TECH: Present Tense

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Original posting 6 May 2009

Writer's Digest, September 2005, pages 42 and 43, an article by Michael J. Vaughn with the title, "In the Now." Unlike most recommendations that we should use past tense, Michael recommends present tense.

"I saw present tense narrative is a showy, intrusive gimmick..."

So why would you use present tense?

1. Put the reader in the story. Present tense puts readers there right now.
2. Narrator knowledge. Interest in the story often depends on withholding information, making the reader curious, then revealing the secrets later. The past tense story sometimes makes the reader feel that the narrator is holding back secrets already known. Present tense creates the illusion that events are unrolling with the narrator and the reader both finding out at the same time.
3. Characterization. The use of present tense in dialogue helps to define a certain character or style.
4. Killing the pluperfect. If most of the story is in past tense, flashbacks should be in pluperfect -- all the verbs have "had" tacked on to them. It's certainly common to start in pluperfect and then slide into plain past tense, but there's still that funny introductory time with all the hads scattered across the page. However, if the body of the story is in present tense, past events can simply be told in past tense.

Michael suggests that most readers won't even notice. Your choice. But think about using present tense instead of simply using past tense.

And write, wrote, had written!