Past/Present tense
Mar. 23rd, 2004 10:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sobriqueMost books I've encountered are third person and past tense.
Some are first person.
The odd few are second person (Fighting fantasy style books).
After reading a post by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jonnynexus (and if you recognise that name, it'll be from Critical Miss.) I thought I'd pose the question.
In your opinion does present tense work for the writing of a story?
On one hand, we have the fact that present tense is more immediate eg.
James the mighty warrior walks into the darkened room. A shadow flits across before him. Out of the darkness comes a huge scorpion, its claws clattering on the cobblestones.
James calls out "Hold and face my mighty blade"
James the mighty warrior walked into the darkened room. He saw a shadow flit across before him. Suddenly, out of the darkness came a huge scorpion, its claws clattering on the cobblestones.
James called out "hold and face my mighty blade"
Now leaving aside the quality of my writing, do you think a book can work if written all in the present tense?
I can see brief shifts in tense to alter pace, but I don't think I could cope with a book written entirely in the present tense. (In fact I know I can't, there was one a while back, called hotwired or something, that I got as far as page 10 before the stream of conciousness style of 3rd person, present tense annoyed me enough to stop reading. One of the few)
Some are first person.
The odd few are second person (Fighting fantasy style books).
After reading a post by
jonnynexus (and if you recognise that name, it'll be from Critical Miss.) I thought I'd pose the question.In your opinion does present tense work for the writing of a story?
On one hand, we have the fact that present tense is more immediate eg.
James the mighty warrior walks into the darkened room. A shadow flits across before him. Out of the darkness comes a huge scorpion, its claws clattering on the cobblestones.
James calls out "Hold and face my mighty blade"
James the mighty warrior walked into the darkened room. He saw a shadow flit across before him. Suddenly, out of the darkness came a huge scorpion, its claws clattering on the cobblestones.
James called out "hold and face my mighty blade"
Now leaving aside the quality of my writing, do you think a book can work if written all in the present tense?
I can see brief shifts in tense to alter pace, but I don't think I could cope with a book written entirely in the present tense. (In fact I know I can't, there was one a while back, called hotwired or something, that I got as far as page 10 before the stream of conciousness style of 3rd person, present tense annoyed me enough to stop reading. One of the few)
