TENSES MAKE ME TENSE!

Tenses make me tense too. I'll start writing in one tense and then drift to another. Eventually I just gave up and started writing my whole novel in third person present tense. Personally, it's a lot easier for me to write. When I need to recall events that happened earlier then I use third person past tense and transition back to present.
However, I noticed that fiction is rarely in present tense, and it's kinda funny reading it that way. Maybe I should go back to writing in past tense all together.

I couldn't make up my mind about what tense to use until about 1000 words into the story. I went back and changed all the verbs into past tense, but I keep slipping into present tense.

Yeah, I cange within paragraphs. It might say, "Lydia walks in jauntily. 'Good evening,' she said."

Thrid person present? So it would be like: "Good evening," she says. I love that kind of format, but I ALWAYS slip into past tense.

Ha, I've changed mine AT LEAST three times :)

JULIA

This may not be too helpful, but when I have a problem with staying in the same tense, I pick one of my favorite books off my bookshelf that is in the tense I want to use and I read through a couple of pages to help me get it right in my head.

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I've been switching back and forth between first person present and first person past every few pages, to differentiate between narrators... I thought it was a good idea at the time, but it's rather disorienting each time I switch! It's effective, though.

Oh, tenses...

I don't really know what to do with them. Right now, I'm writing mostly in first person present, but I'll have to switch out to third person eventually. I don't know if the third person portions should be present or past, and I'm sure I'll slip up and do both.

Actually, I've been having more trouble with tenses as I read more novels in Chinese. Since Chinese doesn't have tenses like English does, it all seems to be written in present tense until there's a past marker put in there.

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Hi, Julia. What you're actually describing is narrative mode, not just tense. (The tense is the past, present, or future part of the narrative mode.)

If you want to get words out as fast as possible, and if you don't know which narrative mode you want to use, don't worry about it. You can always fix it later.

When you do fix it, think about the strengths of each narrative mode and how they would affect the telling of your story, then pick the one that you like the best. The Wikipedia page has some good information on it. (Not that I'm any fan of Wikipedia, but in this case, it actually does have some good info.)

Most novels are written in third-person past, and frequently with an omniscient narrator. I've never read a novel written in third-person present, but I've read short stories written therein.

Julie Carobini writes in first-person present for the main storyline, and in past tense for flashback scenes. I mention her, because she's shown that using present tense can work. Here, the present tense places the ongoing action in the forefront, and the past tense puts flashbacks where they belong.

I'm doing something similar in my novel: Third-person omniscient (past tense) for the main storyline, switching back and forth between my viewpoint characters (as Nora Roberts and Danielle Steele do). But this storyline is interspersed with memoir scenes, as it were, where one of my viewpoint characters writes about his own past, in the first person.

In short, narrative mode is simply another creative choice you make, which affects how you tell your story. So it doesn't matter so much which narrative mode you use, only whether it does for your story what you want it to.

Keep writing!
-TimK

www.JTimothyKing.com

You know...this is really really useful! It gives a good model.

Also, TimK had a lot of cool stuff on this and some excellent links in case anyone else would like to check it out!

JULIA

I have problems with tenses. I tend to bounce back and forth between past and present tense! I have to go back and change it all to past, as that's the main tense I do write in.

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I'm doing something... sort of weird. I always used to have tense problems- it's one of the things that angers me the most about my last nano- but I'm doing something different this year.

The majority of my novel is written in first person past tense. However, the flashbacks are, oddly enough, written in third-person present. This is because my MC actually has flashbacks of lives that are not his own, so the person is both distanced from him personally, and since he's experiencing it for the first time... present tense? IDK, I just wanted a way to separate the two so it's very obvious what is a flashback and what is not.

Also, my flashbacks tend to be very stream-of-conscious-y, which I honestly have an easier time writing in present tense.

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When I notice that I've been going back and forth between past and present, I usually find it easier to make it all past tense as well. Sometimes present tense gets a little confusing and winds up being oddly worded and you have to rearrange sentences.

JULIA

Does anyone have a great online resource- a blog entry, an author tip, etc. that very specifically helps one master writing in active tense instead of passive tense?

I constantly fail to master this, and still do not fully grasp the concept when I get into the flow of writing, because my mind gets stuck on "eds" like "walked", and I want to change it to "walking" when it sounds worse and in the end isn't even dealing with active tense. >_<

I'm not going to pay attention during NaNo, but I need a mini-course in active/passive so I can master that- it's the only true weak point in my writing, and I want to tackle that in December.

Anyone know of a great online source along these lines?

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What I do is let go and allow the tense to change and pretend I'm doing it on purpose because its my style :)

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I'm not sure exactly what your problem is, but those aren't tenses. :-/ Can you give us a more specific example?

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