Past vs. Present Tense | Which is right for your book?

hi everyone I'm shaylen here with Rudy let's talk about how to choose the tents of your story verb tense is seemingly a very small decision but it can actually have a huge ripple effect on the story and it can actually be a very creative decision to make anything that's impacting the form of your story and how you're deciding to tell the story can actually have a huge effect on the story itself tens can affect the point of view how the events are framed and even the story's logic and it's something you want to put a thought into because it's not an easy thing to change if you've ever tried to change the tents of an entire piece especially if it's a novel it is not the most fun task to undertake but something you want to think about at the beginning make sure you're choosing right now for a long time past tense was to go to you and the majority of fiction was written in past tense present tense has become a more popular choice it's become a little trend here and we're seeing much more fiction in present tense present tense has become the norm for first-person young adult fiction and you're actually seeing it a lot more in adult fiction as well previously uncommon point-of-view choices like third person present tense are actually becoming fairly popular to the point that the decision try to present tense doesn't seem so bold anymore whereas in the past the default may have been to just write everything in past tense now you're a little more open to writing in whichever tense will benefit your story the most now some people have very strong opinions on this a lot of people really dislike present tense they think that past tense is better writing they think present tense is kind of just a cheap gimmick and that past tense is always the most effective way to tell a story there will always be people who have strong opinions about things like this but both present tense and past tense are fine both have benefits both can lead to great writing neither is a gimmick neither is easier neither is a crutch it really just depends on what will benefit the story the most I'm gonna start with a bit of a cheat sheet guideline of course I think it's always best to think about these decisions a bit more deeply but these are some general guiding rules based on genre and category conventions if you're writing in third person use past tense if you're writing a young adult in first person use present tense and if you're writing adult in first person use past there's of course a lot more to think about but when and if these are the category conventions and these are probably the least obtrusive choices that you can make let's start by talking about present tense this one's trendy and somewhat avant-garde tense choice is now fairly commonplace especially among young adult now let's talk about the benefit first of all it's very intense and immediate this makes sense as we're with the character as everything is happening so everything is very heightened everything it's very immediate it's also very psychically close and intimate this comes from the immediacy when we're literally with the character as they're experiencing the events we tend to feel very close to this character because there's no time at separating their emotions from what we're experiencing it also feels like real time now writing in perfect real time is very difficult it can be done in third person but reading in present tense tends to feel the closest like reading something in real time as it's actually happening in some genres it's also not conventional it would almost feel experimental find a fantasy book written in the third person present tense this would be very strange but sometimes breaking conventions is what you need especially if your book is going to be unconventional in other aspects as well it has a simple chronology everything is either happening in the moment or it's a flashback that was happening before the current moment anything happening in the present is in present tense and I think happening in the past is in past tense it's very simple to distinguish the past and the present and everything happening in the present is going to unfold linearly so that said let's look at some drawbacks the first one is actually kind of the same as the final benefit just depending on your story and it's that you have less freedom for the structure and the chronology of your story you can't move through time out well because the story hasn't happened yet for the main character that means the main character has to tell the story in the order the events happen to them it can't flash forward in time or really tell the story out of order of course they can flashback to something to happen before the story began but in terms of the actual plotline of the story they have to tell it in the order that it's happening it's harder to navigate time therefore it's harder to navigate structure it can also lead to flop you're writing what happens when the character is just taking life as it comes Wow it makes it harder for them to self edit redundant detail like I said earlier present tense is the closest to real-time what happens in real-time well you're taking in everything in your environment the character hasn't gone to the point where they know what's relevant and what's not and so it often seems natural to include a lot of pointless details this can lead to the inclusion of a lot of unnecessary character actions or overall Messier writing but finally it can also be illogical if you're a fan of present-tense this is going to be the worst thing you've ever heard I'm really sorry I like present tense and this shattered me when I first heard this present is inherently illogical present tense is mimicking how we experience life throughout our life we can't pause our narrative except when we go to sleep that means that a scene break is inherently illogical anytime you use narrative summary it's inherently illogical we can't summarize our life or compress time as it's happening to us does it really make sense to even break our life into chapters in present tense the story hasn't happened so we wouldn't know where to start the story you know if the story starts before the inciting incident we wouldn't know to start the story there because the story hasn't happened this is of course awful to think about and I hate thinking about it and to be honest you might not really care I still use scene breaks I still use a narrative summary I still use all these things because there's really no way around it sometimes you have to make concessions in logic in order to just write a story but if this is going to bother you and you care a lot about the logic of your form present tense doesn't really lend to that present tense is often seen in young adult contemporary or literary fiction and although it offers a less freedom if that's not going to be an issue with your storytelling the immediacy and intensity of this tense can make it a great choice now let's talk about past tense this more conventional tense is much less controversial and although a lot of people claim that it's easier to write I really don't believe that that's the case those tenses offer unique challenges so let's once again start by talking about the benefits a lot of these you're going to recognize because they pair a little bit with the drawbacks from present tense the first one is that you have complete structural freedom you can compress or move through time at will the story has already happened so the character can narrate the events in whatever order makes most sense for them this tense is also invisible and non-intrusive readers won't really notice if a story is in past tense I don't know anyone who says that they're bothered or annoyed by past tense it's not something that they'll have to get used to you just don't really notice it although sometimes the unconventional quality of present tenants can be used to your benefit if you don't want the reader to be paying attention to the tent you don't want them distracted by something by tense past tense might be the best option past tense is also more reflective the character has already experienced the story that means they're able to think back on the events this can create more sympathy for the character because they're able to reflect on their actions and on the story just something that they just can do in present times many writers find their writing is cleaner in past tense that they include fewer redundancies and that their phrasing is overall cleaner this isn't a guarantee and I think it depends a lot on what you're used to but this is something that many writers find to be the case now let's talk about the drawbacks the first one is tense confusion in present tense it can be very easy to navigate the difference between a flashback and the present whereas in the past tense you have so many different forms of past tense that if you're not using them correctly it can actually lead to a lot more timeline confusion if you're not using chronology tags to properly indicate where we are on the timeline it can become very confusing and it's easier for the reader to lose track of where they are the timeline is also a lot more complicated this can be both a benefit and a drawback but when you're writing at past tense especially first-person past tense you have to think about the fact that the character is telling the story from a certain point meaning you kind of have to inherent timelines you have the timeline of the story and you have the point the character is telling the story from this can become incredibly complicated if your story is multiple timelines this doesn't mean you need a distinct frame sometimes that's a technique that writers use but we don't need to know anything about where the characters telling the story from but inherently it's there they are telling the story in the past tense that means that somewhere in their life at a certain point they decide to tell the story and there is a timeline associated with Datuk it becomes very confused it can be really difficult to navigate and it can make your timeline very complicated it can also lead to distant writing the writer doesn't have a good handle on psychic distance or point of view it's much easier to be very distant in past tense because we're adding all of this distance of time between the event and the character we don't have that immediacy so it can be really distant so it can be really easy for the point of view to drift super far from the character you see past tense used in most third-person works especially in genres like fantasy sci-fi historical fiction really any adults Shawn or fiction as well as y-a or middle grade written in the third person but that's an intro to the tenses to summarize present tense has the benefit of being intense immediate and psychically close as well as having a simpler chronology it's also less conventional which can be to your benefit if you're writing a more experimental work however it offers less freedom with the structure and chronology can lead to mess your writing and it is unfortunately inherently a lodge on the other hand past tense has the benefits of complete structural freedom being an invisible tense that readers won't really notice offering more opportunities for reflection and often leading to cleaner writing however as a drawback the timeline and the chronology can become very confusing and it's also easier for this tense to become very different so that is how to choose tense thank you so much for watching which is your favorite tense to write it I really enjoy both to be honest it's hard for me to choose I like writing first-person past tense but I also enjoy writing in third person present tense thank you so much for watching remember to subscribe and turn on notifications so you don't miss any new videos from us we've got new writing editing and publishing tips every Tuesday and Friday until next time

Channel: Reedsy

Views: 3,649

Rating: 4.9829059 out of 5

Keywords: how to write a book, authortube, writing tips, writing advice, writing tip, self publishing, self publishing tips, how to self publish a book, writing, tense, past tense, present tense, how to choose your book's tense

Id: -7x8pAkvrCs

Length: 10min 40sec (640 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 10 2020