany, and as such it was written in third person-past tense. The second book picks up when she's thrust into the future, in Africa. Told from the African boy's perspective, it's written in third person-present tense, I believe. Book three slips between the two as some chapters are from the girl's perspective, and others from the African's more present perspective. All of that I could handle, but once book four took on first person-present tense, I put it away. (As a side, it didn't help that in the first two books, the mentally heard voices of the dragons who traveled with them were differentiated by font types, a trait dropped by book three to cause nothing but confusion, and perpetuated in book four with the infuriation of first person-present tense.)

Now, I can enjoy some first person stories when executed well, my favorite example being Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel's Legacy and the Imriel Trilogy that follows, and despite being known to occasionally dictate my actions in first person-present tense, I can't actually tolerate reading it for more than a few sentences. I've not yet sat down to analyze the whole why of it, but something just crawls under my skin and makes me want to claw out my eyes when I read it. . . . Maybe I'm over reacting. o__o

What I mean to say is that I've seen the different tenses and POV's used to indicate that a person is from a particular period of time, e.g. the German girl gets past because she's from the past, the African gets present because he's from the present. It makes literary sense. So I've seen it done, and felt that it worked, even if I couldn't finish reading the project due to personal taste levels. I think that if you DO change tenses that you try to do so to illustrate a difference in perspective or time period, or it can become very cumbersome for the reader to slog their way through.

Related aside: It's like a movie I watched (part of) several years ago about the Cuban Missile Crisis. Certain scenes would start in black and white and slowly fade to color, while others would start in color and become black and white. For the life of me, I could find no reason for it. It wasn't a dramatic situation that caused the B&W scene, it wasn't every scene that started that way. Release of tension wasn't what brought color back . . . . The lack of obvious reason for these changes was distracting from both the acting and the story, to the point that it didn't matter how good either aspect was, I had to get up and leave because the color-no color inconsistencies made it too difficult for me to simply enjoy what was going on. So, don't replicate that in words. :-| That's my advice.

 

[ValerieJLong]

Hmmm - I've tried both, past and present tense. Changing between them is the worst and leads to mistakes.

When I was writing in the present tense, I could use the past tense for short flashbacks and such, thus eliminating the need to use the past perfect.

The diary style works well and usually goes with the past tense, however, in every scene you know the storyteller has been able to come back and write it down. You need a trick to get around that.

I can understand though that reading an entire story in present tense may be irritating.

 

[HareBrain]

David Mitchell has written two books in present tense: Number9Dream, in first-person present, and the one I'm currently reading, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, in third-person present. Both are set in Japan, which may have influenced his choice of present-tense (I'm just guessing; I don't know why it should have done). But after a few pages you just stop noticing what tense it's in, and I'm sure that would be the case with any book if it's written well enough.

 

[ValerieJLong]

I've made a quick poll with readers in a German board on a story in 1st person present tense.

How did it feel?

After a few chapters it was okay - 10%
I didn't notice - 50%
Did somehow fit the story - 30%
Didn't read it - 10%

I think that confirms HareBrain - if it's written well enough, readers won't notice, or even like it.

 

[Ursa major]

David Mitchell has written two books in present tense: [...] and the one I'm currently reading, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, in third-person present.

This book was reviewed on BBC2 last night. The use of the present tense was mentioned, unfavourably, by one of the reviewers, who said it was more appropriate to works like detective stories**. I can't recall how the other reviewers responded (having been distracted by something else).




** - I think this was the comparison. (I'd have thought that more of these were written in first person past tense than third person present, but perahps others here know better.)

 

[HareBrain]

This book was reviewed on BBC2 last night. The use of the present tense was mentioned, unfavourably, by one of the reviewers, who said it was more appropriate to works like detective stories

There's one detective story I know that uses present tense because it's written in first-person and the narrator dies at the end. Unfortunately, the combination rather gave it away.

Having read more of Mitchell's book, I think he might have chosen present tense to help give a subtle feel of unfamiliarity, a "foreign accent" (he also does a weird thing with dialogue attribution, which I might start a thread about). Since his initial main character is a Dutchman newly arrived in 18thC Japan, this is quite appropriate. But "experimental" choices like that are always risky; you'll always get some people with a blinkered attitude, and others on whom it just doesn't have the desired effect.

 

[Ursa major]

There was an interview with David Mitchell on Front Row this week. he discussed the various issues to do with different languages, and how non-native speakers might speak them. (It sounded like a lot of work to get right.)

If you look towards the bottom of this page (BBC - Front Row, Novelist David Mitchell; Keane; and a review of Money), you'll find his interview in "Chapter Three". (Click there to save you having to listen to the rest of the programme.)

 

[HareBrain]

Thanks for the link, Ursa.

Interestingly, he says the reason he used third-person present tense is that until he did (changing over from first-person past) it didn't feel alive. I've found that before -- a story will choose its own tense/person, and it will be the only one in which it works. But you have to be open to the possibilities.