9 ms·

In Defense of the Present Tense (2015)

30 points by prismatic 6y ago

klodolph 6y ago
The most important takeaway about present tense is that the experience of reading a story in present tense is different from the experience of reading a story in past tense. This opens a discussion about how present tense is different and why you would choose it. I'm glad to see an article that tackles these issues instead of focusing on some "controversy" about whether it should be used at all.
- Natsu 6y ago
  I've noticed a lot more writing using it lately, it's interesting to see this talking about the trend. I personally find it jarring because I'm used to the past tense, so it interferes with my personal enjoyment of such stories. I end up sort of mentally 'correcting' them which is distracting to me. I suspect that those not already long accustomed to past tense stories will not have the same reaction.
  - klodolph 6y ago
    Thing is, normal people in conversation telling stories set in the past will sometimes use present tense to tell the stories. It’s not normally jarring or memorable, so we don’t talk about it. For some reason, some readers have difficulty reading written stories in present tense, like you do. I don’t understand what makes written stories different from spoken stories. I suspect we’ll see a lot more of it in the future just due to the popularity of novels like Hunger Games and Divergent.
    - Natsu 6y ago
      Honestly, I don't recall hearing many people relate stories verbally and even if they did, it'd still sound 'wrong' to me.
      - klodolph 6y ago
        It's common enough. I'm guessing that you just don't notice it because it's so natural.
        Natsu 6y ago
        I doubt that. The few times I have heard it, it sounded jarring and incorrect to me.
        klodolph 6y ago
        Going to be frank... I don't believe you. I don't believe that you're lying, but I don't believe that you can accurately linguistic details about conversations you hear (and you probably have even less accurate memories of conversations if you are a participant!). Linguists use audio recordings to make transcripts and analyze the audio later... because people are exceptionally bad at remembering what they actually hear in real conversations. When linguists ask subjects questions about what they heard or said in conversations and compare the subjects' answers against the transcripts, the subjects' answers are often a poor reflection of the transcript. This explains why you are not alone in thinking that it's jarring... the human brain is simply not good at remembering what is actually said in conversation. So you'll forgive me if I defer to the experts. If you look at what linguists say about the present tense... well, there's a lot of ink spilled over the past hundred years. Transcripts of casual conversations show that people in real life telling stories set in the past will freely switch between present (the "historical present") and past tense so freely that it's almost shocking to see it written down. There's relative agreement that the present tense doesn't really indicate that something takes place in the present, but it's used more as a contrast against other tenses. This makes a lot of sense, because it's exactly how tenses like the pluperfect work--the pluperfect tense does not make sense in isolation and cannot be understood as referring to a specific point in time without context. The same is true for the present tense.
- mrob 6y ago
  I don't think there's much difference to the experience. If the narrative is engaging enough then I'll focus on the meaning, not the words. Past tense and present tense are like C# and Visual Basic .NET, where the difference is mostly syntax, and it all gets compiled to the same intermediate representation. After a few thousand words I'll stop noticing the difference.
Causality1 6y ago
Complaining about literary trends is like complaining about too many people eating an ice cream flavor you don't like: pointless because there's no scarcity. If you don't like it don't read it. Personally I don't ever see myself reading a present-tense novel for pleasure. As a reader it makes me feel put-upon, as if the book is angrily demanding I approach it in a particular way. I tend to start reading faster and faster, subconsciously thinking I can outrun the narrator and get to a place where I can calm down.
- FabiansMustDie 6y ago
  The Association of Prescriptive English Supports should be round up and shot. Forcing an entire peoples to bend to some arbitrary semantics system is social engineering of the worst sort. Who knows what kind of ugliness has been unleashed onto the world- well, we already know. China is a perfect example of an entire culture completely obliterated once its language system was seized, and rewritten to suit the new regime's ends.
  - wodenokoto 6y ago
    This thread escalated quickly! God damn. Is it the the simplification of hanzi you believe to be mind controlling the Chinese people?
    - FabiansMustDie 6y ago
      Entire generations of people, forcibly made less literate, and unable to find out their culture's past. With this detachment from their history, their tradition has been rewritten completely. There's now no real reference point to illustrate how things were; how they've changed. It's no similar to hoe American school-children are taught a watered-down "unbiased" (only the facts) versions of history. This ends with a failure to understand what the American culture really is, and its tradition is lost on the masses. What's left is a public that can only comprehend the surface-level meanings, much less understand or create new words and concepts to rebel against their authorities.
colinb 6y ago
“He finally staggers up to the last resting place of the late Slats Slavin and falls there with the blood pumping from the hole that Johnny Brannigan drills in his chest and as I notice his lips moving I hasten to his side figuring that he may be about to utter the name of the horse Slats gives him for me.” There is only one Damon Runyon, and always will be.
ggambetta 6y ago
It's interesting that novels tend to be written in the past tense, while screenplays are written exclusively in the present tense. I write both, and I don't feel strongly about it; the usual way is fine by me.
- chmod775 6y ago
  It is a matter of preference to readers of novels. Someone may have trouble enjoying novels written in present tense because they're accustomed to past tense - or vice versa. A writer probably wouldn't write something they wouldn't enjoy reading themselves.
- wodenokoto 6y ago
  Maybe I’m overthinking / overrationalizing, but to me a screenplay is a set of instructions for what happens at a given time step. “After A be will happen” A novel is typically seen as a recollection of events that has been gathered after the fact, typically by an all knowing narrator or the main character. “After A happened, B happened”.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
huonib 6y ago
Here's what I don't get. You got coffee at a bistro. "The coffee is hot" - nonsense "The coffee was hot" - makes sense You SAW a woman at the beach. "That woman is beautiful" - sense? "That woman was beautiful" - potential insult?
- klodolph 6y ago
  “So, yesterday I wake up, and I’m barely awake, you know? So I head to the bistro and order a coffee before work. The coffee is HOT, so naturally my clumsy ass spills the entire thing in my lap as soon as I sit down.” Ordinary people in natural conversation will use the present tense to tell stories set in the past. So, “the coffee is hot” can sometimes mean that the coffee WAS hot. It’s not something that we ordinarily notice or talk about, it just happens in ordinary conversation. So if we want to understand what “present tense” means, we have to take care to avoid being confused by the name, “present tense”. “Present tense” is just the name of a tense, but there are several different ways that it is used.
amanaplanacanal 6y ago
For extra fun are novels written in the present tense, and second person. It feels jarring at first, but then I get lost in the flow of the story just as much as I would past tense and third person.
a9h74j 6y ago
tldr? It is the tense of screenplays.
cafard 6y ago
In a couple of lectures on translation, Hilaire Belloc acknowledged the use of the historic present in French, but cautioned against it in English. I think that the historic present is fine in fiction. However, it sets my teeth on edge in history--though the only time I've ever encountered it was in Bill O'Reilly's Killing the Rising Sun. (It was a neighbor's pick for the local book club.)

30 points by prismatic 6y ago

The most important takeaway about present tense is that the experience of reading a story in present tense is different from the experience of reading a story in past tense. This opens a discussion about how present tense is different and why you would choose it. I'm glad to see an article that tackles these issues instead of focusing on some "controversy" about whether it should be used at all.

Natsu 6y ago
I've noticed a lot more writing using it lately, it's interesting to see this talking about the trend. I personally find it jarring because I'm used to the past tense, so it interferes with my personal enjoyment of such stories. I end up sort of mentally 'correcting' them which is distracting to me. I suspect that those not already long accustomed to past tense stories will not have the same reaction.
- klodolph 6y ago
  Thing is, normal people in conversation telling stories set in the past will sometimes use present tense to tell the stories. It’s not normally jarring or memorable, so we don’t talk about it. For some reason, some readers have difficulty reading written stories in present tense, like you do. I don’t understand what makes written stories different from spoken stories. I suspect we’ll see a lot more of it in the future just due to the popularity of novels like Hunger Games and Divergent.
  - Natsu 6y ago
    Honestly, I don't recall hearing many people relate stories verbally and even if they did, it'd still sound 'wrong' to me.
    - klodolph 6y ago
      It's common enough. I'm guessing that you just don't notice it because it's so natural.
      - Natsu 6y ago
        I doubt that. The few times I have heard it, it sounded jarring and incorrect to me.
        klodolph 6y ago
        Going to be frank... I don't believe you. I don't believe that you're lying, but I don't believe that you can accurately linguistic details about conversations you hear (and you probably have even less accurate memories of conversations if you are a participant!). Linguists use audio recordings to make transcripts and analyze the audio later... because people are exceptionally bad at remembering what they actually hear in real conversations. When linguists ask subjects questions about what they heard or said in conversations and compare the subjects' answers against the transcripts, the subjects' answers are often a poor reflection of the transcript. This explains why you are not alone in thinking that it's jarring... the human brain is simply not good at remembering what is actually said in conversation. So you'll forgive me if I defer to the experts. If you look at what linguists say about the present tense... well, there's a lot of ink spilled over the past hundred years. Transcripts of casual conversations show that people in real life telling stories set in the past will freely switch between present (the "historical present") and past tense so freely that it's almost shocking to see it written down. There's relative agreement that the present tense doesn't really indicate that something takes place in the present, but it's used more as a contrast against other tenses. This makes a lot of sense, because it's exactly how tenses like the pluperfect work--the pluperfect tense does not make sense in isolation and cannot be understood as referring to a specific point in time without context. The same is true for the present tense.
mrob 6y ago
I don't think there's much difference to the experience. If the narrative is engaging enough then I'll focus on the meaning, not the words. Past tense and present tense are like C# and Visual Basic .NET, where the difference is mostly syntax, and it all gets compiled to the same intermediate representation. After a few thousand words I'll stop noticing the difference.

Causality1 6y ago

Complaining about literary trends is like complaining about too many people eating an ice cream flavor you don't like: pointless because there's no scarcity. If you don't like it don't read it. Personally I don't ever see myself reading a present-tense novel for pleasure. As a reader it makes me feel put-upon, as if the book is angrily demanding I approach it in a particular way. I tend to start reading faster and faster, subconsciously thinking I can outrun the narrator and get to a place where I can calm down.

FabiansMustDie 6y ago
The Association of Prescriptive English Supports should be round up and shot. Forcing an entire peoples to bend to some arbitrary semantics system is social engineering of the worst sort. Who knows what kind of ugliness has been unleashed onto the world- well, we already know. China is a perfect example of an entire culture completely obliterated once its language system was seized, and rewritten to suit the new regime's ends.
- wodenokoto 6y ago
  This thread escalated quickly! God damn. Is it the the simplification of hanzi you believe to be mind controlling the Chinese people?
  - FabiansMustDie 6y ago
    Entire generations of people, forcibly made less literate, and unable to find out their culture's past. With this detachment from their history, their tradition has been rewritten completely. There's now no real reference point to illustrate how things were; how they've changed. It's no similar to hoe American school-children are taught a watered-down "unbiased" (only the facts) versions of history. This ends with a failure to understand what the American culture really is, and its tradition is lost on the masses. What's left is a public that can only comprehend the surface-level meanings, much less understand or create new words and concepts to rebel against their authorities.

colinb 6y ago

“He finally staggers up to the last resting place of the late Slats Slavin and falls there with the blood pumping from the hole that Johnny Brannigan drills in his chest and as I notice his lips moving I hasten to his side figuring that he may be about to utter the name of the horse Slats gives him for me.” There is only one Damon Runyon, and always will be.

ggambetta 6y ago

It's interesting that novels tend to be written in the past tense, while screenplays are written exclusively in the present tense. I write both, and I don't feel strongly about it; the usual way is fine by me.

chmod775 6y ago
It is a matter of preference to readers of novels. Someone may have trouble enjoying novels written in present tense because they're accustomed to past tense - or vice versa. A writer probably wouldn't write something they wouldn't enjoy reading themselves.
wodenokoto 6y ago
Maybe I’m overthinking / overrationalizing, but to me a screenplay is a set of instructions for what happens at a given time step. “After A be will happen” A novel is typically seen as a recollection of events that has been gathered after the fact, typically by an all knowing narrator or the main character. “After A happened, B happened”.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

huonib 6y ago

Here's what I don't get. You got coffee at a bistro. "The coffee is hot" - nonsense "The coffee was hot" - makes sense You SAW a woman at the beach. "That woman is beautiful" - sense? "That woman was beautiful" - potential insult?

klodolph 6y ago
“So, yesterday I wake up, and I’m barely awake, you know? So I head to the bistro and order a coffee before work. The coffee is HOT, so naturally my clumsy ass spills the entire thing in my lap as soon as I sit down.” Ordinary people in natural conversation will use the present tense to tell stories set in the past. So, “the coffee is hot” can sometimes mean that the coffee WAS hot. It’s not something that we ordinarily notice or talk about, it just happens in ordinary conversation. So if we want to understand what “present tense” means, we have to take care to avoid being confused by the name, “present tense”. “Present tense” is just the name of a tense, but there are several different ways that it is used.

amanaplanacanal 6y ago

For extra fun are novels written in the present tense, and second person. It feels jarring at first, but then I get lost in the flow of the story just as much as I would past tense and third person.

a9h74j 6y ago

tldr? It is the tense of screenplays.

cafard 6y ago

In a couple of lectures on translation, Hilaire Belloc acknowledged the use of the historic present in French, but cautioned against it in English. I think that the historic present is fine in fiction. However, it sets my teeth on edge in history--though the only time I've ever encountered it was in Bill O'Reilly's Killing the Rising Sun. (It was a neighbor's pick for the local book club.)