Narrative Tense

Question

This is not a question of grammar or usage, but seems a matter reasonably well directed to the membership of this group.

What is the sense of the house on the use of the present tense in narrative? (The question was originally "in fiction", but on reflection it seems generally applicable to narrative of any sort.)

A trivially small sample demonstrated wildly varying opinions.

(I speak here of a sustained use-~~chapters or even an entire book~~-not a few paragraphs.)

Does the present tense in a narrative seem to you detestable, laudable, or a matter of total indifference?

Inquiring minds want to know . . . .

-- Cordially, Eric Walker My opinions on English are available at http://owlcroft.com/english/

Usenet · Accepted Answer

[nq:1]This is not a question of grammar or usage, but seems a matter reasonably well directed to the membership of ... seem to you detestable, laudable, or a matter of total indifference? Inquiring minds want to know . . . .[/nq]
I rarely like it and am often deterred from reading further. That's assuming you mean narratives entirely (or almost entirely) in the present tense. In a past-tense narrative, occasional forays into the present can be effective. And I exempt those narratives which employ the conceit of a present narrator recounting past events ... 'As I sit here I cannot but recall the way he looked as he flicked the cover off his typewriter. We had travelled all day ...' -- John Dean Oxford De-frag to reply

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]This is not a question of grammar or usage, but seems a matter reasonably well directed to the membership of ... seem to you detestable, laudable, or a matter of total indifference? Inquiring minds want to know . . . .[/nq]
It has its uses, but is vastly overused, especially by US writers. Switching from past to present tense during an intense scene can really hurl the reader into the midst of the action. Use it all the time (or keep switching back and forth every five minutes, which is more common) and it loses all its impact.

-- Mark Wallace -- For the intelligent approach to nasty humour, visit: The Anglo-American Humour (humor) Site http://earth.prohosting.com/mwal/ --

-- Mark Wallace -- For the intelligent approach to nasty humour, visit: The Anglo-American Humour (humor) Site http://earth.prohosting.com/mwal/ --

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]This is not a question of grammar or usage, but seems a matter reasonably well directed to the membership of ... seem to you detestable, laudable, or a matter of total indifference? Inquiring minds want to know . . . .[/nq]
I've used the present historic in a short story or two, but I'd hesitate before writing a whole novel in it. Having said that, I think extended use of it can work, if the setting *is* right now in the present. Maybe it's best suited to thrillers, romances and pieces aimed at the younger generation.

Adrian

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]This is not a question of grammar or usage, but seems a matter reasonably well directed to the membership of this group. What is the sense of the house on the use of the present tense in narrative?[/nq]

Use of the phrase the house threw me off, but now I understand AEU to the be the house, as in the House of Representatives voted to pass the present tense second person ban on any lengthy sustained fictional narratives, deeming the attempt to endure in such fashion insufferable.

Joanne

Usenet · Answer

(...)
[nq:1]I've used the present historic in a short story or two, but I'd hesitate before writing a whole novel in ... *is* right now in the present. Maybe it's best suited to thrillers, romances and pieces aimed at the younger generation.[/nq]
As it happens, the books that set me to pondering the point are two thick novels (the first two of a four-book retelling of the Arthur legend) by A. A. Attanasio, and they are neither set in the present nor particularly intended for any generation or age of reader. I don't yet know if the tense continues through all four books, but the second, for example, is well over 400 pages long.

A randomly chosen couple of paragraphs:

A tattered shawl of butterflies covers a blackberry bush, like an old woman bent in the kitchen of a cypress grove. There, he collects mint, elecampene, ginger root, veneria tuber, and galingale. In two of his snares, rabbits wait with desultory timidity. He breaks their necks with deft twists, eviscerates and skins them, and braises them with the herbs.

When Melania awakes, she finds the sky truffled with fire. The evening wind carries a spicy whisper of leaves and cooking aromas. Stepping through a curtain of ivy hung among sighing spruce, she finds the young man who has saved her life turning a spit of mint-glazed rabbit. He rises and, in curious, lilting Latin, asks "Are you hungry? You slept all day."

I reckon that I got through the first book and a good bit of the second before I was really even conscious of the sustained tense use (I had to flip through many sections to see if it had indeed been a sustained use). Putting it another way, I really wasn't even conscious of the device.

To me, it looks harmless and possibly beneficial. It seems to add a je ne sais quoi--perhaps a stateliness?--to the tone of the narrative. As to what others have said on the matter:

I cannot, at least at a quick scan, find anything in Herbert Read's English Prose Style that would bear on the matter.

Looking around a bit on line, I find one source that "Some writers achieve a kind of immediacy through use of the present tense . . . . We don't feel anyone knows the outcome of events because they are occurring as we read, in 'real time'"; but, it adds, "most readers of genre fiction don't enjoy the present tense, so editors are often reluctant to let their authors use it."

On another site, an author being interviewed remarks "Though it occurred almost seven years ago, I often return to that evening in my mind. This is one of the reasons I chose to use the present tense. In the past tense the (work) seemed to lose its intimacy and thus its emotional accuracy."

At yet another, reviewing a novel, "Koning's novel is self- consciously writerly, employing what has become a stock device of the literary novel by writing the entire narrative in the present tense. Whilst her prose is accomplished and beautifully descriptive, this mode of writing serves to make the narrative seem tentative and elusive, as if the author lacks the confidence to commit her tale to history by writing it into the past." (One of the weirdest objections to the practice that I can recall.)

A different review (of a different book) noted in passing "The present tense narrative heightens the suspense admirably and there is a masterly acceleration of tension and pace as it draws toward the conclusion . . . ."

So it appears that opinions from a wider base are almost as variable as my initial trivial sample suggested.

-- Cordially, Eric Walker My opinions on English are available at http://owlcroft.com/english/

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1] (...)[/nq]
[nq:2]I've used the present historic in a short story or ... to thrillers, romances and pieces aimed at the younger generation.[/nq]
[nq:1]As it happens, the books that set me to pondering the point are two thick novels (the first two of ... je ne sais quoi--perhaps a stateliness?--to the tone of the narrative. As to what others have said on the matter:[/nq]
Don't you think it makes it feel a bit like a fairy story for children? It reminds me of stories which are written for foreign-language students who have yet to master the past tenses.

Adrian

Usenet · Answer

(...)
[nq:1]Don't you think it makes it feel a bit like a fairy story for children? It reminds me of stories which are written for foreign-language students who have yet to master the past tenses.[/nq]
As a matter of pure taste, obviously there are no right or wrong points of view. But no, I myself got no such impression. It's more a feeling of looking through some sort of time- machine viewer that allows one to see events now past from _in_ their present.

The form is now being called "artsy" (or suchlike things), so-- however else it is being seen--I don't think over-simple is usually in the running.

-- Cordially, Eric Walker My opinions on English are available at http://owlcroft.com/english/

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Does the present tense in a narrative seem to you detestable, laudable, or a matter of total indifference?[/nq]
Fiction is written predominantly in the past tense, because that's more natural. I wouldn't be likely to read a long work written in the second person, present tense. However, I might be willing to at least start reading a long work in the first person, present tense.

-- Mike Bandy

Robert Orben said, "Nostalgia is like a grammar lesson. You find the present tense and the past perfect."

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1] (...)[/nq]
[nq:2]Don't you think it makes it feel a bit like ... foreign-language students who have yet to master the past tenses.[/nq]
[nq:1]As a matter of pure taste, obviously there are no right or wrong points of view. But no, I myself ... called "artsy" (or suchlike things), so-- however else it is being seen--I don't think over-simple is usually in the running.[/nq]
It achieved the 'artsy' cognomen because new writers often see it as a challenge to write something entirely in present tense (i.e. students of creative writing courses, etc.).

'Challenge' be buggered. It's a pain in the ***, especially for the editor who has to sort out the convoluted messes they get themselves into.

-- Mark Wallace -- For the intelligent approach to nasty humour, visit: The Anglo-American Humour (humor) Site http://earth.prohosting.com/mwal/ --

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]Does the present tense in a narrative seem to you detestable, laudable, or a matter of total indifference?[/nq]
[nq:1]Fiction is written predominantly in the past tense, because that's more natural. I wouldn't be likely to read a long ... tense. However, I might be willing to at least start reading a long work in the first person, present tense.[/nq]
What of third-person present? ("He enters the room, which is unoccupied, and inspects the furnishings. A moment later, through a different door, Sylvia enters the room.")

Present-tense writing is, I believe, normally third person when undertaken at length; first- and second-person present-tense narrations are especially quirky alternatives, rarer even than third-person present.

-- Cordially, Eric Walker My opinions on English are available at http://owlcroft.com/english/

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