Hi! This Is Hard To Explain But I’m Trying To Write My First Proper Story And I’m Suddenly Overthinking

hi! this is hard to explain but i’m trying to write my first proper story and i’m suddenly overthinking whether i’m writing in past or present tense. do you have any advice for that?

Hi and thanks for the ask!

As someone who tends to overthink things on a daily basis, I can imagine how troubled you might be about this. So I’ll try to make your decision at least a little bit easier.

In my opinion, choosing the tense you use is very much dependent on your personal preference. Although present tense seems to be more popular with today’s writers, personally, I prefer past tense. Apart from the question about popularity, though, there are different advantages and disadvantages for both choices. I’ll highlight the advantages and disadvantages for present tense only, since the opposite is obvious for the past tense.

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Advantages: Present tense has a more immediate feeling to it. Writing in present tense gives the reader the ability to experience the story in time with your characters. The moment a character changes, we experience that change in them as well. It also immerses the reader in the character’s emotions for longer than the past tense does. Moreover, handling tenses in general is a lot easier if you write in present tense rather than past tense.

Disadvantages: It’s a lot harder to manipulate the time inside a story. With present tense you usually only use past tense for the few things that actually happened in the past. That also makes it harder to create complex characters because phrases like “has always been” and the like can’t be used, since they would greatly disrupt the present tense’s main use. What’s more, the present tense author is experiencing the story at the same pace the characters do, so it is almost impossible to create a feeling of suspense. Even though you as the author, of course, know what will happen, phrases like “hadn’t known yet” and similar lines don’t fit well into a present tense story. Another possible trap the present tense sets, is misleading authors to write about mundane and trivial events that serve no plot function but would, of course, happen in a naturalistic sequence of actions.

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I hope this somehow answers your question and makes it easier for you to decide whether to write in present tense or past tense.

Writing Tip #222

Use action verbs. Avoid passive voice whenever possible. I say whenever possible and not never because sometimes passive voice can be a good literary technique. If you purposely want to make it ambiguous how something happened or if you want it to be unclear whether a character did something on accident or on purpose, passive voice can be a great tool. However, 99% of the time you want to use action verbs. If you have a lot of passive voice in your story you will slow down the momentum of your story and lose readers. See if you can reword sentences with action verbs instead.

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4 years ago

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“Believe with your eyes, not with your ears.”

— Unknown

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“God gives every bird its food, but he does not throw it into its nest.”

— J. G. Holland

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Researching for WIPs : A Collection

Patreon || Ko-Fi || Masterlist || Work In Progress

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Historical Fiction

Resources For Writing (Global) Period Pieces : High Middle Ages & Renaissance

Resources For Writing (Global) Period Pieces : 1600s

Resources For Writing (Global) Period Pieces : 1700s

Resources For Writing (Global) Period Pieces : 1800s

Resources For Writing (Global) Period Pieces : 1900-1939

Resources For Writing (Global) Period Pieces : 1940-1969

Resources For Writing (Global) Period Pieces : 1970-1999

Resources For Writing Royalty

Procedural/Scientific

Resources For Crime/Mystery/Thriller Writers

Resources For Writing Dystopian/Post-Apocalyptic Stories

Resources For Writing Sketchy Topics

Resources For Writing The Mafia

Resources For Writing Injuries

By Genre

Resources For Fantasy/Mythology Writers

Resources For Writing Science Fiction

Resources For Romance Writers

Other

Resources For Plot Development

Resources For Describing Physical Things

Resources For Describing Characters

Resources For Creating Characters

Resources For Worldbuilding

Resources For Describing Emotion

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Masterlist | WIP Blog

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“Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.”

— Louis L'Amour (via quotemadness)

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4 years ago

every writing tip article and their mother: dont ever use adverbs ever!

me, shoveling more adverbs onto the page because i do what i want: just you fucking try and stop me

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