Is this wrong? Tense issues.

[Mouse]

This might be too late, seeing as this is from a short story I've already sent off, but, once I get rejected I can send it out again.

Ok, first person past tense, but the narrator is describing something that happens, not something that happened (though it happened too).

In the sub I had:

They stand still for a long time. The ceremony is forty-five minutes long – he had stamina, my man. Then the regimental band comes out and starts to play as the new Guard arrive. One of the men shouts commands and another blows a horn.

Which I've now changed to:

They stand still for a long time. The ceremony is forty-five minutes long – he had stamina, my man. Then the regimental band comes out and starts to play as the new Guard arrive. One of the men shouted commands and another blew a horn.

I'm also not sure if it should be 'band come out' or 'band comes out.'




And maybe it's: They stand still for a long time. The ceremony is forty-five minutes long – he had stamina, my man. Then the regimental band came out and started to play as the new Guard arrived. One of the men shouted commands and another blew a horn.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

Gut says "regimental band come out and start to play" but I have no reason for it.

I think because of the Then the comes and starts is fine.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

Definitely "band comes out" -- band is a group that can't really be thought of on individual terms. Your Guard can be thought of as a group of guards or as individual units of guards, but a band is a band, otherwise it's a musician.

I think your first version is correct for what you're doing there -- "had stamina" in the middle of all the present-tense throws me, but I can see what you mean. Everything else, if he insists on describing it in happening terms rather than happened ones, is good.

 

[Phyrebrat]

I've seen staff (as in collection of employees) referred to as a singular term; staff denotes a collection of people, but the term itself is singular - the way I recall being taught. So by that model, I would echo TDZ and say 'comes'

pH

 

[Mouse]

Ok, thanks. When I re-read it, it was the 'had stamina' that suddenly made my brain go duuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrrrrrr. Luckily I knew what I was doing when I wrote it.

 

[Ursa major]

I think the 'had' was also throwing me. It should be 'has':

They stand still for a long time. The ceremony is forty-five minutes long – he has stamina, my man. Then the regimental band comes out and starts to play as the new Guard arrive. One of the men shouts commands and another blows a horn.
​

Stamina is an attribute: one has it or one does not. One might lose it, in which case one had it. What you're saying, in effect, is that your man used to have stamina, but not any more. I'm pretty sure you don't mean this, particularly as he must have lost it between the end of the ceremony and the moment (not long after) when the band starts to play.

 

[Mouse]

What if he's now an older bloke and no longer has as much stamina?

 

[Ursa major]

If you'd said:

They stand still for a long time. The ceremony is forty-five minutes long; he had stamina, my man, but he's wilting by the end. Then the regimental band comes out and starts to play as the new Guard arrive. One of the men shouts commands and another blows a horn.
​

it would make sense that he used to have stamina, but no longer does. But you seem to be talking about him standing still (in the present) for forty-five minutes, without mentioning any ill-effects. The clear implication is that he's still got stamina (and so you'd use 'has').

 

[Mouse]

No, I mean, he's an older man at the time the narrator's narrating, not at the time of the ceremony.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

Yes, the "had stamina" bothered me until I puzzled out that the narrator is telling, in present tense, stuff that happened way back, when the dude had stamina, and that perhaps he doesn't anymore (being dead, or old, or whatever). I can make sense out of it, and it seems right that way, but I'm not sure if you can count on everyone's stopping to puzzle it out. On the other hand, it might be clearer in a larger context where the reader knows who "he" is and how far in the past it was.

 

[Ursa major]

Without seeing the rest of the story, it's difficult to say whether this close mixing of a precise past told in the present tense with a vaguer past told in the past tense might work.

Sticking with what I can see.... The trouble is, the tale is being told in the present tense, so I think it's difficult to insert (past tense) stuff into the normal (present tense) flow of the narrative unless it's more formally shown to be a separate strand (like putting it into brackets). Now it so happens that you've used an en-dash to introduce this comment about stamina; if you could find a way of ending the comment with another en-dash, this might work.

*ponders*

What about something along the lines of:

They stand still for a long time. The ceremony is forty-five minutes long – my man had stamina in those days - and then the regimental band comes out, starting to play as the new Guard arrive. One of the men shouts commands and another blows a horn.
​

I'm still not happy, but this might be (partly) a problem I have with the present tense being used for the past (as demonstrated by UK historians on the radio and TV). To me, this way of describing history as if it were a description of a football earlier that day (i.e. not live commentary) - "Rooney gets the ball. He shoots. He scores." - really grates.

 

[Mouse]

Sorry, I think I'm confusing people. It's told in first person past tense, about how he met his man (who in the present when the tale's being told, is an older guy), but in this bit he's talking about the guard mounting which still happens so that bit's in present tense cos he's saying what happens and not what happened. Maybe I should just delete the whole para.

 

[Ursa major]

There's no need to do that.

After all, we do tend to be a bit picky (which I think we ought to be, when asked), and you can take or leave our comments; or come up with your own solution to issues we've brought up (or issues that you've brought up and we've taken further).

 

[tinkerdan]

They stand still for a long time. The ceremony is forty-five minutes long

[I take it that the only part in question is what to do with the next segment.] -he had stamina, my man. [to mean that he once had stamina (back in the day)]

Then the regimental band comes out and starts to play as the new Guard arrive. One of the men shouts commands and another blows a horn.

It rings true to me although you might find some way to help better clarify that it's meant to be past tense; for those who might be past dense.

 

[Mouse]

I might just stick it in past tense and be done with it.

 

[Erin99]

I didn't have a problem with it, but I bet context would make it clearer. Have faith that we'll be able to see what's going on when it's in place and you've made it clear that the bloke is regaling something and has switched tenses (until the "had" puts us back in his time frame).

And yes, though you probably don't need me saying it as well, I would count "band" as a singular - like "group" has multiple members but you only say "There is a group over there", not "There are a group over there". Which means... yes, you need to say "the band comes out".


And if you're ever having a brain-blip moment like I do occasionally when I can't remember something, switch the noun in the sentence to something else. In your case, instead of saying "The band comes out", I'd say something like "The cat comes out" vs "The cats come out", to remind myself that it's plural nouns that leave off the final -s.

 

[Mouse]

So... I think I need to change it back to what I had originally then. I think I have bigger problems though - the ending was crap.

 

[Mouse]

And... I've just learnt this story has been accepted into the Men in Uniform anthology from Torquere Press. Yay!

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Whoo hoo! You're flying, girl.

 

[Ursa major]

Well done, Mouse!