Present tense

I'm saying frequent use of present progressive in speech is a modern thing.

morngnstar said:

I'm saying frequent use of present progressive in speech is a modern thing.

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Cite?

kuwisdelu said:

Cite?

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I'm just guessing, as I said in the first place.

Every time I clarify a detail someone gets tripped up on a detail I didn't repeat.

morngnstar said:

I'm just guessing, as I said in the first place.

Every time I clarify a detail someone gets tripped up on a detail I didn't repeat.

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I'm thinking people are telling stories in present progressive for as long as we're gathering around campfires, but bad guessing and blaming others for not understanding is as old as the earth is spinning.

Well you know here I am walking past the butchers and you'll never guess -- seriously he's got the biggest sausage I've ever seen. It's massive I tell you -- huge. Amazing. You so must go an see it for yourself. It's bringing me out in hives just thinking about it.

Or

"You don't say..." Mrs Busybody props up her Edwardian shelf of a bosom and leans closer to Mrs Noseyparker from down the street.

"I do say. I am looking out my window and I see Mrs Floosey and she's kissing him." Mrs Noseyparker sniffs and purses her lips. "Vicar Octopus And him a married man an all."

Mrs Busybody works her facial features until she is sure they look suitably scandalised rather than interested. "You don't say. And here was I doing the flowers at the church this morning... he takes one saying it's for his wife."

"Or maybe they're for his bit on the side, what do you think?"

I'm not sure if I've read anything in present tense that wasn't a script or a short story, and I'm not certain that I would, either. It just feels like somebody is stopping in the middle of an action scene to describe what they're doing, like a bad found footage movie.

As a writer, it's way too easy to slip back and forth between tenses without realizing it for me to write in present tense for fiction.

Present tense grammatical construction is commonly and appropriately used to express a continuing situation or condition, within the context of past-tense narrative.

caw

blacbird said:

Present tense grammatical construction is commonly and appropriately used to express a continuing situation or condition, within the context of past-tense narrative.

caw

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Ooo...well said.

I write in present tense because that's simply how things come to me, and I consider readers who won't read present tense lost in the same way I consider readers who won't read a particular story's genre.

Nothin' I can do to change them, so sod it.

morngnstar said:

I'm saying frequent use of present progressive in speech is a modern thing.

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define modern...?*


Present progressive tense wasn't around in Shakespeare's time, but I don't think it evolved that recently. I'm pretty sure I've read present progressive in books written 100 or so years ago.


On the topic of narrating past events in present tense...

I'm from South East England - the use of present tense to narrate recent events is pretty normal to me.... "so there I am in Tesco's, looking for the custard creams, and this old git storms down the isle like a bull in a china shop and runs his trolley right over my foot! Doesn't even say sorry!"

This anecdote could be told in past tense too, it depends on the person. But plenty of people use present tense to talk about events. It's even in this comedy sketch:

NSFW: some fairly mild swearing in it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atP0od7vFjM

ETA: the sketch is in the Yorkshire dialect** - clearly this present tense narration is in more than one dialect.



*I'm obsessed with palaeoanthropology - to me vertical foreheads and upper palaeolithic technology are modern.


**I think... it's north of the Watford Gap ..... *tiptoes out of thread*

Somehow I don't think anyone is going to realize that they don't like reading stories or novels written in present tense after all, or vice versa (decide they like stories written this way) either, based on arguments about whether or not it's a logical way to tell stories or not

Vulgarian tangent

Straub's and King's Black House is 19th century total omni in present tense with constant dialogues of the author voice with the reader.

...Just goes to show, be a stellar enough writer, and you can take the twitter diva's and blogger expert's writing rules and dip them in lube.

NRoach said:

I write in present tense because that's simply how things come to me, and I consider readers who won't read present tense lost in the same way I consider readers who won't read a particular story's genre.

Nothin' I can do to change them, so sod it.

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Agreed!

My current WIP is in past because that's just how I felt like writing it, but the majority of my writing for most of my life has been in third person present. Because I like it, dammit. It's comfortable for me and I appreciate its immediacy. It's also easier for me to stay in a much closer third person writing in present. When I write in past I have more of a tendency to wax "writerly" and have to go back and eliminate filters. Filtering is NEVER an issue for me in present.

NRoach said:

I write in present tense because that's simply how things come to me, and I consider readers who won't read present tense lost in the same way I consider readers who won't read a particular story's genre.

Nothin' I can do to change them, so sod it.

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I second this. Most of my stories come to me in past tense, I've to date only had one be present. I think it's my best story by far. It tells when I want it too, and shows when I want it to. It also happens to be in first person, and is a Horror Romance. Far as I'm concerned, the story came out as it came out. If someone holds that it is in first present against it for no reason, I don't believe they're the demographic I wanted to begin with.

The story is was by far the most engaging to write for me, and flowed easily. I would have been a fool to force it into something that wasn't my first instinct for the story just because I didn't believe present tense was something I would ever choose to write.

Due to this thread, I'm considering making my next work present tense first person, switching between several characters. I've written in all styles and found I like each of them, but I'll see how it goes with the next work.

Elladog said:

I can't think of a single novel I've enjoyed that has been written in present tense, but my WIP is aggressively presenting itself to me that way. in third?

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I suspect that if you don't like reading it, you are going to struggle writing a novel well with it.

amergina said:

future perfect continuous

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Intriguing. Not sure what it consists of, but intriguing all the same !

Lillith1991 said:

There's a difference between catergorically dimissing a particular style of writing as annoying and saying it doesn't work for you.

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If I find something annoying, then I can surely say "Thus-and-such is annoying." "Annoying to me" is implied, since no one can say with certainty that something is annoying to other people, or to everyone. If you are annoyed by rude salesclerks, is it being condescending to say rude salesclerks are annoying?

IOW, "annoying" is a perception, and can therefore only belong to the person who perceives it that way. It doesn't say anything about whether the thing in question is somehow objectively annoying. <--oxymoron

ETA: I see now that this subject was dropped earlier in the thread. Sorry for dredging it up again.

JHFC said:

THE WAR AT THE END OF THE WORLD switches between 1st person, 3rd person, present, and past, and won a Nobel Prize.

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Like I said, you can.

morngnstar said:

That's an even more bizarre usage. If things really are in the past, why would you use present?

I do encounter it; it seems more common in young people (American side). Goes like this: "So the other day I'm listening to the radio, and this guy comes on and starts whining about this bad date he had."

It seems that they are leaping into a sort of literary voice when speaking. You only encounter it when people are "telling a story", not simply relating a simple fact. Nobody would say, "Yesterday I eat a muffin for breakfast." If they do say that, then you know to expect that they will now describe something interesting that resulted from eating the muffin. You know it's a story because they are using a story mode of speech.

Legitimizing a literary style based on a mode of speech that derives from a literary style is circular.

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Literary voice? Teen-ager voice. The adults around me don't use it, only the kiddies. When I was a kid, we used to say things like, Ain't got none. Lovely, isn't it? We thought it was cute. It wasn't. I don't find present or present progressive cute either. I didn't know folks in other parts of the world, adult folks that is, speak that way.

Roxxsmom said:

So, I'm talking to my mom, and she says, "I need some bananas."

So I go to the store, and the checkout clerk--he's the hottest thing you've ever seen--says, "Hey, gorgeous."

And then I'm all, OMG.

You've never run across anyone who relates personal stories or anecdotes like that? Informal, yes. But so is fiction a lot of the time.

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I hope I don't run into any today. Ya know what I mean?

Ken said:

Quite true. You can pick up the audiotape and listen instead ;-)

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Can't wait.

BethS said:

If I find something annoying, then I can surely say "Thus-and-such is annoying." "Annoying to me" is implied, since no one can say with certainty that something is annoying to other people, or to everyone. If you are annoyed by rude salesclerks, is it being condescending to say rude salesclerks are annoying?

IOW, "annoying" is a perception, and can therefore only belong to the person who perceives it that way. It doesn't say anything about whether the thing in question is somehow objectively annoying. <--oxymoron

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AMEN, sister.

NRoach said:

I write in present tense because that's simply how things come to me, and I consider readers who won't read present tense lost in the same way I consider readers who won't read a particular story's genre.

Nothin' I can do to change them, so sod it.

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As a person who is one of those lost readers... yeah, this.

Every decision a writer makes about their book is going to attract some and alienate others.

For me, reading present tense is awkward, especially first-person. For some reason my brain just can't engage with it. It's as though the writing itself keeps reminding me "this is just fiction. None of it's real. Don't worry about it."

But if that's the way the story is coming to *you*, that's how you should write it. Because for every person like me, there's someone else who finds first-person present tense immediate and engaging, heightening their connection to the scene and the characters. The idea of changing from the natural tense just to try to appeal more widely can only hurt, I think.

Ken said:

Intriguing. Not sure what it consists of, but intriguing all the same !

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You'll have been sitting down, preparing yourself to slot into the new novel you will have just gotten your hands on. You'll have been reading, and about half way down the first page, it'll have hit you.

NRoach said:

You'll have been sitting down, preparing yourself to slot into the new novel you will have just gotten your hands on. You'll have been reading, and about half way down the first page, it'll have hit you.

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Thnx for the example. That's pretty neat.

Writing is cool. Such a variety of approaches one can take.

Seriously people, read what you want to read and write what you feel comfortable with. Not all books suit all readers. We're not talking scholarly work in linguistics here.

neandermagnon said:

define modern...?*


Present progressive tense wasn't around in Shakespeare's time, but I don't think it evolved that recently. I'm pretty sure I've read present progressive in books written 100 or so years ago.

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I was thinking of how the term is used by historians: starting something like 1700.

Thanks for backing me up that present progressive hasn't been around forever. Did it really not exist at all, or just not as popular?