Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Mile 4 - PRESENT/PAST TENSE CONSISTENCY
A tip a day to keep the rejections away

Welcome to my marathon of writing tips—one tip a day to make you a better writer.

 

What are my qualifications?  For several years, I’ve written the Pet Vet column for the Post Bulletin newspaper.  I’ve had articles published in RunMinnesota, DVM360 journal, and The Wagazine.  I’m in a wonderful critique group that meets weekly to tell me everything I’ve done wrong.

 

Save yourself some time by learning from my mistakes.

 

Abbreviations as follows:

MS = manuscript

CP = critique partner

WIP = work in progress

 

MILE FOUR = PAST/PRESENT TENSE CONSISTENCY



I tend to see the most past/present confusion when the real issue is whether a sentence within a paragraph should really be an internal thought.

 

Here’s an example:

Pretending to put books in her locker, she glanced down the hall and sighed.  He’s just so cute, but he doesn’t even know I’m alive.  Or if he does, he doesn’t care.

 

Past tense = glanced

Present tense = he’s, doesn’t, does

 

A mix of present and past tenses is awkward and confusing.
(Yikes!  See what I mean?  And if you haven't seen this movie, then WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN DOING WITH YOUR LIFE???)

 

My proposed solution:

Pretending to put books in her locker, she glanced down the hall and sighed.  He’s just so cute, but he doesn’t even know I’m alive.  Or if he does, he doesn’t care.

 

Putting the MC’s active thoughts in italics avoids tense confusion.  For those writers who despise using italics for whatever reason (perhaps you wish to always remain in third person), then be consistent with your tenses.

 

Final example:

Pretending to put books in her locker, she glanced down the hall and sighed.  He was just so cute, but he didn’t even know she was alive.  Or if he did, he didn’t care.

 

Either way, it takes careful line editing to catch and resolve tense inconsistencies.  CPs will help you with this.  (See, you need them for everything!)

 

That’s it for today—short and sweet—like me when I’m well fed.

But watch out when I’m hungry!





See you tomorrow for Mile 5!

No comments:

Post a Comment