I wonder what tense you've all chosen to write in and why.
I know past tense is likely the most common, but I have experimented with both and decided that present tense offers more direct immersion for my purposes.
This also ties into who the narrator is. In my WIP, it is a person in the room invisibly tagging along with the MC.
How did you decide, and is it reflected in the identity of the narrator?
I will admit do being old-fashioned and preferring past tense for both my writing and reading.
There is one exception, a short story I wrote that really only works in present tense.
But generally, I find it too... intense. It also feels pretentious, often creating a sense of urgency that the plot doesn't support. Usually, I will decline to buy stories written in present tense...
I write both 1st person and close 3rd person (also dislike the omniscient narrator).
I see a lot of present tense in romance, and it irks me. Just rubs me wrong. False urgency, pushing readers, maybe pretending to be more like TV? I don't know.
It also feels like a fashion. shrugs
But yeah, my preference for past tense makes me feel like a grumpy old woman right now. 😂
Oh, that is a good insight. I suppose it does inch a bit closer to screenplay writing than past tense.
I didn't know romance was so present-tense heavy. Perhaps that makes sense. It might be an easy way to emphasize some emersion.
Ah, a personal preference doesn't make you a grumpy old woman. That would be more the case if you started telling everyone they have to write in past tense.
Absolutely. Not here to judge but honestly curious about how it is perceived and why.
Isn't past tense a little odd in romance sometimes? Unless it is narrated as a recount from one of the characters it always makes me a little confused about the narrator in case of intimate details and such.
@HeliaXyana I mean, all fiction is like that. There is a certain suspension of disbelief. It would be very postmodern to somehow set a whole novel in the present forever, because your words are necessarily pinned down once you've written them.
Personally I tend to prefer 3rd limited past tense unless there's a really good reason not to. Too many first person POVs can feel indistinct and present tense feels like fanfiction. And 2nd person means something Literary is happening.
I'm sure there are those on here with more familiarity than I, but what I've read seems to be largely present tense. I realize I sounded a little derogatory in my prev post. Lots of fanfic is very good!
I think writers think much more about tense than readers do, tbh. Some people profess strong preferences, but I don't pay much attention as long as the book is well written.
That is precisely what got me pondering on this. I remembered an old professor telling me that past tense was the only valid tense to write in.
Of course, this is nonsense, but when I considered it, I wondered how many authors may have been imprinted with that idea and would have written more interesting work if they had considered present tense an option.
Fun fact: When I wrote my first ever story, I thought I'd be clever and write it in present tense. (I also wrote it in German, because I was conceited enough to want to offer original fantasy in German, instead of all the bad translations we get...)
Rewrote three novels to past tense... the present tense just felt wrong, like a rookie mistake.
Now I'm writing for an English-language audience, and happy to do so.
Oh, that is interesting. What made it feel like such a rookie mistake? Was it not a conscious choice?
It would be interesting to rewrite a random chapter from one tense to the other. It seems like a good way to make sure it's what fits the story the most.
I've been there. I had an obsession with utterly obscure words in my narration, which made the writing incredibly hard to read. It was a mix of a genuine fondness for obscure words and trying to seem clever.
I was urged to sprinkle in complicated words because of how susceptible academia is to such tricks.
So now I simply have a character who is fond of odd words. This makes it much more manageable, and I can have some SC ask what in the world she's talking about.
I can see how that could be fun. I've read some books like that, but I can't do that all the time. I like my more gentle-paced stories—especially romance.
(FWIW, my debut novel, The Way of the Wielder, is a romantic fantasy told in 3rd person past tense.)
@SJHoodlet@HeliaXyana@Firlefanz I almost always write in close third person, single POV, past tense, but for my last book, an extra POV character popped up and he was present tense, because he was someone who lived in the moment, created his own drama, acted without thinking…present tense suited him to a tee.
And in my current WIP I use it to represent visions.
For me, it’s less about pacing (in a fast reader either way)
@HeliaXyana@Firlefanz I have a story I'm working on that heavily relies on the present tense. The narrator appears to be a passive observer. The intent is to narrow the readers' focus and make the story feel claustrophobic and imminent.
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