Inconsistent tenses?

[BobbyBrandt]

Changes in tense is perfectly acceptable, but not when it also involves a change in the POV to accomplish it. That type of dual change takes real skill to prevent unrecoverable confusion.

Flashbacks or similar techniques were designed specifically to address these situations in literature.

 

[ElectricBlue]

The problem with present tense for me is that it's exhausting to read, because it always now, now, now. You can't slow it down or moderate the intensity. Something as banal as crossing the road or ordering a coffee gets the same intensity as the best orgasm, which is bollocks. Especially when the barista is so fucking slow, like mine was the other day. And he made it luke warm…

 

[intim8]

The pattern seems to be that use past tense to set up the scene but move to present tense for the action.

The convention in fiction is that past tense is for the current action of the story. It's the story's "present" tense. I'd guess that that convention arose because the idea is that the narrator is relating something that he witnessed, heard about, or experienced after it has happened.

So "She was sitting on the park bench" is happening in the story's now.

I can't seem to remember the terms for tenses, but what I think is called 'past perfect' is used for something that is in the past of the story. "She had been sitting on the park bench when they met last year. He had jogged past her, then their eyes had locked."

BUT, that is obviously a little clunky, so it is common to set up a past scene with the perfect tense intially, then slide into the simple past to relate it. It usually sounds better, but if you do that, you need a clear transition out of that passage:

"She had been sitting on the park bench when they met. He jogged past, then their eyes locked. Now they were getting married."

True present tense signals immediacy and immersion. As @ElectricBlue said up above, it is high energy, and should be used sparingly. It's kind of trendy, almost edgy, to do a whole piece in present tense, to make it feel more dramatic, but more often than not, it is a crutch. You can get that rush in the simple past tense, but some writers feel it is a way to buy more drama with less effort.

It does take the reader out of the story, out of the story's present. It's counterintuitive, but that's the convention.

Another use for present tense can be in something like a dream sequence or, ironically, a flashback. Since present tense tends to take the reader out of the story, this can be used intentionally for something that is abstracted away from the current events in the story yet feels immediate.

"She (remembered/dreamed of) the day they met. She's sitting on the park bench and he jogs past. Their eyes lock."

 

[SimonDoom]

Another use for present tense can be in something like a dream sequence or, ironically, a flashback. Since present tense tends to take the reader out of the story, this can be used intentionally for something that is abstracted away from the current events in the story yet feels immediate.

"She (remembered/dreamed of) the day they met. She's sitting on the park bench and he jogs past. Their eyes lock."

Part of the problem is that many people don't know what tenses to use with present tense, and they get it wrong.

If you write in the simple past tense, then events that take place before the time of the main narration usually are told in the past perfect tense, like this:

Joe walked to the store to get groceries [simple past]. He had gone to the same store the day before but forgotten to get milk [past perfect].

Joe thought about it and decided that in the future he would write everything on a list so he wouldn't forget about it [conditional used to indicate the future in a simple past narrative].

In present tense, authors sometimes wrongly continue to use past perfect, but that's not correct. In present it would be something like:

Joe walks to the store to get groceries. He has gone to the same store the day before but forgotten to get milk [present perfect] OR He went to the same store the day before but forgot to get milk [simple past].

Joe thinks about it and decides that in the future he will write everything on a list so he won't forget about it [future tense].


Authors are more likely to make mistakes, I believe, if they write in present tense.

 

[TheRedChamber]

I did experiment with shifting from past tense (for the story) to present tense (for the sex) in The Cellist. I did try a little linguistic trick to hide the switch, did ten paragraphs of loving then switched back for the end of the story. It scored well and no-body called me on it in the comments, so I guess it was okay. That said, I haven't been motivated to try it again.

That said, I've been writing a lot of stories in the Present tense recently. It's feels more exciting for the sex, but it is definitely better for short, to the point stories. The first few, pretty short, 'Hannah has Plans' stories were written in the present tense. When the outlines got longer I tried starting in past, but ended up constantly slipping back into present, so I guess that just how those stories are written now.

Come to think of it, I did another story recently (still waiting for the competition date) which was 12k words and did that in present without overthinking it.

 

[lustychimera]

I did experiment with shifting from past tense (for the story) to present tense (for the sex) in The Cellist. I did try a little linguistic trick to hide the switch, did ten paragraphs of loving then switched back for the end of the story. It scored well and no-body called me on it in the comments, so I guess it was okay. That said, I haven't been motivated to try it again.

That said, I've been writing a lot of stories in the Present tense recently. It's feels more exciting for the sex, but it is definitely better for short, to the point stories. The first few, pretty short, 'Hannah has Plans' stories were written in the present tense. When the outlines got longer I tried starting in past, but ended up constantly slipping back into present, so I guess that just how those stories are written now.

Come to think of it, I did another story recently (still waiting for the competition date) which was 12k words and did that in present without overthinking it.

I noticed you cheated the tense for his thoughts throughout the story. I supposed it did kind of prep me for the tense change at the end.

I'm not sure it would have worked in 3rd person, either. Present tense hides pretty well in 1st, but in 3rd it really stands out--at least to me.

I think you could almost even argue that the tense shift at the end wasn't a tense shift at all due to his present tense remarks throughout the story--that that was always the current timeline, just he was retelling the events that lead up to there. At least, if it wasn't for the shift back into past tense at the end.

But I'm pretty strongly of the opinion that as long as it reads well and adds something to the story, an author can cheat the grammar however they want. Mine's pretty fast and loose.

 

[AlexBailey]

The problem with present tense for me is that it's exhausting to read, because it always now, now, now. You can't slow it down or moderate the intensity. Something as banal as crossing the road or ordering a coffee gets the same intensity as the best orgasm, which is bollocks. Especially when the barista is so fucking slow, like mine was the other day. And he made it luke warm…

Do you really feel you can’t slow present tense down?

I know I’m a clumsy novice compared to so many authors here but I feel like I’ve got a handle on pacing first person present tense. I suppose it depends on what you want to do with the story.

I wrote my novel in YA style, with lots of self reflection and uncertainty. I use changes in tense but I think it works.

Please let me know if you think the intro below works. Is it fast paced? Is the intensity constant? Is the shifting of tense incorrect?

———

Some part of my rum-soaked brain is trying to wake up, trying to adjust to the ambient din of the ocean waves and crying seagulls. Being cautious not to open my eyes too quickly, not knowing what I might find, I try to swallow and feel sand in my teeth. The acrid smell of burnt driftwood is all around and in my tangled hair.

I'm on my side, laying on a blanket on the beach. I'm sharing it with someone... It's Sam. He's behind me and we're using an open sleeping bag as our only cover. Oh wow! He's holding me. How did this happen? Sam, my twenty-one year old surf instructor, is cuddled up behind me, holding me close to his body. I'm using his huge bicep as a pillow.

A little more awake now, I feel his other arm slung over my side, fingers loosely splayed across my belly. His unconscious touch is a cross between coveting and clinging with an occasional twitch or caress in reaction to something in his dreams.

What are we doing here? I rack my brain trying to remember last night. Sam wanted me to have fun on my eighteenth birthday, so I went along to spend the night on the beach near Ballina, not exactly sure what he had in mind.

Why in the world would he be sleeping on a blanket with me when those two Aussie surf bunnies had been fawning all over him last night? He introduced me as his 'Yankee shark-bait brother.' The girls probably wondered why he was bringing a 'grommet' like me, thinking I would just be in the way of a good time.

———

 

[intim8]

Do you really feel you can’t slow present tense down?

I know I’m a clumsy novice compared to so many authors here but I feel like I’ve got a handle on pacing first person present tense. I suppose it depends on what you want to do with the story.

You can, but present tense is just inherently higher energy. It's not just pace. It keeps the reader a little off-balance and feeling like they're being pushed.

It's kind of a pshycological thing. In past tense, the reader feels like the action has already happened and been recorded, it will still be there if he puts the book down for a while. In present tense, it feels like it's a live show, that if you stop to take a piss or get a beer from the fridge, you'll miss something.

 

[AlexBailey]

You can, but present tense is just inherently higher energy. It's not just pace. It keeps the reader a little off-balance and feeling like they're being pushed.

It's kind of a pshycological thing. In past tense, the reader feels like the action has already happened and been recorded, it will still be there if he puts the book down for a while. In present tense, it feels like it's a live show, that if you stop to take a piss or get a beer from the fridge, you'll miss something.

Okay. I hear you but I don’t feel the same.

Past tense feels like a memoir to me. It’s something that happened over there, back then, to someone else and I’m hearing it third person. How do you like your sex?

I guess it’s just different tastes.

 

[intim8]

Okay. I hear you but I don’t feel the same.

...

I guess it’s just different tastes.

Most readers do. It's baked into the broad expectations of fiction generally. Maybe a little less so here, but still, they do.

The psychological effect I described is real, not a style preference. Readers don't literally think it's a live show, but they feel that energy, and that it takes a bit more energy to read. Taste and style differences are fine, but there's a baseline of more or less objective things that will affect how readers take you work, regardless of how you want it to be taken. Good creative style uses those for effect, rather than hand-waving them away.

Here's an analogy: Airplanes are often seen as fighting gravity to stay in the air. They'd be awesome if they didn't have to do that, if gravity didn't affect them, right?. But no, without gravity, they'd be uncontrollable. It's balancing the opposing forces and tensions that make them work. Fiction has gravity too.

Nothing wrong with writing for you, and let others like it or not. If you do want to write for an audience. best to at least take this effect into account, be aware of it, even if you don't write to it.

Do you read a lot of fiction, other than here?

 

[AlexBailey]

Most readers do. It's baked into the broad expectations of fiction generally. Maybe a little less so here, but still, they do.

The psychological effect I described is real, not a style preference. Readers don't literally think it's a live show, but they feel that energy, and that it takes a bit more energy to read. Taste and style differences are fine, but there's a baseline of more or less objective things that will affect how readers take you work, regardless of how you want it to be taken. Good creative style uses those for effect, rather than hand-waving them away.

Here's an analogy: Airplanes are often seen as fighting gravity to stay in the air. They'd be awesome if they didn't have to do that, if gravity didn't affect them, right?. But no, without gravity, they'd be uncontrollable. It's balancing the opposing forces and tensions that make them work. Fiction has gravity too.

Nothing wrong with writing for you, and let others like it or not. If you do want to write for an audience. best to at least take this effect into account, be aware of it, even if you don't write to it.

Do you read a lot of fiction, other than here?

I read a good bit, but this is the only place I read erotica.

Your flight analogy works well keeping in mind that fixed wing aircraft are not the only things that fly.

 

[desecration]

I'm a fairly new writer and I'm noticing that in my drafts, I'm not totally consistent on tenses. The pattern seems to be that use past tense to set up the scene but move to present tense for the action. I'm mostly writing (for now) in first person POV.

This is something fairly common, and some authors believe in switching tenses, so you have probably read this in published books. I kind of dig the sudden dive into present tense for powerful scenes, but it has to happen rarely or it becomes confusing.

 

[intim8]

I read a good bit, but this is the only place I read erotica.

Your flight analogy works well keeping in mind that fixed wing aircraft are not the only things that fly.

It's the same in helos, birds, and bumblebees. Everything that is not ballistic.

Spacecraft are a whole different thing.

 

[intim8]

It's the same in helos, birds, and bumblebees. Everything that is not ballistic.

Spacecraft are a whole different thing.

Point is, it is balancing tensions that make it work. There are opposing tensions you create in your story, but there are also tensions between author and reader. They're just there, whether you want them or not.

 

[MillieDynamite]

I hate it when I get my verbs wrong or switch them around in one paragraph. The issue is that I write like a talk, which isn't always a bad thing, but then I have to look for those mistakes in verb usage. What a bother.

 

[Britva415]

Part of the problem is that many people don't know what tenses to use with present tense, and they get it wrong.

I completely disagree that this is part of "the problem".

That's a problem, but it's an utterly different problem which has nothing at all to do with whether the (grammatically competent) author can make the (deliberately temporally mixed) narrative work for readers.

 

[SimonDoom]

I completely disagree that this is part of "the problem".

That's a problem, but it's an utterly different problem which has nothing at all to do with whether the (grammatically competent) author can make the (deliberately temporally mixed) narrative work for readers.

That's not the problem the OP raised in the first instance. The thread raised the problem of inconsistent tenses, which is a big problem, not whether present tense is inherently problematic or better or worse than past tense.

It think it's obvious, from my reading experience, that authors are much more likely to go off the rails with inconsistent tense use if they start with present tense than if they start with past tense. That doesn't mean you shouldn't try it, but if you're unsure if your skills you are better off sticking with past tense.

If authors know what they are doing, and are familiar with the grammar, and are mindful of the words they use, then they can make many things work. The problem is that most authors are NOT like this. You can mix up tenses according to standard grammar rules, but that's not the same thing as "inconsistent tense," which is the result of lack of knowledge and lack of mindfulness.

 

[Britva415]

That's not the problem the OP raised in the first instance.

Oh.

I was following what you quoted, not scrolling all the way back to the first post.

 

[TheLobster]

The past vs. present tense debate reminds of the difference between the number of frames per second in cinematic movies and in live TV. The former is lower so that a movie can feel like a narrative potrayal of a story rather than depiction of real life, whereas the latter has the opposite goal.

The way the two tenses read differently feels a bit like a literary equivalent of this phenomenon.

 

[intim8]

The way the two tenses read differently feels a bit like a literary equivalent of this phenomenon.

There's a lot of meta stuff like that in fiction. The most basic ones. that everybody teaches first, are things like dialog tags and filter words, tense, pacing and sentence length, etc. Up the scale to foreshadowing, lampshading, subverting tropes, playing with reader's expectations. Then some things that I don't even know how to describe.

I wish I could weild those more advanced tools like some of the writers I like, but I can see them doing it. I'm learning.

Someone should do a "Tier List".

 

[ElectricBlue]

Please let me know if you think the intro below works. Is it fast paced? Is the intensity constant? Is the shifting of tense incorrect

I read that whole passage and I find it contemplative, full of reminiscences and memory. There's very little action going on, so why is it present tense? There's no reason for it. I couldn't read a whole story like that, it would be a constant battle not to convert it to past tense. It is a personal taste, yes, but past tense is so much more natural, for me.

 

[ElectricBlue]

The past vs. present tense debate reminds of the difference between the number of frames per second in cinematic movies and in live TV. The former is lower so that a movie can feel like a narrative potrayal of a story rather than depiction of real life, whereas the latter has the opposite goal.

The way the two tenses read differently feels a bit like a literary equivalent of this phenomenon.

Huh? Movies are 24 frames per second to provide persistence of vision, television frame rate depends on mains frequency, either 50 Hz (25 frames per second) or 60 Hz (30 frames per second), depending which country you live in. To present movies on TV, some frames are doubled up to fit the transmission speed.

It's got nothing to do with the "feel" of the narrative, it's a technical disconnect, is all it is.

 

[alohadave]

You can't slow it down or moderate the intensity.

Why not?

Nothing says that everything happens in real time or that the author can't control the pacing by describing things or omitting things. Or by using asides.

1st person is a perspective, not a way of telling stories. Not being able to set the appropriate intensity is on the author not the narrative perspective.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I wish I could weild those more advanced tools like some of the writers I like, but I can see them doing it. I'm learning.

Someone should do a "Tier List".

On occasion I ask my editor, who is far more a literary theorist than I'll ever be, to tell me what techniques I'm using. I love it when she decomposes my text, because generally speaking, I use a number of quite sophisticated techniques, but I don't have a clue what they're actually called.

 

[lustychimera]

Do you really feel you can’t slow present tense down?

I know I’m a clumsy novice compared to so many authors here but I feel like I’ve got a handle on pacing first person present tense. I suppose it depends on what you want to do with the story.

I wrote my novel in YA style, with lots of self reflection and uncertainty. I use changes in tense but I think it works.

Please let me know if you think the intro below works. Is it fast paced? Is the intensity constant? Is the shifting of tense incorrect?

———

Some part of my rum-soaked brain is trying to wake up, trying to adjust to the ambient din of the ocean waves and crying seagulls. Being cautious not to open my eyes too quickly, not knowing what I might find, I try to swallow and feel sand in my teeth. The acrid smell of burnt driftwood is all around and in my tangled hair.

I'm on my side, laying on a blanket on the beach. I'm sharing it with someone... It's Sam. He's behind me and we're using an open sleeping bag as our only cover. Oh wow! He's holding me. How did this happen? Sam, my twenty-one year old surf instructor, is cuddled up behind me, holding me close to his body. I'm using his huge bicep as a pillow.

A little more awake now, I feel his other arm slung over my side, fingers loosely splayed across my belly. His unconscious touch is a cross between coveting and clinging with an occasional twitch or caress in reaction to something in his dreams.

What are we doing here? I rack my brain trying to remember last night. Sam wanted me to have fun on my eighteenth birthday, so I went along to spend the night on the beach near Ballina, not exactly sure what he had in mind.

Why in the world would he be sleeping on a blanket with me when those two Aussie surf bunnies had been fawning all over him last night? He introduced me as his 'Yankee shark-bait brother.' The girls probably wondered why he was bringing a 'grommet' like me, thinking I would just be in the way of a good time.

———

I didn't see anything wrong with the tense in that passage. I think the prose is a bit disjointed in places, like the sentences are trying to do too much without flowing together, but other than that, it reads perfectly fine to me.

I like playing around with present tense, but here's an example of a slow contemplative "waking up" scene like yours that's far better than I'll ever be able to do:

Five hours’ New York jet lag and Cayce Pollard wakes in Camden Town to the dire and ever-circling wolves of disrupted circadian rhythm.
It is that flat and spectral non-hour, awash in limbic tides, brainstem stirring fitfully, flashing inappropriate reptilian demands for sex, food, sedation, all of the above, and none really an option now.
Not even food, as Damien’s new kitchen is as devoid of edible content as its designers’ display windows in Camden High Street. Very handsome, the upper cabinets faced in canary-yellow laminate, the lower with lacquered, unstained apple-ply. Very clean and almost entirely empty, save for a carton containing two dry pucks of Weetabix and some loose packets of herbal tea. Nothing at all in the German fridge, so new that its interior smells only of cold and long-chain monomers.
She knows, now, absolutely, hearing the white noise that is London, that Damien’s theory of jet lag is correct: that her mortal soul is leagues behind her, being reeled in on some ghostly umbilical down the vanished wake of the plane that brought her here, hundreds of thousands of feet above the Atlantic. Souls can’t move that quickly, and are left behind, and must be awaited, upon arrival, like lost luggage.

Gibson, William. Pattern Recognition (Blue Ant Book 1) (p. 1). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.