How do you feel about the present tense in the book?
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Re: How do you feel about the present tense in the book?
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This is how I felt, too. It was almost more engaging than past tense would have been, as I felt like if I stopped reading it would actually stop the story from progressing - like everyone would be stuck, mid-cast, in the middle of the pages where I'd left off.
- Lenny1886
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I agree. Although it's the trend, few authors write well in present tense. Sometimes, it just doesn't make sense. I always get confused when they use present tense for things that happened in the past, like flashbacks. If it's in the past, why not use past tense? And some authors go back and forth so much in time, that it makes my head spin because I don't know what's happening now and what happened before, because they are using present tense for everything. I actually dislike present tense so much that I wrote a blog post about it a few years ago on my old website.Hheaton wrote: ↑22 Feb 2018, 13:26 I feel like present tense narration is the new trend in writing. I am reading more and more books written in that tense...
...and it drives me nuts. Perhaps I am a traditionalist who likes the comfort of past tense, but I can't help it. I think the present tense does give it this sense of "in the now" and urgency. However, I find that I keep looking for the author to slip up and lose their consistency. Maybe that's the English teacher in me. And when I am too busy trying to look for the verb tense mistake, I lose the storyline - the ultimate crime in reading.
So if I had to decide how I felt about it, I would have to say that I would discourage writers from using it unless they do so PERFECTLY. Otherwise, it sounds like a mess to me.
- jamertin2963
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