Tense question, please help!

hollyfan · Nov 29, 2010

Hello

Below are two sentences in my WIP, and I was wondering if you could tell me whether or not I'm breaking tense rules. I'm writing this book in third person limited, simple past tense, but sometimes I feel the need to do exactly what I have done in the two sentences below.

"She'd spared no expense to make him feel right at home, and big candles were just the ticket--high, yellow flames, tossing light on the stuccoed walls, the blue satin bed sheets, the illuminated flooring glistening in an oaky shade."

"She couldn't view her hometwon as anything but grand. The stars were coming out above Canary Wharf, the sky had flushed deep violet, the landscape bathing in a soft pearly glow"

Many thanks in advance!

maestrowork · Nov 29, 2010

First sentence is fine grammatically, but all the "-ing" words are making my head spin. I'd suggest use "tossed" instead of "tossing," since it's after an em-dash.

The second has a comma splice ("the stars were coming out, the sky had flushed deep violet"). You need an "and" there. I'd also use "had come out" instead of the progressive tense "were coming out."

rainsmom · Nov 29, 2010

You've done fine.

Bob drove to the store. -- This is simple past tense. In a novel written in past tense, this is, essentially, present time.

He had dressed in his finest clothes, and then he drove to the store. -- "Had" is past perfect. It's used in novels written in past tense to denote events that happened in the past. In your first example sentence, "She'd spared no expense" happened before the moment you're writing about, so past perfect is the correct tense.

The stars were coming out above Canary Wharf. -- This is progressive tense, and it's used to show that an action is in progress. "Bob drove to the store" is an action that has happened. When you finish reading the sentence, you pretty much assume he's at the store. "The stars were coming out" is still happening.

Bottom line: Whether you know the grammar specifics or not, you're doing it correctly. Sounds like you can follow your gut.

Uh, yeah to what Maestro caught. I was focusing on the tenses themselves.

.

FennelGiraffe · Nov 29, 2010

maestrowork said:
I'd suggest use "tossed" instead of "tossing," since it's after an em-dash.

Sorry, maestro, I disagree. That's a list of nouns with the 'and' omitted: 'flames', 'sheets', 'flooring'. A verb in place of a participial adjective (?? I think that's what 'tossing' and 'glistening' are. They're modifying nouns.) would ruin the parallelism. Maybe the emdash should be a colon.

hollyfan said:
"She'd spared no expense to make him feel right at home, and big candles were just the ticket--high, yellow flames, tossing light on the stuccoed walls, the blue satin bed sheets, the illuminated flooring glistening in an oaky shade."

I assume the original question is about 'had spared'. That's fine. You're describing something that was done in the past; since you're writing in past tense, going to past perfect is the correct way to do that.

Your other verbs are all correct, although I agree with maestro that there is an excess of '-ing'. I'd suggest, even though it isn't a verb, you change 'flooring' to 'floor'.

You don't need a comma after 'flames'. Since the sentence structure is already complicated, if you could replace 'high, yellow' with a single adjective, it would help to have that comma eliminated as well.

One side thought, which may not be relevant: If this is 3rd limited, who's the POV char here, her or him? This kind of sounds like it's him, and I'm wondering if it's in character for him to notice the surroundings in quite these terms. This could help with the excess of '-ing'. Perhaps either 'tossing light on the stuccoed walls' or 'glistening in an oaky shade' could be eliminated. Or both.

hollyfan said:
"She couldn't view her hometwon as anything but grand. The stars were coming out above Canary Wharf, the sky had flushed deep violet, the landscape bathing in a soft pearly glow"

This has some structural problems, so it's hard to assess the tenses without knowing what you're trying to do. There's definitely one comma splice; there might be two.

The last part is confusing me. You might be trying for another list of three things with 'and' omitted. If so, you need to separate the clauses with semi-colons. I'll support 'was coming' over 'had come' if you really do mean that transitional time as the stars begin to appear one by one, but then the other verbs probably ought to be in the same tense.

The stars were coming out above Canary Wharf; the sky was flushing deep violet; a soft pearly glow was bathing the landscape.

Ick. Or maybe not. Maybe that isn't what you were trying to do with that last part. In that case, I'd go with something more like this:

The stars were coming out above Canary Wharf. The sky ~~had~~ flushed deep violet, bathing the landscape ~~bathing~~ in a soft pearly glow.

maestrowork · Nov 29, 2010

Sorry, maestro, I disagree. That's a list of nouns with the 'and' omitted: 'flames', 'sheets', 'flooring'. A verb in place of a participial adjective (?? I think that's what 'tossing' and 'glistening' are. They're modifying nouns.) would ruin the parallelism. Maybe the emdash should be a colon.

I am not sure if I agree that "tossing" etc. are participial adjectives. They sounded more like participial verbs to me:

- flames tossing light on the wall
- floor glistening

I know what you're getting at, though, that there seems to be a parallel structure going on (flames, sheets, floor) but it doesn't really work here. If you want parallel, then it should be rewritten:

She'd spared no expense to make him feel right at home, and big candles were just the ticket--high, yellow flames tossing light on the stuccoed walls, the blue satin sheets shimmering on the bed, the illuminated floor glistening in an oaky shade.

But anyway, since there's an em-dash, the participial clauses could have been replaced by simple past:

She'd spared no expense to make him feel right at home, and big candles were just the ticket--high, yellow flames tossed light on the stuccoed walls, the blue satin sheets shimmered on the bed, and the illuminated floor glistened in an oaky shade.

FennelGiraffe · Nov 29, 2010

maestrowork said:
I am not sure if I agree that "tossing" etc. are participial adjectives. They sounded more like participial verbs to me:

- flames tossing light on the wall
- floor glistening

Hmmmm. Gonna have to think about that.

maestrowork said:
I know what you're getting at, though, that there seems to be a parallel structure going on (flames, sheets, floor) but it doesn't really work here. If you want parallel, then it should be rewritten:

She'd spared no expense to make him feel right at home, and big candles were just the ticket--high, yellow flames tossing light on the stuccoed walls, the blue satin sheets shimmering on the bed, the illuminated floor glistening in an oaky shade.

Nice.

maestrowork said:
But anyway, since there's an em-dash, the participial clauses could have been replaced by simple past:

She'd spared no expense to make him feel right at home, and big candles were just the ticket--high, yellow flames tossed light on the stuccoed walls, the blue satin sheets shimmered on the bed, and the illuminated floor glistened in an oaky shade.

True, but to my ear it changes the tone.

Dawnstorm · Nov 29, 2010

I agree with maestro, here: they're participial verbs. But I also think Fennel Giraffe has a point, but the grammar's more complicated than simply calling "tossing" etc. adjectives. Here's how I read it:

high, yellow flames, tossing light on the stuccoed walls, the blue satin bed sheets, the illuminated flooring glistening in an oaky shade

This is a noun phrase with "flames" as its head. There's pre-modification and post-modification.

The pre-modifier consists of a co-ordination of two adjectives: "high" and "yellow".

The post-modifier consists of a participial clause: "tossing light..."

Now, the participial clause itself:

tossing light on the stuccoed walls, the blue satin bed sheets, the illuminated flooring glistening in an oaky shade

The clause's subject is not expressed; it's implied. The clause takes the subject from the noun-phrase it modifies. (An alternative would have been a relative clause: "which tossed..."; then "which" would have taken the subject slot.)

The clause's verb, "tossing", is non-finite; i.e. it does not inflect for tense or person. (In a relative-clause it would be finite: "which tossed...", taking the past tense.)

"light" is the object of "tossing", and everything that comes after the object is an adverbial, expressed by a preposition-phrase with multiple co-ordinated objects:

on (a) the stuccoed walls, (b) the blue satin bed sheets, (c) the illuminated flooring glistening in an oaky shade

All three objects are again expressed by noun-phrases, the last of which again contains a post-modification in the form of a participial clause ("glistening in an oaky shade").

I'm not quite sure how to analyse the syntactic function of the entire noun-phrase. It's almost a displaced appositive (which should normally come right after the noun it describes further).

So: maestro's re-write, IMO, changes the entire structure. Instead of a single noun-phrase with lots of embedding, we have three clauses. In the original, the candles via their light control the entire excursion through the room. The re-write shifts the focus from the candle to the room. What we want depends on how we're going on. The original will have an easier time to return to the candles and the expense. The re-write will make it easier to skip to setting-induced action. The re-write is certainly easier to read, in that it requires a shorter attention span (as you don't need to keep the candles for syntactic reference in you mind). Personally, if I were going for the re-write, I'd probably not co-ordinate the three clauses with a final "and". Instead I'd replace the em-dash with a fullstop, and just make the three clauses three sentences of their own. (However, I strongly suspect that I'd prefer to keep the original - although it's context that matters.)

***

As for the "the landscape bathing in a soft pearly glow": this is intriguing. I think it's the equivalent to:

The dog approached me wagging its tail. --> The dog approached me, its tail wagging.

So a simpler construction might be:

the sky had flushed deep violet, bathing the landscape in a soft, pearly glow

But the original construction is really common enough, I think. I didn't notice anything odd about it.

blacbird · Nov 29, 2010

I didn't see any egregious grammatical problems, but my impression is that you're trying to cram too much into single sentences, especially that first example. Break it into two or three sentences, and you'll clear up some of the stuff that may be bothering you. I agree with Maestro on the number of -ing words. Plus the "just the ticket" is a lame and unnecessary cliché. My editorial take:

"She'd spared no expense to make him feel right at home. Big candles with high, yellow flames tossed light on the stuccoed walls and the blue satin bed sheets. The illuminated flooring glistened in an oaky shade."

Kenn · Nov 30, 2010

My problem with the first sentence is that I did not know what you are trying to say. Was it all thanks to the candles (i.e. ...tossing light on the stuccoed walls and blue satin bed sheets, and illuminating the floor...)? The dash suggests it is. I also have problems how something can 'glisten' in a 'shade'.

I am not sure what colour deep velvet is in the second sentence. I know it sounds good, but I am not sure it is a colour. I also can't see how it could bathe the landscape in a pearly glow (deep velvet sounds reddish or bluish to me). If you are referring to the lights on the buildings, then perhaps 'bathing' is not the right word - maybe shimmering is better. In which case I would suggest 'and the landscape was shimering'.

hollyfan · Dec 3, 2010

FennelGiraffe said:
One side thought, which may not be relevant: If this is 3rd limited, who's the POV char here, her or him? This kind of sounds like it's him, and I'm wondering if it's in character for him to notice the surroundings in quite these terms.

The POV character is "her". In the story, she's checking over the room as she knows this guy will be arriving shortly.

FennelGiraffe said:
The last part is confusing me. You might be trying for another list of three things with 'and' omitted. If so, you need to separate the clauses with semi-colons.

Could you tell me why I should use semi-colons here, and not necessarily with the first sentence about the stuccoed walls and candles? What's the difference in this respect?

And thank you so much for being so helpful! You are very kind.

hollyfan · Dec 3, 2010

maestrowork said:
She'd spared no expense to make him feel right at home, and big candles were just the ticket--high, yellow flames tossed light on the stuccoed walls, the blue satin sheets shimmered on the bed, and the illuminated floor glistened in an oaky shade.

That's really cool maestrowork! You are so kind for helping me, thank you! I would love your opinion however (and anyone elses), on what I have finally gone for (below).

"She'd spared no expense to make him feel right at home, and big candles were just the ticket--high, yellow flames tossing light on the stuccoed walls, the blue satin bed sheets, the illuminated floor glistening in an oaky shade." (Am I not breaking tense rules here, though?)

"Tonight, from 49 Ballard Point, her tenth‑floor apartment, she couldn’t view her hometown as anything but grand. It was a perfect night for lovers. The stars were coming out above Canary Wharf, the sky had flushed deep violet, and near the streetlamps where the oak trees wept on the houses, the landscape bathing/bathed in a soft pearly glow." (Should I go with bathing or bathed, do you think? If I used bathing, wouldn't I once again be switching tenses? I have been advised many times not to do this and it's confusing me now).

Thanks

hollyfan · Dec 3, 2010

Can I just just express my thaaks and gratitude to all those who have helped me. I am going to get back to you all very shortly, as I have more to add about your advice/comments.

Right now, though, my time in the library is almost up so I'll see you again soon! Thanks a million! You have all been so very helpful and I don't know what I would have done without you all!

Holly

FennelGiraffe · Dec 3, 2010

hollyfan said:
Could you tell me why I should use semi-colons here, and not necessarily with the first sentence about the stuccoed walls and candles? What's the difference in this respect?

I now believe I was reading the first sentence wrong. Dawnstorm's analysis was a huge "Oooohhhh, of course" for me.

Going back to the way I initially read it, though, the difference is that the second has a list of independent clauses* while the first has a list of things that aren't independent clauses. When you have things that aren't independent clauses, it's a bit unconventional to omit the 'and'**, but it isn't wrong and the list items can still be separated by commas.

With independent clauses, OTOH, if you omit the 'and'** without changing the commas to semicolons or periods, you get a comma splice, which is wrong.

*An independent clause can stand alone as a sentence. "The stars were coming out above Canary Wharf" is an independent clause, but "high, yellow flames tossing light on the stuccoed walls" isn't.

**Besides 'and', this includes all the coordinating conjunctions. The mnemonic is FANBOYS: for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so.

maestrowork · Dec 3, 2010

hollyfan said:
"She'd spared no expense to make him feel right at home, and big candles were just the ticket--high, yellow flames tossing light on the stuccoed walls, the blue satin bed sheets, the illuminated floor glistening in an oaky shade." (Am I not breaking tense rules here, though?)

You're not breaking tense here, but it's one long sentence and difficult to parse. I mean, are they:

- high, yellow flames which toss light on the stuccoed walls
- blue satin sheets
- illuminated floor which glistens in the oaky shade

or is it:

- high yellow flames that toss light on the stuccoed walls, on the satin sheets, and on the illuminated floor which glistens in the oaky shade

See, it's confusing.

"Tonight, from 49 Ballard Point, her tenth‑floor apartment, she couldn’t view her hometown as anything but grand. It was a perfect night for lovers. The stars were coming out above Canary Wharf, the sky had flushed deep violet, and near the street lamps where the oak trees wept on the houses, the landscape bathing/bathed in a soft pearly glow." (Should I go with bathing or bathed, do you think? If I used bathing, wouldn't I once again be switching tenses? I have been advised many times not to do this and it's confusing me now).

Thanks

Bathed.

Here's the analysis. What you have are three independent clauses, so you can't use a participial verb in the last one ("bathing in soft pearly glow"):

- the stars were coming out
- the sky had flushed deep violet
- the landscape bathed in a soft pearly glow

Now, it doesn't mean you can't do a participial clause at the end, which would make it a dependent clause. You will, however, change the structure, and thus you will need an "and" to make it clear:

- the stars were coming out,
- AND the sky had flushed deep violet, [in which] the landscape [was] bathing in a soft pearly glow (the [] words are to be omitted...)

blacbird · Dec 3, 2010

maestrowork said:
You're not breaking tense here, but it's one long sentence and difficult to parse.

Exactly. That's the key issue, really, as I mentioned earlier. Too much stuff is trying to be packed into a single sentence. There isn't anything sacrosanct about periods ("full stops" for the benighted Brits here at AW). It's not like you have to get as many words as possible between them. The example sentence is just too long and trying to do too much in one gulp. Take a breath. Break it into reader-swallowable bits.

hollyfan · Dec 13, 2010

Hey guys!

I just wanted to finish off this topic by saying this: I have learned more about writing and grammar from this topic than I have from any book. And I still have a lot to learn from this, thanks to all of you!

Sorry if I didn't get back to all of you. Without internet access from home and all that, I can never spend as much time here as I would like.

Once again, thank you all so very very much!

Holly

Fallen · Dec 16, 2010

Dawnstorm said:
I agree with maestro, here: they're participial verbs. But I also think Fennel Giraffe has a point, but the grammar's more complicated than simply calling "tossing" etc. adjectives. Here's how I read it:

high, yellow flames, tossing light on the stuccoed walls, the blue satin bed sheets, the illuminated flooring glistening in an oaky shade

This is a noun phrase with "flames" as its head. There's pre-modification and post-modification.

The pre-modifier consists of a co-ordination of two adjectives: "high" and "yellow".

The post-modifier consists of a participial clause: "tossing light..."

Now, the participial clause itself:

tossing light on the stuccoed walls, the blue satin bed sheets, the illuminated flooring glistening in an oaky shade

The clause's subject is not expressed; it's implied. The clause takes the subject from the noun-phrase it modifies. (An alternative would have been a relative clause: "which tossed..."; then "which" would have taken the subject slot.)

The clause's verb, "tossing", is non-finite; i.e. it does not inflect for tense or person. (In a relative-clause it would be finite: "which tossed...", taking the past tense.)

"light" is the object of "tossing", and everything that comes after the object is an adverbial, expressed by a preposition-phrase with multiple co-ordinated objects:

on (a) the stuccoed walls, (b) the blue satin bed sheets, (c) the illuminated flooring glistening in an oaky shade

All three objects are again expressed by noun-phrases, the last of which again contains a post-modification in the form of a participial clause ("glistening in an oaky shade").

I'm not quite sure how to analyse the syntactic function of the entire noun-phrase. It's almost a displaced appositive (which should normally come right after the noun it describes further).

So: maestro's re-write, IMO, changes the entire structure. Instead of a single noun-phrase with lots of embedding, we have three clauses. In the original, the candles via their light control the entire excursion through the room. The re-write shifts the focus from the candle to the room. What we want depends on how we're going on. The original will have an easier time to return to the candles and the expense. The re-write will make it easier to skip to setting-induced action. The re-write is certainly easier to read, in that it requires a shorter attention span (as you don't need to keep the candles for syntactic reference in you mind). Personally, if I were going for the re-write, I'd probably not co-ordinate the three clauses with a final "and". Instead I'd replace the em-dash with a fullstop, and just make the three clauses three sentences of their own. (However, I strongly suspect that I'd prefer to keep the original - although it's context that matters.)

***

As for the "the landscape bathing in a soft pearly glow": this is intriguing. I think it's the equivalent to:

The dog approached me wagging its tail. --> The dog approached me, its tail wagging.

So a simpler construction might be:

the sky had flushed deep violet, bathing the landscape in a soft, pearly glow

But the original construction is really common enough, I think. I didn't notice anything odd about it.

You neever cease to amaze me, honey.

Damn good post.

Tense question, please help!

hollyfan

maestrowork

Fear the Death Ray

rainsmom

Feeling like an old timer

FennelGiraffe

It's green they say

maestrowork

Fear the Death Ray

FennelGiraffe

It's green they say

Dawnstorm

punny user title, here

blacbird

Kenn

New kid, be gentle!

hollyfan

hollyfan

hollyfan

FennelGiraffe

It's green they say

maestrowork

Fear the Death Ray

blacbird

hollyfan

Fallen

Stood at the coalface