4 ms·

Some people have pretty strong opinions about this but in casual conversation you’ll naturally use either past tense or present tense to tell stories set in the

Some people have pretty strong opinions about this but in casual conversation you’ll naturally use either past tense or present tense to tell stories set in the past. Try and explain the rules for when to use past tense and you’ll find that those rules are a difficult to formulate or articulate. The weird thing is that apparently, using present tense is something that new writers gravitate towards. Kind of like how new composers and musicians gravitating towards modes and chord progressions.

mola 6y ago
the novel is a different medium than casual conversation, it has proven to be much more sophisticated. For example, you can have multiple narrators, diagetic and non diagetic. Etc. If we expect novels to mimic nothing more than casual conversation, we lose a whole depth of creativity. While us readers lose sense making tools. I believe new writers are gravitated towards present tense mainly because their cultural world is in present tense. I bet they are exposed to twitts, blogs, films, TV, etc much more than to novels. So I believe they adopt the style of these media, because of naturalization via immersion. Even in the article, most answers of writers to why present tense, are 'it just happened' and then rationalized. For me, it is another proof of the "medium is the message" theory. I believe we are losing thought technology.
- wyattpeak 6y ago
  You know what will really lose us a whole depth of creativity? Prescribing that novels should only be written in a particular manner.
  - kovek 6y ago
    Yes, when there’s a new way of doing things, we can’t think everyone will shift to that. It’s very often that the distribution shifts somewhat. Let’s say we introduce a new color (haha), and it rises in popularity, then we shouldn’t be fearing that everyone is going to adopt the new color as their favorite. The distribution is changing. We should really recognize that individuals have valid feelings and thoughts for whatever they gravitate towards. So, present tense, let’s do it I’m interested! However, we won’t lose the past tense.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - mola 6y ago
    That's a pretty harsh interpretation of what I said. (And very far from intended)
- grasshopperpurp 6y ago
  I often think of Yeats' lines from Adam's Curse: I said, ‘A line will take us hours maybe; Yet if it does not seem a moment’s thought, Our stitching and unstitching has been naught. * I believe there are exceptions, but in general writing should feel like casual conversation. The author can do all kinds of tricks while making it feel like casual conversation, but if they deviate from the feel of spontaneity, they should have good reasons to do so.
notahacker 6y ago
Fiction often isn't supposed to be either framed as a retelling of stuff that's already happened or set in the past (often it's set in the future, but explicit use of the future tense is rare). Sometimes it even switches between current period story narration and background/flashbacks though I'm struggling to think of an example that does this really well primarily through tense shifts. And casual conversation often retells anecdotes in the present tense even when explicitly over a past of time 'so eventually they stop, and I think to myself' because it's sounds more dynamic. Which is probably part of its appeal to new writers. That and it being common in writing that is popular or esteemed now, and absent from old literature of the nineteenth century, much like repetitive chord progressions with modal harmony and the odd chromatic passing tone on top... Maybe in 100 years time writing in the future tense will be commonplace and microtonality will be the starting point for new composers.

mola 6y ago

the novel is a different medium than casual conversation, it has proven to be much more sophisticated. For example, you can have multiple narrators, diagetic and non diagetic. Etc. If we expect novels to mimic nothing more than casual conversation, we lose a whole depth of creativity. While us readers lose sense making tools. I believe new writers are gravitated towards present tense mainly because their cultural world is in present tense. I bet they are exposed to twitts, blogs, films, TV, etc much more than to novels. So I believe they adopt the style of these media, because of naturalization via immersion. Even in the article, most answers of writers to why present tense, are 'it just happened' and then rationalized. For me, it is another proof of the "medium is the message" theory. I believe we are losing thought technology.

wyattpeak 6y ago
You know what will really lose us a whole depth of creativity? Prescribing that novels should only be written in a particular manner.
- kovek 6y ago
  Yes, when there’s a new way of doing things, we can’t think everyone will shift to that. It’s very often that the distribution shifts somewhat. Let’s say we introduce a new color (haha), and it rises in popularity, then we shouldn’t be fearing that everyone is going to adopt the new color as their favorite. The distribution is changing. We should really recognize that individuals have valid feelings and thoughts for whatever they gravitate towards. So, present tense, let’s do it I’m interested! However, we won’t lose the past tense.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- mola 6y ago
  That's a pretty harsh interpretation of what I said. (And very far from intended)
grasshopperpurp 6y ago
I often think of Yeats' lines from Adam's Curse: I said, ‘A line will take us hours maybe; Yet if it does not seem a moment’s thought, Our stitching and unstitching has been naught. * I believe there are exceptions, but in general writing should feel like casual conversation. The author can do all kinds of tricks while making it feel like casual conversation, but if they deviate from the feel of spontaneity, they should have good reasons to do so.

notahacker 6y ago

Fiction often isn't supposed to be either framed as a retelling of stuff that's already happened or set in the past (often it's set in the future, but explicit use of the future tense is rare). Sometimes it even switches between current period story narration and background/flashbacks though I'm struggling to think of an example that does this really well primarily through tense shifts. And casual conversation often retells anecdotes in the present tense even when explicitly over a past of time 'so eventually they stop, and I think to myself' because it's sounds more dynamic. Which is probably part of its appeal to new writers. That and it being common in writing that is popular or esteemed now, and absent from old literature of the nineteenth century, much like repetitive chord progressions with modal harmony and the odd chromatic passing tone on top... Maybe in 100 years time writing in the future tense will be commonplace and microtonality will be the starting point for new composers.