Struggles with keeping tense consistent

[SimonDoom]

Ah ha - I went back and took and look and you're right - I'll have to go back again and read up on 2nd person.

The best example I know of second person fiction is Jay McInerney's novel Bright Lights Big City. If you read a few pages of it, you'll quickly get an idea of what real second person is. It's weird.

AlinaX has written a Literotica story in second person that I thought was surprisingly successful, but I've forgotten which one of her stories it was. You might ask her if you want to see how it works.

 

[XerXesXu]

For second person everything perceived/observed has to come from the mind of the "you,"

No, it doesn't. That's the whole point, it can come from 'you' or 'he/she/they', via an omniscient narrator.

 

[AWhoopsieDaisy]

I looked at the 9th edition of the MLA, and it references tense when citing works in scholarly papers. It doesn't address tense when writing fiction as far as I could see.

This is from the MLA website:


So you seem to be correct that the MLA suggests present tense, it has no bearing on fiction or creative writing as it doesn't address those forms.

Yeah, kids don't write fiction in school (anymore? Idk dude, it sure as hell wasn't in my curriculum.) hence my point about people in my generation having more experience actually writing in present tense and thus likely present tense would be what we slip into out of habit. I don't see what part of this you people aren't getting.

 

[SimonDoom]

No, it doesn't. That's the whole point, it can come from 'you' or 'he/she/they', via an omniscient narrator.

No. If the POV is from he/she/they it's third-person POV.

1st person POV: I knocked on the door. I wondered who was inside the house. Aunt Millie opened the door and greeted me.

2d person POV: You knocked on the door. You wondered who was inside the house. Aunt Millie opened the door and greeted you.

3d person POV: He knocked on the door. He wondered who was inside the house. Aunt Millie opened the door and greeted him.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Bullshit. Anyone who wants to be respectfully published cares about standards and relevant guides.

Bullshit on your bullshit. You haven't read Bukowski.

 

[AWhoopsieDaisy]

I think they're going for an I/you dynamic perspective. I don't know if it has a name but I know I've seen it in poetry at least once. Two perspectives at the same time is usually a nono but poetry doesn't have rules.

A sample in this perspective would look like:

I take your hand. You blush for me, always enamored by every little thing. You're as excited to see me as I am to see you.

 

[TheRedChamber]

Yeah, kids don't write fiction in school (anymore? Idk dude, it sure as hell wasn't in my curriculum.) hence my point about people in my generation having more experience actually writing in present tense and thus likely present tense would be what we slip into out of habit. I don't see what part of this you people aren't getting.

That's very sad. Did you really not write any stories (including real stuff that happened to you) in school? I think we're struggling with the idea because it's akin to your maths teachers just not bothering with subtraction.

Literature class should be a jumping off board for the students own creativity - "write a scene featuring Romeo/Juliet's parents learning of their child's death"

 

[AWhoopsieDaisy]

TILT. The MLA isn't the standard for (or relevant to) fiction. It's for nonfiction literary criticism and studies.

Again the standard for all essays in school. I never got a chance to write fiction for a grade until college.

 

[KeithD]

Yeah, kids don't write fiction in school (anymore? Idk dude, it sure as hell wasn't in my curriculum.) hence my point about people in my generation having more experience actually writing in present tense and thus likely present tense would be what we slip into out of habit. I don't see what part of this you people aren't getting.

What I'm not getting is any relevance to writing to post to Literotica you are offering here. The MLA isn't used in any school except for graduate school linguistic programs. I just have no idea what relevance to what we do here you are addressing.

 

[KeithD]

Bullshit on your bullshit. You haven't read Bukowski.

No, I haven't read whoever Bukowski is. Don't really care what off-the-wall nonsense you want to pretend you're doing in writing, but it's a disservice to suggest anyone else believe this crap. A connection of understanding is impossible between writer and reader without the two sharing some standards on writing. And these standards are provided by guides.

 

[SimonDoom]

Yeah, kids don't write fiction in school (anymore? Idk dude, it sure as hell wasn't in my curriculum.) hence my point about people in my generation having more experience actually writing in present tense and thus likely present tense would be what we slip into out of habit. I don't see what part of this you people aren't getting.

I don't things are that different from when I was in school. The MLA existed back then, decades ago. It's a guide for writing essays, not fiction. I didn't write much fiction in middle or high school, either. But I READ a lot of fiction in school, and I read about ten times more fiction outside school than in. The use of past tense as the standard for fiction was crystal clear then, and I think it would be crystal clear to any high school student who was an avid reader of fiction today. It has nothing at all to do with the MLA or what tense you are told to use when writing essays for classes. Fiction is something totally different. That's as true now as it was then.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

No, I haven't read whoever Bukowski is. Don't really care what off-the-wall nonsense you want to pretend you're doing in writing, but it's a disservice to suggest anyone else believe this crap. A connection of understanding is impossible between writer and reader without the two sharing some standards on writing. And these standards are provided by guides.

All I have for this is one galactic-sized eye roll of dismissal. That is all that it deserves. You may now leave the classroom as the course is above your IQ.

 

[KeithD]

All I have for this is one galactic-sized eye roll of dismissal. That is all that it deserves. You may now leave the classroom as the course is above your IQ.

I do agree we aren't on the same planet as writers (or of knowledge about writing and publishing).

https://www.literotica.com/stories/memberpage.php?uid=4127625&page=submissions

 

[ElectricBlue]

Literature class should be a jumping off board for the students own creativity - "write a scene featuring Romeo/Juliet's parents learning of their child's death"

I suspect it depends what country you're in. Here in Oz my kids studied Shakespeare, performed in drama such as Pinter's Rhinoceros, The Crucible - what we would regard as mainstream literary classics.

If what Daisy says is true about her high school curriculum, that is truly tragic - teenagers not writing fiction? I can't conceive of an education system that would do that - it sounds barbaric.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

I do agree we aren't on the same planet as writers (or of knowledge about writing and publishing).

https://www.literotica.com/stories/memberpage.php?uid=4127625&page=submissions

No we aren't. I'm on Earth. You're on Snootius Maximus. You can stay there for all that I care.

 

[AWhoopsieDaisy]

That's very sad. Did you really not write any stories (including real stuff that happened to you) in school? I think we're struggling with the idea because it's akin to your maths teachers just not bothering with subtraction.

Literature class should be a jumping off board for the students own creativity - "write a scene featuring Romeo/Juliet's parents learning of their child's death"

It's all research essays, argumentative, scientific descriptions and book reports. It's public school so what gets taught largely comes down to what gets kid's scoring better on state standardized tests and what requirements allow them to claim "college prep" status.

I put college prep in quotes because private colleges like the one I go to can opt to use a different style guide. My college for instance uses Chicago style.



English, Writing and Literature aren't classes anymore. They've been replaced by a class called Language Arts (ELA for short) which focuses on reading comprehension, grammar and essays. It's also inexplicably the class with the holocaust unit. You'd think that unit and curriculum would go to History or Geography and you'd be wrong.

As far as public school is concerned the only class that needs to encourage creativity at all is Art. Even the music classes are only there to teach kids how to play an instrument, not write or create original music.

The only fiction I was ever tasked to write was for a middle school Drama class where we were tasked with coming up with an original playscript. We were graded on whether or not we adhered to the script formatting guidelines, not grammar tense or entertainment value.

 

[AWhoopsieDaisy]

I can't conceive of an education system that would do that - it sounds barbaric

Welcome to the American Public Education system. I was born in 2003 and my parents always had me enrolled in whatever the best school district in the state was. Unfortunately that means a lot of school curriculums are actually WORSE than I've described.

 

[XerXesXu]

No. If the POV is from he/she/they it's third-person POV.

1st person POV: I knocked on the door. I wondered who was inside the house. Aunt Millie opened the door and greeted me.

2d person POV: You knocked on the door. You wondered who was inside the house. Aunt Millie opened the door and greeted you.

3d person POV: He knocked on the door. He wondered who was inside the house. Aunt Millie opened the door and greeted him.

These things are the choice of the narrator, POV, and close or omniscient narrator.
This is a writers' board. Let's write something. An adaption of the story RC referred: excerpted for academic and educational purposes only:-
Swap 'She etc' for 'I etc.

'Lying there, you feel the cool breeze from the open window gently tickle your exposed skin, bringing goosebumps all across your body. You shiver and try to fidget, but the ropes at your wrists and ankles keep you right where you are, on your back, bound to your bed. You are naked, except for the blindfold over your eyes and, of course, the metal chastity cage locked tight around your manhood, a friend of yours you have been using for quite some time now.

You feel the bed shift beneath you as she crawls onto it, and without warning feel her lips lock around yours in a loving, passionate kiss as her fingertips run delicately along your chest and down your stomach.

"All tied up and waiting for me, hm?" she whispers once your soft lips part. "I could just let you stew here all day, you know?"

You merely nod in reply, biting your lip. She knows you want to speak, but in so much anticipation you have lost your words.

"Don't worry, baby." She continues as you feel movement around you. She swings a leg over your head so her foot rests on either side of your face and she is facing the rest of your body. "I don't need you to speak tonight. After all," she pauses, and meanwhile lowers herself down, letting her large, round cheeks envelop your face as you disappear beneath them. "You might not get many chances to talk tonight."

As she settles herself on top of you she lets out a contented sigh as she feels you trying, and failing, to breathe under her bottom. She used to be so sensitive about her weight, always having been a larger girl, but she does not mind it any more. In finding her dominant side several years ago she also found her self confidence, not to mention her ability to use your body to best effect in the bedroom. Besides, she never heard you complaining.....Not that you could right now.

She is broken from her thoughts by sounds of groaning and your fidgeting beneath her. She grins slightly, but you have done this enough times that she knows you always try to get out early. She’s not about to go so easy on you this time. Only when groans turn to muffled yells and fidgets turn to thrashes does she lift himself up onto her knees and hear you gasp like a drowning man finally breaking the water's surface.

"Is someone having trouble already?" She asks in her most innocent voice. Your reply is merely a moan, but looking from the way your manhood is pressing tightly against the walls of its cage, she can tell you are not having the worst time. Besides, you have practised plenty of times with safewords and gestures.'

Do you say that's 2nd Person or 3rd Person?

 

[KeithD]

These things are the choice of the narrator, POV, and close or omniscient narrator.
This is a writers' board. Let's write something. An adaption of the story RC referred: excerpted for academic and educational purposes only:-
Swap 'She etc' for 'I etc.

'Lying there, you feel the cool breeze from the open window gently tickle your exposed skin, bringing goosebumps all across your body. You shiver and try to fidget, but the ropes at your wrists and ankles keep you right where you are, on your back, bound to your bed. You are naked, except for the blindfold over your eyes and, of course, the metal chastity cage locked tight around your manhood, a friend of yours you have been using for quite some time now.

You feel the bed shift beneath you as she crawls onto it, and without warning feel her lips lock around yours in a loving, passionate kiss as her fingertips run delicately along your chest and down your stomach.

"All tied up and waiting for me, hm?" she whispers once your soft lips part. "I could just let you stew here all day, you know?"

You merely nod in reply, biting your lip. She knows you want to speak, , , , .

You went out of second person at this point. Up until then it was all second. You moved into third person omniscient at this point. I didn't read further, so I don't know if you changed tenses again after this.

 

[XerXesXu]

You went out of second person at this point. Up until then it was all second. You moved into third person omniscient at this point. I didn't read further, so I don't know if you changed tenses again after this.

Try again - not at that point.

 

[KeithD]

Try again - not at that point.

What I bolded fell out of second into third omniscient. Either you get it or you don't.

 

[XerXesXu]

What I bolded fell out of second into third. Either you get it or you don't.

I get it, I didn't. Your long-time partner was actually lying on top of you. Wait until you get to what the person in the next room was doing, then we can have a conversation.

 

[KeithD]

I get it, I didn't. Your long-time partner was actually lying on top of you. Wait until you get to what the person in the next room was doing, then we can have a conversation.

Go fish. Not interested in your games. You asked about tenses and I identified where you slipped out of second into third omniscient. Not interested in any more of your nonsense.

It seems to be crazies night on this thread.

 

[XerXesXu]

Go fish. Not interested in your games. You asked about tenses and I identified where you slipped out of second into third omniscient. Not interested in any more of your nonsense.

It seems to be crazies night on this thread.

Are you sure I asked about tense? Or, are you confused about tense also?

 

[ElectricBlue]

Do you say that's 2nd Person or 3rd Person?

As I read it, it started out second, with an absolute focus on "you", then lapsed into third person in the third last paragraph - there is a narration of some thoughts that are unique to the other woman - at that point, you've lost the second person narrative.