aubrey
Journeyman
There will come a time when you can even take your clothes off when you dance
Posts: 385
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Post by aubrey on Sept 30, 2010 5:54:09 GMT -5
Two pieces about writing in the present tense, one for, one against. Against.For.I'm against. I can't read a book that is in the present tense. I have done it, and I didn't enjoy it. I do like the trick of slipping into it every now and then, as Flashman does in GM Frazer's novels (and it is never so bad in the first person anyway). Mullan points out a trick that some Victorian writers used: This was also a trick used in Victorian pornography: probably all Victorians did it. It is quite effective, though: but as Pullman says, you don't have this option if everything you write in in the present. I think that writing in the Present Tense is just a way of drawing attention to the writing, rather than what the writing is supposed to be saying, and as such is just a way of making the writer seem like a better writer than they really are.
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Post by beth on Sept 30, 2010 8:03:37 GMT -5
I think that writing in the Present Tense is just a way of drawing attention to the writing, rather than what the writing is supposed to be saying, and as such is just a way of making the writer seem like a better writer than they really are.
Yes, I've always found it pretentious. Thank you for the links, Aubrey.
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