Where did all this first-person present tense come from?

[Ursa major]

There's a lot of present tense in the media in the UK: many reports about football matches (I'm not talking about live coverage, but post match reports: "then after eighteen minutes, the United winger crosses the ball and the Town's defender deflects it past his own goalkeeper, producing the only goal of the match") and the way nearly all media-based historians seem to talk about historical events.

None of this makes me want to write in the present tense, except where it's appropriate to do so, as in dialogue and characters' thoughts (and "authors" talking to their readers ), much of which will be both present tense and first person.

 

[allmywires]

I disagree about the football matches - all match reports I've read recently are in past tense. And the media in general, at least te tabloid stuff I read, is all in past too.

 

[Ursa major]

You're probably right.

To be fair, I was thinking more of spoken reports (and, thinking** about it, this would have been some years ago ), but the principle remains: I wasn't converted to the present tense then either.

The historical stuff is current. As recently as a few weeks ago, I heard Melvyn Bragg (on In Our Time) intervening to ask one of his guests to repeat something they'd said, but using the past tense this time. (Perhaps Bragg has been getting complaints from his listeners about his guests' inappropriate use of the present tense when talking about events in the past.)


Anyway, this thread reminded me of something I'd read in my copy of John Seely's Oxford Everyday Grammar. The book lists ten uses for the 'simple present' tense (I look, you walk, he runs...***). Only three of them (and they're down at numbers 8, 9 and 10): deal with the uses we're talking about here:

8. (occasionally) narrative
9. in newspapers and other reviews
10. in commentaries.
​

All the rest - the important(?) uses of the 'simple present' - are to do with conditionals, habitual actions, timeless actions, scheduled future actions, and the like, i.e. anything but current actions.


** - I seem to do a lot of thinking, though rarely to any great effect.

*** - The 'present continuous' (I'm looking, you're walking, he's running...) is even less focused on narrative; indeed its use in narrative is not even listed.

 

[allmywires]

It seems often to be a weird mix of both in the papers...like the headlines are in the present tense (''They want him to end the romance for good': Liam Hemsworth's brothers Chris and Luke 'stage intervention to convince actor to split with Miley Cyrus') but the article introductions are often in present before segueing into the past. Consistency much? (I don't expect much from the DM to be fair).

Anyway, on topic, the main reason I've really converted to present tense is because of fanfiction. *dodges blows* It seems to really be the favoured tense there and some -- alright, maybe less than 1% -- of it is actually really good and really effective. Probably has a lot do to with how many teenage girls are behind it though...

(I hate having my author's hat on when I read fanfiction, it almost always completely ruins it for me...head hopping, tense switching, ARGH)

 

[TheDustyZebra]

None of this makes me want to write in the present tense, except where it's appropriate to do so, as in dialogue and characters' thoughts (and "authors" talking to their readers ), much of which will be both present tense and first person.

Oh, I don't WANT to, but I find myself doing it anyway!

 

[JunkMonkey]

Weren't all those decision-making Fighting Fantasy role play books in the present tense - but in the second person?

I recently read Molly Zero (pub. 1980) by Keith Roberts. Roberts is an author whose other books I have really liked (Pavane, The Grain Kings, Kite World etc.) but Molly Zero stinks. Mainly, I suspect, because it is written first person present tense*. It's really uncomfortable. Apparently he started to write it like that because he originally intended it to be a TV script and that's the way he thought TV scripts were written.


* ....and because it's written by a middle-aged man trying to get into the head of a teenage lesbian. Oh dear.

 

[BetaWolf]

Well I started writing unconsciously in the present tense. Thanks a lot, Suzanne Collins!

 

[Warren_Paul]

None of this makes me want to write in the present tense, except where it's appropriate to do so, as in dialogue and characters' thoughts (and "authors" talking to their readers ), much of which will be both present tense and first person.

I would think reading news articles would be a bit different to reading an author's novel that you really enjoy who writes in FPP

 

[kromanjon]

Man, long thread, hope it's okay that I don't read it and just respond to the OP.

I don't feel there are that many first person present tense stories at all. I almost exclusively read third person past tense and it seems to be the norm in almost all the books I'vé read. The only first present book I've read it American Psycho (also an example of how it should be done) but other than that it seems you've just stumbled over those kinds of books while I obviously managed to avoid them entirely.

 

[allmywires]

I'm re-reading Starter for Ten right now (coming close to being my favourite book of all time...) and that's first person present tense and works brilliantly. I'd love to be able to write a book like that.

 

[JunkMonkey]

Weren't all those decision-making Fighting Fantasy role play books in the present tense - but in the second person?

I recently read Molly Zero (pub. 1980) by Keith Roberts. Roberts is an author whose other books I have really liked (Pavane, The Grain Kings, Kite World etc.) but Molly Zero stinks. Mainly, I suspect, because it is written first person present tense*. It's really uncomfortable. Apparently he started to write it like that because he originally intended it to be a TV script and that's the way he thought TV scripts were written.


* ....and because it's written by a middle-aged man trying to get into the head of a teenage lesbian. Oh dear.

Just to correct myself. Molly Zero is in the second person present tense. Not the first.