Past Tense

Past tense is the standard when it comes to writing stories.  There are a few novels in present tense, like the last post talked about, and there are a few stories out there written in 2nd tense.  You read those.  They make you sad. It's okay, they make me sad too. But overall, past is the norm, and it's the one that I prefer to read, personally.

Past tense has a nice fulfilled feeling about it.  It's already happened. It's over now.  The story does have an end, and you will be able to hear it eventually.  There's something very comforting about that.

Not that past tense has no faults.  There is a loss in immediacy.  Present tense is immediate.  Past tense was immediate once, but isn't anymore.  And past tense will never be as close as You are in second tense.  Overall they all have their weaknesses and strengths and it depends on the story.

Sometimes it is fun to try and experiment.  In a writing group we once tried to write in the different tenses, and I wrote about a hawk, I think.  The hawk was really the coolest part of the exercise.  The rest might even be a false memory, but what I learned is that tense really does make a difference, and one of the most important things is to make sure to stick with it.

There is a lot of fanfiction that deviates or switches between tenses, and it's really not a good idea.  Tenses, like wives, require commitment.  The second you leave a tense for another tense, the abandoned tense takes everything you own, and then goes and talks to everyone who encounters you and the other tense, and tells them what a fool you were to give up a tense like that was, for a tense like this is.  It's just not a good situation for anyone.  While past tense is my preferred tense, I would much rather read a book that is written in present or second tense than a book that is mostly in the past, but partly in the present, and sort of in the future.  That only works for Lost, and only because Matthew Fox once likened surgery to pasta, which makes most things forgiveable.

Present Tense

Present tense is not my favorite.  I rarely read whole stories or novels in present tense.  Sometimes I check a book out, and read only one page for that very reason.  It's not necessarily that I find present tense jarring.  Some people do.  That isn't the issue for me.

The issue for me is that present tense makes things sound profound that aren't profound. "The day the birds flew, and the ants died, the milk went on sale for fifty seven cents" draws attention to the plot, and not the sentence itself.  You know that in this story, the sale of the milk is a part of the story and probably has something to do with the birds, and possibly that whole 'pessimistic' optimistic' metaphor thing if you're reading behind the lines.

"The birds fly, and ants die, and the milk goes on sale for fifty seven cents" however makes the whole thing feel like it isn't just a part of the story, it's a part of everything. Everywhere.  All of the time.  It's immediate. A present issue. And it feels like this is something you should ponder, even though the only thing worth pondering in the sentence is why on earth milk doesn't ever go on sale for fifty seven cents in real life, and Aw man why do prices have to inflate so much all of the time?

In my opinion all of this is cheating, because it's making things sound literary that aren't really literary, instead of well, just writing literature.

There are a few books that are highly successful in the present tense.  The first is the Hunger Games, the second is that one book...not quite sure what it's called, because I don't typically read the present tense, but I'm sure someone dies and someone cries, and at least three people need a shrink of some sort, something touching like that.  But in both cases, present tense works very well.  I think. I haven't read either of them, because they are in present tense, but there are those who have no problem with the tense who have told me they are both quite good.  Except the second one.

What is your opinion on present tense?

Fulfilling Promises To Your Readers

There were once two mysterious orphans with secrets who wanted to discover the truth about their respective parents tragic murders. One day while on a field trip in the Amazon rain forest, the mysterious orphans with secrets were separated from the indigenous tribesmen and found a peculiar document. Written by Alfred Sumptor PHD, an eccentric scientist, the document detailed his hypothesis that flamingos were actually of Martian origin. His research led him to a plethora of evidence on each side of the argument, and was very detailed. Unfortunately the very end of the last page had been torn off, so the mysterious orphans with secrets were left wondering if Dr. Sumptor had ever found the conclusion.

Because flamingo tracks had been found at the death sites of both of their parents, the mysterious orphans with secrets decided to track down Dr. Sumptor and discover the truth, so they stowed away on the yacht of a rich car salesman and sailed to Africa. He wasn't there. Next they tried Somalia, and fought a giant lecherous wombat. Finally after searching for approximately three months, they found him somehow. 

Once the mysterious orphans with secrets had battled a host of bad stuff they made it to his secret something, and asked "Are flamingos from Mars?" The scientist smiled as if some weight had been lifted off of his conscience, "I have no idea" he said. The mysterious orphans with secrets gave up, went home and opened a highly successful cheese shop.  One died when they were 54 in a tragic cupcake accident. The other lived to be 74 before choking on a marble. The End.

Discovery Writing.

Discovery writers go straight to the blank page, no outline, very little or no plan, and pound out their work with the spontaneity of the Red West African Bull Finch.  They figure out their characters, settings, and conflicts as they type. As a result sometimes random things happen or appear in the first draft that really don't belong. Asparagus.

One of the most famous discovery writers is Steven King, which is why his mind is probably more frightening than any of the places that the Ghost Hunters have ever visited, including that Winchester place with all those windows and doors.

Discovery writing has definite perks.  For example, if you are a discovery writer, you probably skipped the very first post.  Discovery writers often discover things that an outliner might miss, and they often find it easier to adapt to sudden problems uncovered in the draft.

The problem with discovery writing is that it increases ones risk for developing Eternal Restart Syndrome. In the beginning chapters, the discovery writer has thousands of options and can take the work in just about any direction. This is great, but by at least the halfway point, that freedom starts to disappear as more and more promises are made to the reader.

The experienced discovery writer can tell you how to handle this, and Brandon Sanderson can teach the discovery writer how to outline, or possibly just gain a renewed interest in salt depending.

The inexperienced discovery writer can tell you, however, that they really just deal with this loss of freedom by writing themselves into a dead end, and then just throwing something off back into the story to try and regain that freedom. Which is quite effective as well. For example if you were writing a historical novel set in 1732 and all of your characters fell into a well, you might escape this situation by writing "It then rained gorillas from the sky, and they began eating people, until everyone in the entire world was dead. Luckily, Sherlock Holmes survived."  This will not work as well if you plan on publishing this, or want a remotely cohesive story, but otherwise works perfectly, and is recommended by Wikipedia.

If you do not feel that you have enough experience to write a story about Sherlock Holmes you might try using a buzz word like "assassination," "butlery," "monk" "dying" or "puppy" to regain interest, even if your story isn't about any of those things this is still possible if you write a sentence like "The situation was dire, but at least Mary's puppy hadn't been assassinated." or "Sally loved baking cakes even more than monks love not dying or having to resort to butlery."

If anyone has other suggestions for managing discovery writing. Feel free to write them in the comments.

The Eternal Restart

The counter disease to World Builder's Disease is.....No wait, that's not right....

If you were to visit certain tribes in Africa, hidden from the rest of the world, you will discover that while most tribe members are illiterate their memory capacity far exceeds our own. Some can relate their tribes entire history, all the cultures, all the stories dating back decades...this begs the question...is this why some four year olds are fantastic at the game concentration?...Wait...this is clearly going in the wrong direction.

It all started with an ostrich. A simple ostrich. A social pariah. Ostracized from his own kind due to a love of french fries uncommon among the species.......No that's not quite the right beginning to this post either.

One of the hardest things about writing for some is getting past the beginning. This problem is different than World Builder's disease because those afflicted with the eternal restart at least get started, but it is still a major issue, because while they may restart their novels a thousand times trying to achieve first chapter perfection, their work isn't going to get finished anymore than the World Builder's ever will. The obvious solution to this is to just not ever restart. Unfortunately this is easier said than done....One more time.

Eternally restarting is a definite problem because those who eternally restart not only are trying to achieve the perfect vision that exists in their heads, they are also setting their entire novel around the beginning. When the beginning changes, so does the entire framework of the novel. A good beginning means a good novel, a bad beginning means a bad novel, or novella, or whatever you happen to be writing...For example this beginning was bad.....


Even though the Eternal Restart may seem like a daunting problem there is really only one solution.....


First there was darkness.....


It was a dark and....

Once upon a......


Oh nevermind, I'll come back to this post later.

World Builder's Disease

For those who don't know, world builders disease is a writer affliction where the writer is so caught up with the world and setting building of their novel that they never actually write the novel. For those who do know, I'm sorry the first sentence was a waste of your valuable lifetime. My brother is the foremost expert on world builders disease. He would write the book on it, if he wasn't still busy trying to hammer out the details about the setting, and the culture and history. More famous people with the affliction, in case you don't know my brother despite his best attempts and that certain Rolling Stone incident, are J.R.R Tolkien. He spent pretty much his entire life developing Middle Earth, and while The Lord of the Rings certainly benefited a lot from this, it also meant that we got way less output from him than many die hards would have liked.

This is a big problem. If I had overcome world builder's disease myself I would probably have a great deal of input on this that would be really beneficial to all of your lives.  Unfortunately I have the opposite of world builders disease. I shoot my world building questions with a machine gun until they die too fast to react properly and then I move on. If any question happens to survive the onslaught at the very beginning, I answer it with a Random is Best policy. I imagine that the older wiser version of myself will have a collection of ink blots, and a shelf covered in glass jars filled with various categories of nouns. Then if I wonder "What is the most popular pet in the country" I can just pick up the Animal jar and answer the question in less than a second. This is probably why I will only truly be equipped to write humor. No serious self respecting author could tell their readers that the national pet is a squid which the people of the nation will feed anything but spaghetti for fear of promoting cannibalism.  In the meantime, since I do not currently have jars or inkblots I use generators found at Seventh Sanctum, and Serendipity (Reference Google for further information). These are also immensely useful when it comes to naming things, which is something I'm not very good at because I have the tendency to think that everything in the world would be slightly better if it was named either Stymie, or Faunterloy.  While this is probably true, it would also probably be slightly confusing if it were taken into complete practice.  If you happen to suffer from world builders disease you might want to consider using some of these methods. They could help you. Or be completely useless.  But sometimes the best things you can do in life are completely useless and can even somehow lead to finding your soulmate according to Match.com.

Other possible solutions could be to imagine that your entire world is a blank page. Unfortunately this is also called Writer's Block, which is frowned upon in most literary circles because it apparently isn't conducive to literature. Or you could possibly just give up, and put your information to use by starting a new country. Giving up is also frowned upon, especially by motivational speakers, but I've spoken to several quitters who swear by it, and several revolutionaries who actually think this is a really great plan. You can find supporters for anything if you try. It's not even hard if you have Facebook. The only other option I can think about is to forget about the world and try to focus on only the characters of your potential novel, only pick 3 to start with and work from there, or you could go to writingexcuses.com and look up actual legitimate solutions from legitimate authors.