Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Brian writes about writing in the present tense

This month I am writing about some of the less commonly utilized narrative mode. This week; my least favorite method: Present Tense. I am trying to remember one book I once read that was written entirely in this tense. Basically, the writer plans his narrative, then writes the characters as though they were currently acting them. One tends to get odd, unnatural feeling sentences like "John plans the surprise party," or '"Hey, stop that!" Jane cries.' This is a rarely used tactic, as it doesn't offer as much flexibility in story telling.

**Editor's Note: An adendum to this post has been written into next weeks post.

2 comments:

  1. Perhaps writers don't usually write in present tense because even though "John plans the surprise party" the future events that take place in the book render present tense useless since it happened in the "past" of the story.

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  2. I agree with Elena, the tenses would just cancel each other out. It would be interesting if someone managed to write a book in entirely present tense. I guess it'd read more like a "live-action" story.

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