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Is it rare for the present tense to be used for novels? I was using the LookInside feature on Amazon to check out a self-published horror story and it uses the present tense, which I found tiring to read compared to past tense.
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Personally, if the book's well-written I tend to lose sight of the tense after the first page or so. The only real advantage with present tense, first-person narratives, is that you can introduce doubt as to whether the hero will survive at the end of the story. But even that's a bit contrived.
The present tense is pretentious and uninvolving.
Now that is interesting, what with all the prizes and publicity. I keep meaning to put it on my amazon wishlist, maybe I'll wait a while
Yes - some of my OWC shorts are in the present tense. I never make a conscious decision when I write a story in the present tense - it's just what seems to work for that particular story.
I'm not aware of reading any novels in the present tense, but that doesn't mean they don't exist, although I imagine theyd be a wearing to read.
As an aside, an author I sometimes love and sometimes hate: Paul Auster, has written a book in the second person. Now that would take some reading that I dont think Im prepared to undertake!
It can also be limiting and is less explorative as a medium.
I would advise writers, especially less experienced ones, to think long and hard before they embark on present tense novels.
I've heard it's quite a tough read - not for the faint-hearted, although I haven't looked at it, tbh.
I sometimes use first-person narrative but in the past tense. Do you find this off-putting? It would be interestiong to have a general view on this.
And then a small press was interested in it. They were initially put off by the present tense, they admitted, but as they read on they came to like the way it was written.
But after asking to see more and more samples they didn't take it up. I still can't help feeling the present tense was still part of that decision, but maybe that's because I'm reading more negative reactions to the use of present tense on forums, and now I'm sure the present tense (for a debut book especially) is at least one reason no agent showed interest in it.
I am considering going back and rewriting it in past tense.
Having said that, as a reader, I don't care whether any book is in past, present, future, third- first- or second-person . . . It doesn't matter to me. As long as it's written well and there's a reason for it, e.g. "If on a winter's night a traveller..." by Italo Calvino. Both present tense and second-person. But there's a reason for it: the form helps to convey the meaning of the story.
And that's what's important, I think, with any story. Some writers seem to make arbitrary decisions on how to tell a story (usually when they are writing in present tense). But there should always be a reason for our choices, and I don't think that's pretentious. We have a wonderful toolkit of language that we shouldn't be afraid to use. Having studied narrative analysis and linguistics years back, there are so many stories written by brilliant authors that are written in ways other than past tense and third person; but the important thing is they work because there's a reason they're written like that, connected to the meaning of the text.
I'm surprised at the drift in this thread. Present tense writing is quite the rage in YA fiction, and kids must like it because it's becoming so widespread. The Hunger Games, for example, is all present tense, except, as Red points out, when other tenses are required (short excerpt below: the opening para of Mockingjay). Also Patrick Ness's award winning and best-selling trilogy Chaos Walking (The Knife of Never Letting Go, etc.). As soon as you get into the story, as danfango says, tenses disappear like 'he said' and other props. I think use of the present tense is part of the modern requirement to involve the reader in the here-and-now story experience, inside the head of the POV character.
Here's how tenses mix, as they do in past tense novels when required, from the start of Hunger Games Bk3:
I stare down at my shoes, watching as a fine layer of ash forms on the worn leather. This is where the bed I shared with my sister, Prim, stood. Over there was the kitchen table. The bricks of the chimney, which collapsed in a charred heap, provide a point of reference for the rest of the house. How else could I orient myself in this sea of grey?
Dialogue takes a bit of getting used to. Here's an example:
"I blocked the doorway when he tried to follow you," says Gale.
"They'll probably punish you," I say.
"Already have."
I'm seriously thinking of changing my novel (debut) from past to present before submitting it to an agent, and I'll use Chapter One as a test.
I suppose I've become more unsure of using present tense to try to sell a debut novel. But I haven't stopped using it in short stories where it's appropriate. I'm writing one now, and I've just submitted a story with 2 narrators: one present and one past.
I've heard it's quite a tough read - not for the faint-hearted, although I haven't looked at it, tbh.[/quote]
I've read Wolf Hall recently, and have to say I thoroughly enjoyed it. There was an 'immediacy' about it that, for me, brought these long-ago events to life.
I have written stuff in the present tense, with little success. Not something I would persevere with.
No, I don't find it off-putting. I am currently using first person, past tense for two MCs, and third person past tense for the third MC. I find it gives a very powerful delivery. With this novel, I had experimented with past and present tense and with first and third person viewpoints. Present tense didn't work for it, I agree (better for short stories) but as I have it now, it's working very well.
I'm interested in your comments, dwight. I loved The Hunger Games. I hadn't been aware Present Tense was quite so popular. Maybe the HC gets away with it because the time period of the action is relatively short. My current WIP goes over a longer period and I decided a while ago present tense wouldn't work.
In fact, if I remember rightly, aren't parts of Paradise Lost in the present tense?
It sounds as if present tense could make your concept really sizzle, dwight. It might leave your reader a bit breathless keeping up with the pace though, so you might have to insert a few "breathers" at strategic intervals. (Not quite sure how but I'm sure you'll work it out).
Good luck.
That's because kids love immediacy, the notion of 'now' and they readily identify with it. It was like that when I was a kid so nothing has changed much, but I am not a great fan of reading present tense stories at length, simply because it takes some skill to get it right, and when it isn't right I don't read it. I'd rather the author invest heavily in the way they write present tense and get it right. Even editors can balls it up, so it gives you an indication of how difficult it can be to maintain.
Immediacy is another reason I chose present tense for my own novel. It's a horror story, and I decided that horror surely benefits from feeling like you're there, in the moment, not reading after the fact - when you know it's safe, because it all happened in the past.
But as I said, it's reading all the negativity towards present tense in various places that has made me think about rewriting in past tense. Fix some of the other things that I think could do with an overhaul, and present what seems to be a safer package.
Or should I just stick to my guns on present tense, make those other changes to the story, and then take another crack at submitting or self-publishing?
I've heard a lot of people say they find present tense tiring or annoying, and I can't understand that at all.
I think if the tense stands out, either the writer has been clumsy with it and hasn't incorporated into the story properly, or the reader is perhaps being over-critical.
It can work very well if the story skips back and forth in time, with flashbacks in past tense and what's going on now in present.
Can you elaborate on that? Are there technical reasons, or is it convention as in "we've always done it this way." How do you find out things like that?
It leaves me out of breath keeping up with the protagonist.