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.