A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, people used to write in the past tense. In the galaxy we live in today, people increasingly write in the present tense.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know why. I used to write in the past tense. Now I use the present (albeit for a very specific character and for a very specific set of reasons.) You quite likely do the same.<\/p>\n
And if you do \u2013 fine. There\u2019s nothing wrong with the present tense and for that matter, there\u2019s nothing wrong with the past tense. If you\u2019re a Past-Master, then fine. You can safely print off this email and hurl it, flamboyantly, into a burning waste paper basket. You may want to add a \u2018huh\u2019 of disdain or perhaps twirl the tips of your luxuriant moustache. This email is not for you.<\/p>\n
If you are a Present-Tenser, however \u2013 or (worse!) if you have no moustache to twirl \u2013 then then read on.<\/p>\n
OK. So:<\/p>\n
The thing about writing in the present tense, and especially first person in the present tense, is that it is the easiest way \u2013 the very simplest method ever devised \u2013 to write badly.<\/p>\n
F\u2019rinstance, take this passage, which I have just concocted for your joy and delight:<\/p>\n
I enter the room. The door clangs shut behind me. Jared Coad is there, in shorts and a black T-shirt. Bare feet.<\/em><\/p>\n I smooth my skirt and smile awkwardly. I move to sit and as I do I can feel his gaze on me. I feel the way my office-grey pencil skirt outlines the shape of my bum and legs.<\/em><\/p>\n His gaze on me never wavers.<\/em><\/p>\n \u2018You came back,\u2019 he says.<\/em><\/p>\n \u2018Yes, Jared.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n \u2018Interview time.\u2019 He says that like it\u2019s a joke, but if so, I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s a joke I get to share. \u2018You didn\u2019t bring your boyfriend with you this time.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n \u2018PC Price. He\u2019s not my boyfriend as you perfectly well know.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n I try to keep my look and tone professional, but I feel my cheeks starting to burn. I reach for the tape-recorder and my hands shake a bit as I try to get the tape into the machine. It\u2019s only a distraction anyway. I try to distract myself. I want to get back on track. I don\u2019t want to lose this interview before it even starts.<\/em><\/p>\n I hope you realise this is not good prose. It\u2019s not terrible, but if I were an agent or an acquisitions editor, this isn\u2019t a book I would read any further. I already know the author isn\u2019t one I trust. (And most agents would read on. I\u2019m exceptionally picky.)<\/p>\n And the reason? The primary reason? It\u2019s all those \u201cI + verb\u201d constructions, especially ones that start sentences. Here\u2019s the passage again with those things bolded and (at the start of the sentence) in capitals as well:<\/p>\n I ENTER\u00a0<\/strong>the room. The door clangs shut behind me. Jared Coad is there, in shorts and a black T-shirt. Bare feet.<\/em><\/p>\n I SMOOTH\u00a0<\/strong>my skirt and smile awkwardly. I MOVE\u00a0<\/strong>to sit and as I do, I can feel\u00a0<\/strong>his gaze on me. I FEEL\u00a0<\/strong>the way my office-grey pencil skirt outlines the shape of my bum and legs.<\/em><\/p>\n His gaze on me never wavers.<\/em><\/p>\n \u2018You came back,\u2019 he says.<\/em><\/p>\n \u2018Yes, Jared.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n \u2018Interview time.\u2019 He says that like it\u2019s a joke, but if so, I don\u2019t know<\/strong> if it\u2019s a joke I get\u00a0<\/strong>to share. \u2018You didn\u2019t bring your boyfriend with you this time.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n \u2018PC Price. He\u2019s not my boyfriend as you perfectly well know.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n I TRY\u00a0<\/strong>to keep my look and tone professional, but I feel\u00a0<\/strong>my cheeks starting to burn. I REACH\u00a0<\/strong>for the tape-recorder and my hands shake a bit as I try\u00a0<\/strong>to get the tape into the machine. It\u2019s only a distraction anyway. I TRY\u00a0<\/strong>to distract myself. I WANT\u00a0<\/strong>to get back on track. I DON\u2019T WANT\u00a0<\/strong>to lose this interview before it even starts.<\/em><\/p>\n That\u2019s 15 uses of the construction in fewer than 200 words, and 9 sentences that start with it.<\/p>\n What\u2019s more, some of those sentences are quite awkward.<\/p>\n There\u2019s something quite blunt about the Simple Present in English (eg: \u201cI try<\/em>\u201d). In ordinary speech, we often prefer the Present Continuous (\u201cI am trying<\/em>\u201d) or the Present Perfect (\u201cI have tried<\/em>\u201d). But because those forms don\u2019t immediately leap to mind when we think \u2018present tense\u2019, we can easily end up grabbing for the most obvious tool in the box, even when it\u2019s the wrong one.<\/p>\n The result is sentences like \u201cI try to distract myself<\/em>\u201d, when \u201cI am trying to distract myself<\/em>\u201d sounds more natural \u2013 more fluent.<\/p>\n You could say much the same about \u201cI try to keep my look and tone professional.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s something she has tried to do since coming into the room, it\u2019s something she is continuing to do, and something she will also do in the near future. And (cos this is English, the world\u2019s most over-stuffed language), we have a tense for that \u2013 the present perfect. So that sentence would become: \u201cI have tried to keep my look and tone professional \u2026<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n Already better, right?<\/p>\n OK, now because you\u2019re in the zone, may I suggest you take a look at this sentence and figure out why you hate, loathe and despise it:<\/p>\n I feel the way my office-grey pencil skirt outlines the shape of my bum and legs.<\/em><\/p>\n You hate it because the real subject of the sentence is the skirt, and you\u2019ve just shoved a totally redundant \u201cI feel\u201d at the start of it. So we just rewrite the sentence restoring the proper subject, so:<\/p>\n My pencil-skirt outlines the shape of my bum and legs.<\/em><\/p>\n Better, right? Not just better, but shorter. We\u2019ve said the exact same thing in fewer words.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve gone super-specific in my niggles so far, and specific is good. It tells us we\u2019re on the right lines.<\/p>\n But there\u2019s also a broader sense in which I want to yell, \u201cLoosen up! Relax!\u201d<\/p>\n You can write first person, present tense in a very intimate, very interior way \u2026 but where the actual prose is much less me, me, me. For example, by having your narrator observe and relate telling external details, you can convey a lot about what\u2019s happening inside.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s yet another crack at that interview scene \u2013 except this time, it\u2019s a real extract from my current work in progress. My narrator is Fiona Griffiths, and she\u2019s about to interview an extremely dangerous psychiatric patient. I\u2019ve put some comments in square brackets as we go.<\/p>\n Interview time.<\/em><\/p>\n Jared Coad.<\/em><\/p>\n Him again, me again. Except with just the two of us in his room, and no great apparatus of recording equipment, the space seems different. Bigger, certainly, but also more liquid. Brimming with possibilities that seem to lie round a corner, just out of sight.<\/em><\/p>\n [This in a way is about Fiona\u2019s interior feelings, but it\u2019s delivered without a single use of the word \u2018I\u2019.]<\/p>\n Coad is in shorts and a black T-shirt this time. Bare feet.<\/em><\/p>\n His legs and arms are medium-hairy, and have the inevitable sheen of recent sweat. The smell in the room has a roughly even balance of recent perspiration and shampoo.<\/em><\/p>\n \u2018You came back.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n \u2018Yes, Jared.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n I\u2019m wearing a dark grey pencil skirt and an oversized jumper in a duck egg blue. His eyes rotate through my various different components. Memorising me, consuming me.<\/em><\/p>\n We\u2019ve now had Fiona\u2019s observation of Jared physically and his of her. It feels a lot more intimate and sexual than in the first version of this scene, but the word \u2018I\u2019 has scarcely featured.<\/em><\/p>\n My outfit is hardly provocative but, if I\u2019m honest, it\u2019s probably on the slightly sexier end of the not-very-sexy stuff I have with me here. Partly, it\u2019s like a little gift I can bring. If Coad gets off on seeing my bum in a fitted skirt, then he\u2019s welcome to the pleasure. But, as I enter his room, and turn slightly to adjust the cushions on my little bench before I sit, I realise I quite like his gaze. Quite like his admiration. I linger a half-second longer adjusting cushions than I really need to. Bend a little lower. Smooth my skirt as I sit.<\/em><\/p>\n \u2018You didn\u2019t bring your boyfriend with you this time.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n \u2018PC Price. No, he\u2019s not with me today.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n \u2018And you haven\u2019t brought your tape recorder.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n \u2018No.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n \u2018Which means you aren\u2019t about to arrest me.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n \u2018I\u2019m not interviewing you under caution, no. And I\u2019m not about to detain you either.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n Coad interrogates me a little further with his eyes. That troubled gaze. He has a habit of moving his lips, almost as though speaking or externalizing thoughts, but no sound comes out. The effect, however, is almost as though he is talking to an unseen colleague. And if he were doing that, he could only be talking about me.<\/em><\/p>\n That\u2019s 330 words and the word \u201cI\u201d hardly features, except in the one paragraph where Fiona is intensely self-conscious of his gaze and her enjoyment of it. In that context, it doesn\u2019t feel awkward, it feels part of the sexual tension in the room.<\/p>\n The main lesson here? Just loosen up. Write naturally. Be suspicious of too many \u201cI + verb\u201d constructions. Be doubly suspicious when they start a sentence or feel awkward or introduce bodily sensations. All those things are fine in the right amounts. Just \u2026 don\u2019t overdo it.<\/p>\n That\u2019s it from me. Now please find your pot of moustache wax and start twirling.<\/p>\n I understand that some of you ladies receiving this message may not (yet) have a luxuriant moustache of your own, in which case you can Toss Your Tresses In A Haughty Manner. That would do absolutely fine.<\/p>\n Till soon \u2013 twirl, twirl.<\/p>\n