Waxing Philosophical About Writing

At one time or another, everyone feels the need to justify their likes, dislikes, and opinions. In the past, I've explained that I dislike the new "wave" of storytelling in present tense. It's too "I spy with my little eye" for me. But I keep thinking about it and about why it irritates me as a reader so incredibly much. It feels so unnatural and sound so childish to my ears. And looking through my books, I've found that the ones written in present tense that I can tolerate or even like, often have descriptive passages that use past tense.


And that got me thinking again about why. Why do I dislike present tense for fiction so much? I love it in blogs. But blogs are short and conversational. I don't mind brief passages. I just can't read an entire work of fiction written that way.


So while I was walking the dogs today, I thought about it again. Why?


There really is a good reason why it feels so unnatural to me and why it feels like I've plunged into a mediocre role-playing game when I run into a book written that way.


We live in the past.


That's right. Think about it. Everything that comes in through your senses has already occurred. In some cases, a really, really long time ago.


Take vision for instance. You walk outside and look at the stars. Well, what you're seeing is the past. It's light that spun out through the universe years ago—in many cases, billions of years ago—and you're just now seeing it. If you're gazing at a planet, it may already have exploded and turned into cosmic dust a billion years ago. The further away the object is, the more "in the past" it is by the time you see it.


What you're hearing occurred in the past, as well. And since sound waves move slower than light, you will for example see the smoke and flash of gun powder exploding from a muzzle loader gun, well before you hear it, if the gun is sufficiently far away.


And who hasn't experienced that split second of "Hey, I think I'm okay!" after a fall, only to realize a second later that maybe you're not okay, after all. Maybe you broke a bone or two (as happened to me, boo, hoo) and it just took your nerves a second or two to catch up with the signals from your broken bones.


Our brains also have to process this input, so any results as far as feelings are also…about things that may already be over with.


All information coming into our bodies is about the past. It may be only milliseconds in the past, but it's still the past.


I feel better now. I can finally justify why I prefer books written in past tense.


Sure, it's more about my own psychological problems, but at least I can excuse them by saying: everything we see, feel, or hear is in the past, so it only makes sense to describe them that way when telling a story.


By the way—I see that my daffodils are getting ready to bloom!


Fiction Writing and Other Oddities