Oh please help - tense tenses

I've never heard that 'rule' - and if it is a rule, it's a goofy one. You're right; switching back and forth makes it choppy, plus it tears me right smack out of the story as I try to figure out what the heck is going on there. I'd use past tense.

How about a change in construction of the sentence? How about 'the university was built'? That's technically correct and doesn't intimate that the university is no longer there... although 'was situated' would, actually, still be correct. 'Situated' means 'having a place or location'.

It doesn't matter if it's still there, and it's not incorrect to say it "was situated" because indeed it was. Maybe it still is, but that's not germaine to the story. Serve the story by using exclusively past tense. Anything else is confusing.

I'd use past tense unless there's something specific about the details that needs to be stressed. In general, when you switch to present tense to describe something, you're essentially taking the readers out of the story and saying, "Lookie here" -- it borders on author's intrusion, to me. Your examples sound like info dump to me. Is there a way to include that info into your narrative?

SecretScribe said:

Thanks Ol'Girl. The problem is this - if I say "the university was situated" that is technically incorrect. The university is still there. If I use the past tense it could sound as though the university was there in the past but is no longer there. Or am I being silly?

The person that told me this was the editor of a newspaper.

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Even if the university is still there, "was" is correct. Past tense merely means that the narrator is telling the story after the fact. The university may still be there, but it "was" there at the time the story is set, which is in the past.

The present tense rule is really more of a dialogue rule than a narrative rule. Dialogue is sometimes present tense, even when set in the past.

Info dump is when an author dishes out information that may have little to do with the current plot or simply to show off the knowledge or something, or a big chunk of information set apart from the current scene. Example, when Dan Brown went off to talk about the history of the Louvre in the Da Vinci Code, that's a typical info dump, not to mention author's intrusion.

In your example, I would suggest incorporating the information of the setting in your story. I did that with my book -- I have a lot of information about Asia, Los Angeles, etc. but they're part of the story.

Something like:

"After a good jolt of caffeine, Andrew and Lindiwe set off for the university. Situated in Auckland Park, just west of Johannesburg’s central business district, the University of Johannensburg is dominated by the towering South African Broadcasting Corporation building. At this hour, Ondekkers Road looked like a parking lot, packed with bumper-to-bumper traffic trying to get into the city. Andrew chose a winding route through the suburbs, taking side roads and short cuts and finally approaching their destination via the newly re-re-named Sofia Town. This had been a happy, vibrant place in the ‘50s until the Apartheid government forcibly removed the black occupants of the suburb’s neat little houses and renamed the place Triomf – Triumph. A triumph of hatred over poetry, music and joy. A place of bitterness. Changing the name back to Sophia Town wasn’t going to fix the damage, but perhaps it was a start.

As they drove past Andrew wondered, as he often did, how so many people sitting in so many offices on so many floors, were not able to come up with a decent bit of TV between them.

The modern, raw collection of purposely built concrete blocks emerged ahead of them. They had arrived at the university's gate. They signed in at security and were given directions to the residence that had become a second home to Frieda Henning.

A first-year student was manning the reception desk and she blushed furiously when shown police IDs. She scuttled off to fetch the housemother. The reception was bleak and uninviting. The odd pot plant and department store picture not doing much to make it look homely."

SecretScribe said:

The problem is this - if I say "the university was situated" that is technically incorrect. The university is still there. If I use the past tense it could sound as though the university was there in the past but is no longer there. Or am I being silly?

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Whether the university is still there is irrelevant. In fiction you need to be concerned only with the story present, which is the real world past*. The real world present, and whether the university is still in the same place, is the story future.

Of course, this is all made more confusing by our convention of using past tense to tell stories. In some ways using present tense is more internally consistent.

*Except for fantasy and SF, of course, but then we pretend it is, anyway.

SecretScribe said:

The person that told me this was the editor of a newspaper.

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Aha! Journalism =/= fiction.

Hi,

I think the questions of "info dump" and "past vs. present tense" are related in your text.

First, I don't feel your section involves an info dump. The information given does serve as information; but it's information that sets the mood and helps understand how the characters feel.

Example:

Secret Scribe said:

Andrew chose a winding route through the suburbs, taking side roads and short cuts and finally approaching their destination via the newly re-re-named Sofia Town. This had been a happy, vibrant place in the ‘50s until the Apartheid government forcibly removed the black occupants of the suburb’s neat little houses and renamed the place Triomf – Triumph.

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"Andrew chose..." --> "This had been..." From this constellation, I assume that Andrew is old enough to remember. I also assume that the adjectives "happy" and "vibrant" apply to Andrew's memories (i.e. they're not imposed by the narrator). I don't think, though, that Andrew is reflecting this at the very moment. I'd expect him to have a rather general feeling associated to the place. So what I think is happening is that the narrator is giving me character relevant information: Readers need to know this to understand Andrew's mood in the following scenes.

You could have given less information and implied more. This would have meant more "showing" and less "telling": and also a greater gulf between characters and readers (because of different information backgrounds; you'll use less info to the extent that you're writing for South Africans or citizens of Johannesburg). However, you don't have to do this. This is an introductory section, setting the mood.

Or you could have "attached a camera to the car", so to speak, and show us more of the life in the suburbs. But this could mean more emphasis on the ride than the story needs. Only you can judge that.

I do think your information/narrative ratio works (though the flow is a bit uneven at times, and there's room for improvement in the pose).

Now to the tense:

I don't think present tense works in your excerpt. When you're looking at the information as information, it makes sense to change to present tense, but by shifting to the present tense you're putting a wedge between your narrator and your characters. Present tense switches do work in third person narration when inhabiting a characters point of view; but for them to work the "tense switch" must be replecated in the character's point of view.

Example: In a scene told in 3rd person from the PoV of a pickpocket, I read a sentence like: "He'd already made more money today than most do in a week." This works, because you can imagine the pickpocket saying/thinking: "I've already made more money than most do in a week."

Your examples are different. The information is not tied to the characters in the same way. It's not character commentary (like the pickpocket's glee above), but it's the description of the character's knowledge state. By talking about the information in the same tense you use when talking about the characters, you create a connection between information and narration. You're saying, "This is the info that is relevant to Andrew and Lindiwe as they drive through Johannesburg's suburbs."

Omniscient narrators taking a break from the story would have to switch tense, though. (Current example: Terry Pratchett's footnotes in the Diskworld novels).

FennelGiraffe said:

Whether the university is still there is irrelevant. In fiction you need to be concerned only with the story present, which is the real world past*. The real world present, and whether the university is still in the same place, is the story future.

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Exactly.

You wouldn't write "I started the day feeling tired. The sun rises and is very hot." The sun always rises and it's always hot, but in the context of the story, it should be in past tense. It doesn't mean the sun doesn't rise anymore or it is cold now.

maestrowork said:

Exactly.

You wouldn't write "I started the day feeling tired. The sun rises and is very hot." The sun always rises and it's always hot, but in the context of the story, it should be in past tense. It doesn't mean the sun doesn't rise anymore or it is cold now.

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You haven't spent a winter in Canada. That's a cold sun, believe me. You make a good point, though.

I was told that when you describe something in your story that IS, you should use present tense even if your story is written in the past tense.

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The person that told me this was the editor of a newspaper.

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What the editor told you would be true in newspaper articles, but not in a work of fiction.


For example, if I am describing a real-life incident in an article that happened in the past and happen to mention a particular building, it would be fine for me to come back to the present tense and start explaining some facts about it. I am not too good at thinking of examples, but I hope you get my drift. I agree with the others that your info. should stay in the past.