This goes beyond the issues discussed in the “Past and Present in the same chapter” thread.
In order to fit the narrative order nicely, not jump back and forth in time, I'm having a characters relate earlier events from a different POV by having them think back and reflect on it, while sitting quietly on a return flight in the novel's "present" (time 1). But this is just a framing mechanism and the chapters are each told in present tense just like the first time the day was shown (time 2).
Now, character B is remembering re-creating a childhood memory that took place on the same spot, with her current group playing the parts of the original memory's participants. At the time, she was trying to connect with the old memory better, and is remembering past events (time 3) while explaining in that (2) present.
Now, in her present (1) reverie, besides simply remembering (3) as an event happening in (2), sinking in to relive vividly (3) from (2) causes her (really in 1) to start to break out of the meditation semi-sleep state, but she sinks back in. Only now she finds she slip between the original and re-created events while they are played out, like flipping between watching two different performances of the same play. She can (present 1) muse over how she felt as a child, compared with how she perceives things now, and try to understand her current motivations more abstractly. Oh, and during (1) in a true reverie state she notices that (3) included her thinking about her own future, where she would be in life and who she would become. So now (1) can compare the remembered (2) against the imagined (2′), giving a past-past-perfect-future-imperfect something.
So, what tense where?
Just use present everywhere? But using different tenses makes it easy to intermix thoughts that occurred in the memory from the current reflection on those thoughts in the present. But I also find writing extended passages in past perfect to be kind of clunky; it will certainly make the readers connect less with the action being related.
In order to fit the narrative order nicely, not jump back and forth in time, I'm having a characters relate earlier events from a different POV by having them think back and reflect on it, while sitting quietly on a return flight in the novel's "present" (time 1). But this is just a framing mechanism and the chapters are each told in present tense just like the first time the day was shown (time 2).
Now, character B is remembering re-creating a childhood memory that took place on the same spot, with her current group playing the parts of the original memory's participants. At the time, she was trying to connect with the old memory better, and is remembering past events (time 3) while explaining in that (2) present.
Now, in her present (1) reverie, besides simply remembering (3) as an event happening in (2), sinking in to relive vividly (3) from (2) causes her (really in 1) to start to break out of the meditation semi-sleep state, but she sinks back in. Only now she finds she slip between the original and re-created events while they are played out, like flipping between watching two different performances of the same play. She can (present 1) muse over how she felt as a child, compared with how she perceives things now, and try to understand her current motivations more abstractly. Oh, and during (1) in a true reverie state she notices that (3) included her thinking about her own future, where she would be in life and who she would become. So now (1) can compare the remembered (2) against the imagined (2′), giving a past-past-perfect-future-imperfect something.
So, what tense where?
Just use present everywhere? But using different tenses makes it easy to intermix thoughts that occurred in the memory from the current reflection on those thoughts in the present. But I also find writing extended passages in past perfect to be kind of clunky; it will certainly make the readers connect less with the action being related.
