#i'm trying to have a conversation irl - chat on a server - and surf tumblr at the same time

[redwinterroses]

Hey Red! While you're talking about writing advice, what are your thoughts on using past vs present tense in a story? I see present tense so often in fic but hardly ever in published works. Is there a reason to prefer one over the other in each medium?

PS feel free to delete this ask if you don't have anything in particular to add. This question is just one I've been asking about recently and I'm interested in the thoughts of somebody so close to professional publishing.

Yeah, actually that's a really good question -- and one that comes up a lot in publishing circles (or at least the ones I run in, which tend to be indie speculative fiction).

There's one genre/category where present tense is really popular: YA fiction. Which, naturally, gives it quite the stigma. Personally, I rarely notice the tense in a story unless someone draws my attention to it -- like, I notice it, but not in a way that I think about, any more than I "notice" that the narrator drives a car or rides a bike or that the chapters have titles or just numbers. Like. It's just part of the story.

But because the main place where you see present tense is YA... you end up with a lot of people saying that "real" books shouldn't use it. (Whatever that's supposed to mean.) First person is the same way, and heaven help you if it's first person/present tense. The comment wars I have seen... *gazes off into the distance with traumatic flashback music playing faintly*

Best advice? As with anything else: do what works best for YOUR story. Some stories are just better told in past or present tense. Sometimes you'll fight yourself on that -- I've written things that are 100% supposed to be in past tense. That's the only way the story works. But my brain has the dumb and will swap to present halfway through a chapter and I don't realize until 2k words later and it's just a pill, lol.

And honestly? Here's the thing, the blunt, unvarnished, rude truth: odds of getting a deal with a traditional publishing company are slim to none. That's... harsh, I know. And it's still POSSIBLE. But between the way royalties work and the frankly predatory nature of some publishing houses/contracts, and the fact that even if you go trad the house still wants you to do your own marketing, AND the fact that indie publishing is a fantastic place to be right now with increasing professionalism and standards every day.... I would gently nudge everyone indie.

Why am I mentioning that? Because if you independently publish, you can do whatever you friggin' please. Obviously you want to be smart, and taking risky chances is always... well. A risk. But if you want to really execute your vision as you see it, indie is the way to go.

...I dunno if that answered your question. tl;dr -- present tense exists in "real" books, but currently the trend is that it's mainly only found in YA. Trends change, so who knows what it'll be like in 5 years, but that's the current setting. The only reason to prefer one sort of tense over the other is a) personal preference/story needs, and b) trends/writing to market.

Hope that was in some small way helpful, lol. :D