I have done it again. This is where I think having a list of what not to do when writing is important. Write a list of all the “mistakes” you made in your last novel to prevent you from doing them again from the outset. Also, keep that list so you can refer back to it because I’m pretty sure I already had this magnificent idea, made a magnificent list, and then promptly lost the damn list.
What is the mistake? Present tense.
My disclaimer—it’s only a mistake for me. I am not declaring this a mistake for all writing and writers… far from it; in fact, there are plenty of successful present tense books. It’s a very popular way to write a novel. It’s fresh. It’s now. It’s probably so fresh and now, it’s already passé. For me though, especially in long pieces, pieces that are hundreds of pages in length, present tense never serves.
How much do I love present tense? I love it. I love everything about it—its immediacy, its sense of putting the reader right into the narrative, how it allows us to bond with the main character faster, the way it swells and carries us (me and the characters) away.
It’s music, a movie score, a dance, an interesting conversation with a beautiful stranger.
Present tense is a hot crush of mine, and like so many hot crushes, when I get months into our relationship, it lets me down. I find I can’t tell the story like it needs to be told. I can’t manipulate time. I can’t flesh out the characters. I feel constrained by it; it becomes inflexible. I keep trying to make it work, and then when I can’t take it—not one more sentence, not one more word, we break up.
The break-up isn’t easy. Going back through pages and pages, last time hundreds of pages, changing the tense in every sentence—it’s an ugly, bitter divorce where I’m only to blame. This time at least, I only have to go back through 50 pages. I’m halfway done—having wasted a whole day making my story right, trying to remember for next time not to fall for Present Tense’s bullshit charm.
wizard versus ... 