Present Tense and Writing Style
- Ariely 20
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Re: Present Tense and Writing Style
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I definitely agree that switching to the past for situations like this would be preferable to me, both as a reader and a writer. The present tense can be great for an author to highlight the action of the moment, but I’m sure it felt tedious to the author when trying to speed up the pace of the novel/skip over time because the present tense is really only meant to describe right now. This could be used well as a figurative device to illustrate how drawn out a certain moment can seem, by having lengthier passages about the intense, seemingly longer/“slow motion” moments and using more brevity on the surface events, but that only works to some extent. I think in this case it would be more appropriate to mix the tenses *gasp* because it would sound better to switch to the past for awhile and maintain a more natural tone than to struggle to keep it in present and end up with an awkward passage like this.Odette Chace wrote: ↑15 Mar 2020, 14:57 For the most part, I didn't mind the present tense until there were time periods the author skipped over and then tried to summarize what happened in the interim and the present tense did not work in that part at all. It made the summary read like an outline for chapters the author wanted to write but never got around to. A good example of this is the beginning of chapter 7. "Time's escaping her far too swiftly. She's spent every waking moment with Adam during school, and every weekend. He's even joined in her morning jogs. Their bond grew more quickly..."
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SameLinaMueller wrote: ↑10 Mar 2020, 13:01 It depend on the book and the author. I'm not narrow minded in this respect.
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