Tense.....

[LaRascasse]

When you are writing a story with a non-linear narrative, which tense is best to use? This piece goes back in time to see the events leading up to the present, jumps ahead to explore the consequences of a yet unseen action.

Think of it as an erotic Prince of Persia where time is turned back, skipped over and all other possible kinds of messed up.

If my protagonist goes back in time, should be in Past Tense, since he is technically seeing something that has already happened?

If my story goes back in time to his childhood, (note the story goes back, not him), should the tense change?

Ditto for the future. Should the tense change to future if he goes to the future? Should it change if the story goes to the future (flashforward)?

Any advice from all ye olde wizened gnarled heads yonder?

 

[Tio_Narratore]

The tense(s) you use should dependon the mood you wish to convey. If you are relating something in the past (or the future), it would be appropriate to use the appropriate tense, past for the past, future for the future. If, on the other hand, you are narrating the past or future as it is happening, then the present tense would be appropriate, but you should (depending on you intent) give a context that clearly indicates the time of the activity.

You might want to read (if you haven't already) Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five, where the protagonist, Billy Pilgrim, is "unstuck in time," and bounces around in past. present, and future.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Damon Runyon wrote everything in present tense, including things that
happened in the past and will be happening in the future.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

When you are writing a story with a non-linear narrative, which tense is best to use? This piece goes back in time to see the events leading up to the present, jumps ahead to explore the consequences of a yet unseen action.

Think of it as an erotic Prince of Persia where time is turned back, skipped over and all other possible kinds of messed up.

I never saw Prince of Persia, so I don't know how that worked. In any case, everything in a film happens in present tense, whether it's in the past, present, or future. All scripts are written in present tense. It's different in writing.

Verb tense does a lot more than just set relative story-time. It strongly affects mood and atmosphere as well, and even the very context of the story. A narrator telling a story in past tense is certainly not going to die at the end. If it's in present tense, he might.

If my protagonist goes back in time, should be in Past Tense, since he is technically seeing something that has already happened?

If my story goes back in time to his childhood, (note the story goes back, not him), should the tense change?

You can write memories in present tense, because all memories are in present tense, even for things that happened in the past. It can be very effective for flashbacks, conveying the idea of immediacy and your protagonists emotional involvement in the events described.

If you're just dealing with backstory information, though, or with a bunch of characters in the past, then you probably don't need that. Conventional fiction uses past tense for current action, as well as for past events. Story-time is marked with conventional markers; "When he was five years old..." "He thought back to his wedding day..."

Ditto for the future. Should the tense change to future if he goes to the future? Should it change if the story goes to the future (flashforward)?

Any advice from all ye olde wizened gnarled heads yonder?

Believe me, you don't want to work in future or future perfect tense. e.g. "He will open the door, and Eunice will be naked, fucking Fred on the bathroom floor..." Or even worse, "He will have opened the door, and Eunice will have been naked, fucking Fred on the bathroom floor..." This kind of thing puts the reader far beyond the action.

Here you see the non-temporal implications of tense. Other languages might have several types of future tense that make distinctions between how certain that future might be. "He might open the door, and Eunice might be naked..." or "It's likely he'll open the door and Eunice will likely be dead" gives a taste of this kind of thing, but has to use different words. Hopi (I think it's Hopi) uses different verb endings to indicate how the information was obtained. Different verb forms which say, "I myself witnessed," or "It's common knowledge" or "I feel it to be true," or "I heard" or "I imagine."

In Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five, we're introduced to an alien race called Tralfamadorians who can perceive in 4 dimensions at once. They can see time, and can see everything that's ever happened or going to happen on a given spot, or focus in on a given time like we can focus on a distance. His hero is therefore seen from all these different points of time throughout the book. As I recall, Vonnegut uses past tense for all these visions, and uses external cues to tell us where we are in time. Vonnegut also mentions that the Tralfamodorians have something like 28 verb tenses, and those are just the simple ones.

In the end, it's your story and your imagination, so do what you feel works. Fascinating topic, though.

 

[sr71plt]

I agree that no matter how you structure it, you should try to avoid the future tenses. They get convoluted and tiring for the reader (not to mention the writer trying to stay in tense).