Finders Keepers Tense

Tery said:

Welcome to the MB! Lots of writers here, I'm sure you'll get some opinions

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Welcome Ted Moss! Hopefully someone can offer some good input. I understand there are writers in and around the site. I had a couple of Finders Keepers backpacks but I've not yet seen the Finders Keepers Tents. All the best, mal.

one advantage i see writing a story present-tense is that those time-shifts to the past stand out...are they easier to make? maybe maybe not. bobbi ann mason and her shiloh and other stories are all told present tense...as i recall. been years since i read them and i think her stories were the first experience i had with a writer who used the fabled present-tense. are there others? looked just now for my copy of under the dome. yeesh! finally found it, but the search echoed another search a day or two earlier, same thing, looking for a king tome for reference. oh, i know, was playing a game and needed the book to find a word or two. found the books each time but i'd started to wonder if someone ran off with them. i'm so easily distracted.

i know i've read other stories all told present tense, have enjoyed them all, and truth be told i don't think i noticed what tense was used until some point into the story. i think there's a sense of here and now, a sense of immediacy with present tense. is it also called the joke-tense? two drunks walk into a bar. so forth, so on. wish i could point you to some other stories told present. seems like the majority of the fiction i've read has been told past tense. i don't believe i noticed each time shift, or tense shift, in finders keepers, although i did notice how the story was told.

wondering now if the girl on the train had some present tense telling. that's what i get for not making notes i can readily access. fallen short of the mark again, alas.

Hi and welcome.

Welcome. I myself prefer third person rather than Pete did this or that. Just a personal prreference.

Ted Moss said:

Not as in anxious, but as in past/present tense shift I saw in Finders Keepers I just finished. I don't mean the flashback chapters to 1979, but within the chapters. Loved it of course, and don't know if shift is even the right word. As an example, "Pete wondered what do and decided to place the call." vs. "Pete wonders what to do, decides, and places the call." Mr. King didn't write that, just my [like] example.

I was wondering the advantages of either approach and why both are used in the book.

I had my 1st novel (The Puppeteers) published in 2004 with highly limited success. I had no idea what I was doing, yet somehow found a publisher. Then kids came along, so new priorities. All have since moved out and am 95% done with first draft of novel #2; this time with the help of great books like On Writing by Mr. King along with other great references by Dwight Swain, Jack Bickham and others.

Any input greatly appreciated.

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Your example sounds very formal

I highlighted the more natural sounding sentence in green and the stilted unnatural sounding sentence in blue.

You must have read that part in On Writing about a first kiss?

I am quoting him here:

How about this: My first kiss will always be recalled by me as how my romance with Shayna was begun.

Oh, man - who farted, right?

A simpler way to express this idea - sweeter and more forceful as well - might be this: My romance with Shayna began with our first kiss. I'll never forget it.


Now I'm done quoting (but that "who farted" part really made me laugh the first time I read it).

He also talks about the "passive voice" (it's around page 124 in the hard copy book) in the Toolbox chapter

Anyway - Welcome to the SKMB! (not sure if my comments helped you or not)

Hello Ted. Welcome from Edmonton AB. Your book looks very interesting. Are you Canadian?

I'm not a fan of present tense--it's very limiting. Mr. King made good use of it, but even he doesn't write books entirely in present tense. The only place I see it used with regularity is in Childrens/YA novels and romance novels. Modern Lit Lite writers have been toying with using present tense exclusively, too, but usually unsuccessfully (IMO, of course).