“Maybe This World Is Another Planet’s Hell.”

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.

“Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.”

— William Wordsworth

“Maybe it won’t work out. But maybe seeing if it does will be the best adventure ever.”

— Unknown 

“I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet.”

— Mahatma Gandhi

“Isn’t it strange that we talk least about the things we think about most?”

— Charles Lindbergh

“You will always be too much of something for someone: too big, too loud, too soft, too edgy. If you round out your edges, you lose your edge.Apologize for mistakes. Apologize for unintentionally hurting someone — profusely. But don’t apologize for being who you are.”

— Danielle Laporte 

Writing Theory: Controlling the Pace

Pacing is basically the speed of which the action in your story unfolds. Pacing keeps the reader hooked, helps to regulate the flow of the story and sets the tone of the entire book. So how can we write it?

Genre & Tone

Really in any novel the reader has an expectation that the book will be fast paced or slow. Readers will go into an action novel, expecting it to be fast paced. Readers will pick up a romance novel and expect it to follow a steadying climb of pace as the story goes on.

Pace is a good indicator of how the story is going to feel. If you want your readers to feel as if they are in a calm environment, you don't place the events immediately one after the other. If you want your readers to feel some adrenaline, you keep the curveball coming.

How to utilise Pacing successfully

1. Give your readers time to recover

When readers are reading a fast-paced novel, they need a breather and so do you and your characters. By peppering in a few moments between peaks of fast pace, you are allowing your readers to swallow down what they've just read and allows you to explore it further. Consider this like the bottle of water after a run. You need it or you'll collapse.

2. Track Events Carefully

When planning your book's outline or at least having a vague idea of it, you have a fair idea when things are going to happen. Usually books have an arc where pace gets faster and faster until you get to the climax where it generally slows down. If you're writing a larger book, you have to space out your pacing properly or else your reader will fall into a valley of boredom or find the book a bumpy ride. The climax should have the fastest pace - even if you start off at a high pace. Your story always should peak at the climax.

3. Localising Pace

If you want to put your reader into a certain state of mind throughout a chapter or even a paragraph, pay close attention to your sentence bulk. Long flowy sentences but the reader at ease, slowing the pace for them. Short, jabby sentences speed things up. An argument or a scene with action should be quick. A stroll through a meadow on a lazy summer's noon should be slow.

4. Information is Key

When writing pace in your overall novel, the reader should be given more information as you go through the story. You begin any story estentially with the who, what, where of everything. But peppering in all the whys, you broaden the story and keep the reader feeling more able to keep up with everything. For example, in any murder mystery your reader is given the body. As the story goes on, your reader should be given more and more information such as the weapon, the where until you get to the climax.

5. Off/On Stage

All events of the story do not need to be shown on stage. When you want to slow things down, allow things to happen away from the readers view. If you show event after event at your readers, everything is at a faster pace.

“To burn with desire and keep quiet about it is the greatest punishment we can bring on ourselves.”

— Federico García Lorca, (via quotemadness)