Tense

[CarlosAguanna]

Please, writers, please! If you start your story in the past tense, Example: Johnny pulled out his enormously bloated schlonger... Don't get so excited that you switch to being a movie director by switching to present tense, Example: He starts to stroke his enormously bloated schlonger to even greater monstrosity and cleaves poor Agie in half as he stuffs it into her sopping wet love hole.

By switching tense, you, as a writer, lose all pretense of telling a story. The whole story had to have happened in the past or you could not be telling it.

OR -- If you want to be calling the shots as you experience them in your mind, start the story in the present tense and stay there.

OR -- if you are telling your beloved what you WILL be doing to their body when they get home from work, start the story in the future tense and stay there.

Tense is very important in writing. If you want to be a writer, be one. Follow the rules.

Personally, when I read a story that starts in the past tense and suddenly switches to the present tense, I stop reading and go to another story. Sadly enough, I have not finished too many stories on Literotica lately because more and more of you are doing this. When the action gets hot, you switch tenses, and I'm gone. In short, it just doesn't read true. Example: They all went to the Swingers' Camp in a bus. He does this, she does that. Bad move switching tense.

 

[elfin_odalisque]

Please, writers, please! If you start your story in the past tense, Example: Johnny pulled out his enormously bloated schlonger... Don't get so excited that you switch to being a movie director by switching to present tense, Example: He starts to stroke his enormously bloated schlonger to even greater monstrosity and cleaves poor Agie in half as he stuffs it into her sopping wet love hole.

By switching tense, you, as a writer, lose all pretense of telling a story. The whole story had to have happened in the past or you could not be telling it.

OR -- If you want to be calling the shots as you experience them in your mind, start the story in the present tense and stay there.

OR -- if you are telling your beloved what you WILL be doing to their body when they get home from work, start the story in the future tense and stay there.

Tense is very important in writing. If you want to be a writer, be one. Follow the rules.

Personally, when I read a story that starts in the past tense and suddenly switches to the present tense, I stop reading and go to another story. Sadly enough, I have not finished too many stories on Literotica lately because more and more of you are doing this. When the action gets hot, you switch tenses, and I'm gone. In short, it just doesn't read true. Example: They all went to the Swingers' Camp in a bus. He does this, she does that. Bad move switching tense.

Hi Carlos and welcome. You sound like you will be a great addition - perhaps that's cos I agree with you.

I'd go further than you. I think all stories should be in the past tense unless there's an overarching reason for using present tense. By their very nature, stories are complete and over - they have an end - so they must be in the past.

Present tense is a real challenge as you can't skip bits easily. "I am watching you. Now a week has passed and I am still watching you." Doesn't float my boat and I don't like the present progressive tense.

As for switching between past and present - never. It just destroys a story.

 

[Saucy_Sage]

Hi Carlos and welcome. You sound like you will be a great addition - perhaps that's cos I agree with you.

I'd go further than you. I think all stories should be in the past tense unless there's an overarching reason for using present tense. By their very nature, stories are complete and over - they have an end - so they must be in the past.

Present tense is a real challenge as you can't skip bits easily. "I am watching you. Now a week has passed and I am still watching you." Doesn't float my boat and I don't like the present progressive tense.

As for switching between past and present - never. It just destroys a story.

In the hands of a talented writer, the present tense can be very effective. Unfortunately, I'm way too new here to have found that many talented writers. I imagine they're fairly scarce. But a sentence like, "I return to my hiding place a week later, and watch her again," can convey a sense of immediacy (It's actually the "you" in elfin's example that I don't like - I have a bias against second person pov). As for in the same story, I agree when it's only being told by one narrator. I do think it can work, though, in different chapters or even different scenes, so long as the reader is made aware of the shift in narrators. Again, though, you do need a good writer. Sigh.

 

[fieryjen]

I've found that present tense can work very well in short stories. It's difficult to pull off in longer works and usually bothers me there. I've written a few short stories in present tense - when I started writing I wanted to convey a sense of immediacy. Present tense worked for me there and I like to think I pulled it off pretty well.

 

[sr71plt]

There are no "rules." The boundaries are continually--and successfully--challenged by clever writers. Early in your development, it's probably best to stick with the simpler approaches, though. But experienced writers can write in any tense--and there are effective ways of switching tenses (with clear markings that's happening) within a story too.

That you should only write in the past tense continues to be absolute nonsense. Sounds like saying "If the missionary position was good enough for God, that's what we should stick to."

What a dull thing writing would be if we all wrote between these lines--which, of course, the successful writers don't.

 

[sr71plt]

Dull and anal-retentive writing advice leads to dull, run-of-the-mill stories. Suggest those looking for writing advice read up on those giving the advice to help them determine for themselves where success lies in their own writing.

 

[CWatson]

There are no "rules." The boundaries are continually--and successfully--challenged by clever writers.

Agreed, but I think the Original Poster was admonishing the non-clever writers: the ones who aren't yet in control of their craft, and who lapse into mistakes without realizing it. It's one thing to do something because you're brilliant, and another because you're stupid. And, unfortunately, almost any experienced reader can tell the difference.

Before you can challenge the rules, you have to know what they are. And that's why beginning writers are always--always--told to stay inside the rules at first. It's not just knowing how to be a good writer--if anything, a "brilliant" or "genius" writer is one who knows exactly when, where and how to be bad. And it's that bit of mistake, that bit of outside-the-rules, that proves the point.

 

[sr71plt]

Agreed, but I think the Original Poster was admonishing the non-clever writers: the ones who aren't yet in control of their craft, and who lapse into mistakes without realizing it. It's one thing to do something because you're brilliant, and another because you're stupid. And, unfortunately, almost any experienced reader can tell the difference.

Before you can challenge the rules, you have to know what they are. And that's why beginning writers are always--always--told to stay inside the rules at first. It's not just knowing how to be a good writer--if anything, a "brilliant" or "genius" writer is one who knows exactly when, where and how to be bad. And it's that bit of mistake, that bit of outside-the-rules, that proves the point.

Didn't I say there were no "rules"? Only "tends to work better for this or that at this or that point" guidance--and then only applicable at various levels of development--and even then the points in the "guidance" float around with the ever evolving interests of the readers and other writers.

Your point is taken. But a writer will remain a nonclever writer as long as she/he doesn't experiment and test out writing risks. Very few writers are ever fully in control of their craft--and even then ten minutes later it wafts away from them. Current wisdom on "good writing" is not a static affair. Good writers play with the boundaries; they don't accept "rules" as somehow axiomatic--and even new writers can intellectually look beyond the basics as they are steeling themselves in the basics.

Much of the advice I see given on this thread (and other threads like it) invites the nonclever writer (or at least one who takes all advice as equally valid) to stay in a ho-hum rut. I see little, at least until the discussion was pushed, of "well, no, you don't just stay here, always writing third person, past tense." At some point you move on and experiment and vary your writing. And there are no "rules" against doing so--only Pultizer Prizes for doing it well.

Again, I think the sound advice is for "seekers" here to read what's here on this Web site and learn through their own intellectual processes what works for them and what doesn't and what sort of writing they want to do. And, by all means, check out what you can on the background of those giving advice to you. A good many of those giving advice here only know enough to be dangerous to everyone else as well as themselves.

 

[DeeZire]

I would suggest reading some good, published authors, just to keep the bar high. I really like Stacy Richter. She has two short story collections out, one on Scribner, one on a no-name brand. A lot of her work is in present tense, but it's very effective. She doen't get particularly erotic, but she does entertain, in a heartfelt but hip way.

One of her stories from 'My Date With Satan' is about a dog who becomes a celebrity in the world of multi-media art, doing sculptures in the dirt of her yard. People magazine comes over to interview the dog (which doesn't talk, of course.) The dog does TV appearances. It's hilarious. Stacy has a way of doing subtle satire, skewering the sacred cows of our culture without the reader realizing it till the story if over. This, so me, is great writing.

Coming from Stacy Richter to LIT can be a bit of a let down, especially if one looks for great writing in the top lists. It's out there, you just have to find it.

 

[elfin_odalisque]

Didn't I say there were no "rules"? Only "tends to work better for this or that at this or that point" guidance--and then only applicable at various levels of development--and even then the points in the "guidance" float around with the ever evolving interests of the readers and other writers.

Your point is taken. But a writer will remain a nonclever writer as long as she/he doesn't experiment and test out writing risks. Very few writers are ever fully in control of their craft--and even then ten minutes later it wafts away from them. Current wisdom on "good writing" is not a static affair. Good writers play with the boundaries; they don't accept "rules" as somehow axiomatic--and even new writers can intellectually look beyond the basics as they are steeling themselves in the basics.

Much of the advice I see given on this thread (and other threads like it) invites the nonclever writer (or at least one who takes all advice as equally valid) to stay in a ho-hum rut. I see little, at least until the discussion was pushed, of "well, no, you don't just stay here, always writing third person, past tense." At some point you move on and experiment and vary your writing. And there are no "rules" against doing so--only Pultizer Prizes for doing it well.

Again, I think the sound advice is for "seekers" here to read what's here on this Web site and learn through their own intellectual processes what works for them and what doesn't and what sort of writing they want to do. And, by all means, check out what you can on the background of those giving advice to you. A good many of those giving advice here only know enough to be dangerous to everyone else as well as themselves.

Sr, I’ve read your take on this many times and I still think you are wrong.
This thread is mainly populated by non-experienced fiction writers seeking a steer on how they can improve their stories. They are not necessarily ‘non-clever’ writers as CWatson defines them, but just not au fait with the “rules”, yes rules, of story writing.

The strictures of tense, dialogue and plot give a structure within which one can develop an individual style and voice. What you call ‘good writing’ is a personal taste and perhaps not linked to ‘good storytelling’. Sure, Proust, Kafka, Kerouac, Sartre and others have ‘stretched the envelope’ but we are talking of geniuses who appeal to a rarefied audience – they are not easily accessible.

You denigrate the advice people like I give, betraying a nuance of intellectual arrogance. You frequently comment here on writing without having read the story and totally fail to understand that the majority of writers here would settle for a pink square and the appreciation of readers.

It is easy to get anally retentive about the preterit tense or whether the present progressive is more demonstrative than the present – when is the imperfect preferable to the simple past or pluperfect.

Bullshit! Forget Pulitzer, Booker Man, Goncourt or even Nobel, we guys are gunning to be more NYT bestseller.

You do any beginner in the world of fiction a great disservice by your comments and implication that ‘anything goes’. Just read the PCs – this is a critical audience.

 

[Shwenn]

I have to agree that there are definitely rules to writing stories.

Have you seen the movie Adaptation? That has to be one of the most ingenious writers in hollywood and he wrote that movie about that struggle with the one, truly unbreakable rule of writing. There has to be conflict. You can not break that rule.

Because there aren't just rules, there are even unbreakable rules.

But he did figure out how to break the deus ex machina rule. That was the most impressive rule breaking I have ever seen.

 

[Saucy_Sage]

Whether you call them rules, or norms, or simply conventions, what has developed is expectations. Readers expect quotation marks to mean one thing, parentheses to mean another. At a macro level, readers expect stories to have a beginning, a middle, and an ending. Some authors don't care what readers expect, and some - the good ones - will attract readers in spite of that, or perhaps even because of it.

Most of us who write here, though, have not made a conscious choice to overturn those expectations. When we don't observe them, it's because we don't know them, or are simply too careless in writing and editing. I think that the original poster does us a service by reminding us that one of the expectations he has (and which most readers probably share) is that an author doesn't switch tenses in a way that interrupts the story's linear flow. He expects not to be confused. That's a good reminder.

As for advice that says, "always do it this way or that way," I agree that it's out of place. Advice that says, "most readers will have trouble with a story told in second person," that simply reflects the advice-giver's experience, and may well be valuable to a new author, such as myself, who hasn't had that much experience writing for an audience.

 

[sr71plt]

Sr, I’ve read your take on this many times and I still think you are wrong.
This thread is mainly populated by non-experienced fiction writers seeking a steer on how they can improve their stories. They are not necessarily ‘non-clever’ writers as CWatson defines them, but just not au fait with the “rules”, yes rules, of story writing.

The strictures of tense, dialogue and plot give a structure within which one can develop an individual style and voice. What you call ‘good writing’ is a personal taste and perhaps not linked to ‘good storytelling’. Sure, Proust, Kafka, Kerouac, Sartre and others have ‘stretched the envelope’ but we are talking of geniuses who appeal to a rarefied audience – they are not easily accessible.

You denigrate the advice people like I give, betraying a nuance of intellectual arrogance. You frequently comment here on writing without having read the story and totally fail to understand that the majority of writers here would settle for a pink square and the appreciation of readers.

It is easy to get anally retentive about the preterit tense or whether the present progressive is more demonstrative than the present – when is the imperfect preferable to the simple past or pluperfect.

Bullshit! Forget Pulitzer, Booker Man, Goncourt or even Nobel, we guys are gunning to be more NYT bestseller.

You do any beginner in the world of fiction a great disservice by your comments and implication that ‘anything goes’. Just read the PCs – this is a critical audience.

I think my point is that you, among others, sometimes steer them right to the rocks. This isn't a writing development site (take a look at the home page). It's a story sharing site. You set up rigid "rules" that don't exist and some of which are downright nonsense.

Granted some come here to ask for help. The sort of "help" you give them though, often is off course and anal retentive. I see little evidence in either what we can see of your writing here or in much of your advice that indicates you have any business giving writing advice.

I'll just repeat, anyone looking for truly helpful advice would be advised to check out the ones giving them advice--to the extent they can. Just posting on an Internet board doesn't level the knowledge playing field.

 

[sr71plt]

Whether you call them rules, or norms, or simply conventions, what has developed is expectations. Readers expect quotation marks to mean one thing, parentheses to mean another. At a macro level, readers expect stories to have a beginning, a middle, and an ending. Some authors don't care what readers expect, and some - the good ones - will attract readers in spite of that, or perhaps even because of it.

I agree with the first part of this--the need to follow certain conventions in presentation--grammar, punctuation, word usage, style, formatting (I do, afterall, make money from adjusting manuscripts to these conventions), but those are matters of presentation, not of writing.

It gets murkier when you get into saying what must be done or even is "expected" in such things as a story having to have a beginning, middle, and ending. A story doesn't have to follow any sort of "rule" or "expectation." Many successful stories start in the middle or the end. Omitting a beginning or ending, for that matter, is quite evident in professional story writing. Starting at the end has become almost a cliched writing convention--but one that often is delivered successfully nonetheless.

"Expecting" is something that starts into the anal retentive zone. I "expect" a story to have some element of problem definition and change/resolution (or a purposeful "not change" element). But a very popular story approach now is a "slice of life," not starting anywhere or showing any change/resolution whatsoever. I don't think these are good stories, but that's sort of "tough" for me. Others do, and it really isn't my place to say it's better to do something else if that's how the author wants to express him/herself.

Which leads us to the bottom line. Too much "do this" in approach to writing is being given on this forum by too many posters who exhibit/demonstrate scant qualifications to be giving any such advice at all. I lean toward the other side mostly to give balance to this.

 

[starrkers]

There are no "rules." The boundaries are continually--and successfully--challenged by clever writers. Early in your development, it's probably best to stick with the simpler approaches, though. But experienced writers can write in any tense--and there are effective ways of switching tenses (with clear markings that's happening) within a story too.

That you should only write in the past tense continues to be absolute nonsense. Sounds like saying "If the missionary position was good enough for God, that's what we should stick to."

What a dull thing writing would be if we all wrote between these lines--which, of course, the successful writers don't.

The Original Poster was not saying "don't write in present tense" or "only write in past tense".

If you read his post it says don't CHANGE TENSE within your story.

I think we can all agree on that as being a rule to follow.

 

[sr71plt]

The Original Poster was not saying "don't write in present tense" or "only write in past tense".

If you read his post it says don't CHANGE TENSE within your story.

I think we can all agree on that as being a rule to follow.

My first posting came later than the original poster and was based on how the discussion was going.

And, no I don't agree that you can never change tenses within a story (and said so up the line). Tense can be changed in a story successfully, and without all that much effort. And there are successful stories that do it. I don't remember ever seeing it done within a paragraph successfully, no. But in a story, yes. It's usually best to mark the change clearly, though. Where it's done most often, and most transparently, is in stories that, at the foundation, use present tense and have descriptions thrown in in the past tense (or vice versa). It's also done in flashback and time-travel techniques.

Yet another "blanket no don't do""rule" that (A) is violated successfully on occasion--certainly by professional writers getting this material published, and (B) illustrates why blanket "never" "rules" are not constructive.


I'm just waiting for that other clunker that comes up here often--that you should write only in the third person.

Followed by that other humdinger that stories here should be at least two Lit. pages long.

'Cause that's what "everybody" does.

 

[tickledkitty]

I'm just waiting for that other clunker that comes up here often--that you should write only in the third person.

Followed by that other humdinger that stories here should be at least two Lit. pages long.

'Cause that's what "everybody" does.

Followed by me or, well, you coming along and saying how much we like first person for erotica because...

 

[sr71plt]

Followed by me or, well, you coming along and saying how much we like first person for erotica because...

OK, I'm game . . . I like first person for erotica . . . in fact it seems to be naturally made for erotica . . . because it's the most personal, intimate, "it's happening to me (the writer/reader)" tense.

And, yes, most of my erotica is in first person. Doesn't bother me that others don't want to get that personally steamy. Think they should write what turns them on, not what someone else tells them should turn them on.

 

[sr71plt]

When you only know inklings of a craft yourself, it really isn't the least bit constructive to tell others trying to get involved with the craft that what little you know is all that there is to know.

 

[_Lynn_]

When you only know inklings of a craft yourself, it really isn't the least bit constructive to tell others trying to get involved with the craft that what little you know is all that there is to know.

Very well said.

 

[elfin_odalisque]

OK, I'm game . . . I like first person for erotica . . . in fact it seems to be naturally made for erotica . . . because it's the most personal, intimate, "it's happening to me (the writer/reader)" tense.

And, yes, most of my erotica is in first person. Doesn't bother me that others don't want to get that personally steamy. Think they should write what turns them on, not what someone else tells them should turn them on.

You make my point exactly.

The whole point of fiction writing is viewpoint. To my mind there is no discernible difference beteween, "I felt the clammy hand on my thigh" and "Susan felt the clammy hand on her thigh". In fact, reading genres like Gay, I am more comfortable with the third person intensive viewpoint for obvious reasons. The ability in third person to be omniscient doesn't preclude using it just like first. It is a question of emphasis.

In simplistic terms, it is not easy as you approach fiction writing to differentiate in your mind between narrator and main character. The advice to steer clear of first person for a while is meant to let writers new to storytelling develop their narrative.

All too often, a new writer will confuse the first person viewpoint for the narrator and start addressing the readers - a technique that has passed into history.

I have no problem with you honing your craft - even if it conjures images of a skyclad wiccan sanding her kayak - just please understand that a lot of guys here are dipping their toes in the water, hope to get readers, votes and acclaim, and want to iron out the creases.

Your often petulant remarks denigrating both the efforts of new storytellers and those that try to offer an 'IMHO' comment helps nobody.

What most of us want when writing a story here is that people enjoy it. We don't give a monkey's for Pulitzers, Booker Mans, Goncourts or even Nobels. Taking fiction to the next level is not what we are about.

You are a quite accomplished writer and I enjoy reading you, but you have an arrogance towards neophytes that I find unacceptable. Sorry.

 

[sr71plt]

You make my point exactly.

The whole point of fiction writing is viewpoint. To my mind there is no discernible difference beteween, "I felt the clammy hand on my thigh" and "Susan felt the clammy hand on her thigh". In fact, reading genres like Gay, I am more comfortable with the third person intensive viewpoint for obvious reasons. The ability in third person to be omniscient doesn't preclude using it just like first. It is a question of emphasis.

In simplistic terms, it is not easy as you approach fiction writing to differentiate in your mind between narrator and main character. The advice to steer clear of first person for a while is meant to let writers new to storytelling develop their narrative.

All too often, a new writer will confuse the first person viewpoint for the narrator and start addressing the readers - a technique that has passed into history.

I have no problem with you honing your craft - even if it conjures images of a skyclad wiccan sanding her kayak - just please understand that a lot of guys here are dipping their toes in the water, hope to get readers, votes and acclaim, and want to iron out the creases.

Your often petulant remarks denigrating both the efforts of new storytellers and those that try to offer an 'IMHO' comment helps nobody.

What most of us want when writing a story here is that people enjoy it. We don't give a monkey's for Pulitzers, Booker Mans, Goncourts or even Nobels. Taking fiction to the next level is not what we are about.

You are a quite accomplished writer and I enjoy reading you, but you have an arrogance towards neophytes that I find unacceptable. Sorry.

I'm not going to argue with you. When you give "do as I do" or "never/always" writing advice rather than working with the writer to do better what they want to do, I'll point it out and suggest the writer check out the advice themselves. My concern is that the writer not be forced into someone else's shallow, narrow, sometimes nonsensical, channel.

 

[elfin_odalisque]

I'm not going to argue with you. When you give "do as I do" or "never/always" writing advice rather than working with the writer to do better what they want to do, I'll point it out and suggest the writer check out the advice themselves. My concern is that the writer not be forced into someone else's shallow, narrow, sometimes nonsensical, channel.

Like always, you never read the advice or the encouragement. You just have an agenda that ignores writers commenters - in fact anyone who isn't blessed with perfect writing skills is ignored.

 

[Shwenn]

I think that the writing in third person advice is actually pretty bad.

First person is far easier than third person. Third person makes it too easy to switch point of view mid-scene which I almost always find very jarring and distracting.

I'd say, play around with third person, try it out. You will need third person if you start writing really rich stories with a lot of important characters.

But stick with first until you feel comfortable enough to venture into third.

"Mastery of viewpoint... requires a fair amount of technical skill, thus it is not surprising that many amateur writers are revealed in this way. Viewpoint and narration comprise a delicate, elaborate facade, in which one tiny break in consistency can be disastrous, the equivalent of striking a dissonant chord in the midst of a harmonious musical performance."

-Noah Lukeman

 

[nicole_quinn26]

On thing I've always had trouble with is sticking to one tense in a story when it wasn't necessary to switch. I don't feel like I'm a crappy writer because of it, I just feel like that is the one area (next to grammar) that I need to pay extra attention to. I feel we as writers all have 'one or two things' that we're like oops! about.

I think that the writing in third person advice is actually pretty bad.

First person is far easier than third person. Third person makes it too easy to switch point of view mid-scene which I almost always find very jarring and distracting.

I'd say, play around with third person, try it out. You will need third person if you start writing really rich stories with a lot of important characters.

But stick with first until you feel comfortable enough to venture into third.

"Mastery of viewpoint... requires a fair amount of technical skill, thus it is not surprising that many amateur writers are revealed in this way. Viewpoint and narration comprise a delicate, elaborate facade, in which one tiny break in consistency can be disastrous, the equivalent of striking a dissonant chord in the midst of a harmonious musical performance."

-Noah Lukeman

I remember reading a few helpful threads here before even considering posting my work. One of the things I disagreed with was that writing in first person is harder. I was kind of shocked by this because frankly I find first person to be the easiest thing in the world. Whenever I've made personalities and histories on RP sites and they ask for 'first person' it's like I can hear the heavens opening up! It takes me all of fifteen minutes to punch out four or five paragraphs where as the norm is to do it in third person past tense and that usually takes me forever and I drag my feet.

I feel like in first person its just easier on the simple fact that you can make it that much more personal. It's like make-believe in a sense that you're taking on your character and running with it. Does that mean when you write in third person your not connected? Absolutely not I actually feel more connected to my stories because I'm connected to every character, it's a challenge to give life to multiple people and not just your narrator.

I do understand why most erotica is written in first person because it seems more personal, my story and future ones, are in third person I've always just favored that obviously. I might dabble in first person when I'm done with this series.

Now I'm not knocking narratives at all so please don't get that idea, I'm just kind of curious as what you all think. As in which is easier first or third.