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Question about dialogue and tense. Obviously, keeping tense consistent in a passage is important to ensure it's easily understood. But I'm in the process of writing a scene with a quick flashback to a relatively recent timeframe, and some conversation that happens in that timeframe, and I'm wondering what people think of using simple past dialogue tags as opposed to past perfect. In other words, the scene is unfolding on a naval vessel, with two characters waiting to leave. While they are waiting, the POV character thinks about a meeting that happened an hour or so previous to the narrative. The bolded part is the flashback and the underlined verbs are some examples of inconsistent tenses. quote:“What about Otto’s people?” Virgil asked. This is a first draft and so this is how it came out. I know the simple solution is just to put all of the verbs in past perfect and I think that's what I'm going to do. I'm just wondering how this reads and generally what people think about tense in this context, especially where there are some actions that are actually taking place in the "present," but described in the flashback, e.g. "At the mention of O’Brien, the two officers had exchanged a look that Virgil still couldn’t figure out."
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# ? Mar 20, 2017 21:57 |
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# ? May 13, 2024 10:15 |
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Phil Moscowitz posted:Question about dialogue and tense. Obviously, keeping tense consistent in a passage is important to ensure it's easily understood. But I'm in the process of writing a scene with a quick flashback to a relatively recent timeframe, and some conversation that happens in that timeframe, and I'm wondering what people think of using simple past dialogue tags as opposed to past perfect. This is probably a personal thing but I'm not a fan of how "had verbed" sounds and I try to avoid it wherever possible. I think if you keep them to single past-tense verbs and clearly denote at the start that the POV character is remembering something an hour ago, people will understand what you're doing. You already have it noted down in the last paragraph that the perspective is switching back to the present, so the end of that flashback is already marked.
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# ? Mar 21, 2017 00:18 |
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Squidtentacle posted:This is probably a personal thing but I'm not a fan of how "had verbed" sounds and I try to avoid it wherever possible. I think if you keep them to single past-tense verbs and clearly denote at the start that the POV character is remembering something an hour ago, people will understand what you're doing. You already have it noted down in the last paragraph that the perspective is switching back to the present, so the end of that flashback is already marked. Yeah, I'd do what you need to do to get it back to past tense once you're past a para or two. People will follow it no prob if it's unambiguous.
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# ? Mar 21, 2017 00:39 |
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Life hack: write in present tense so your flashbacks are always clear.
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# ? Mar 21, 2017 00:43 |
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Okua posted:We know that 500 question character sheets suck, but does anybody have some actually good resources for creating characters? NERD ALERT!!! If they're a central character I use character sheets from the World Of Darkness line of storytelling games. If you're worried about mary-suing a character or having them be too perfect they're a great way of setting what they can & can't do, better yet it's graphical. You can ignore the stuff about magical powers in the game and just use the attributes, abilities, & virtues and you shouldn't even need to worry about character creation rules. I jumped to using these after I came to realize that all of my best characters that I've created were for this silly little role-playing game I've been a part of for 7 years. Real people are bad at things and completely irrational about some things - show that. Sitting Here posted:woah dude sorry, I wasn't trying to pick a fight or anything. I thought you were joking because your last few posts on this page were blatantly non-serious. A bunch of us were putting serious effort into making posts about literary style vs "traditional" character-driven plots but that kind of tapered out. With all the screenwriting stuff I've been doing lately I have found it effective writing a story in the order of: Beginning -> End -> Okay how did we get there? Then go in to throw rocks at my characters and B-Plots. My proto-first draft isn't even a full screenplay at all it literally just the beats of a story and important exchanges of dialogue. It's basically an outline but it's a very... thorough one. I've never seen anybody else's outlines of anything so I may actually be doing less of it than most people do. code:
Ironic Twist posted:This is one of those things that comes down to writing style and it's usually a mix of both. For me, I'd rather define the setpieces that are central to the story and let all the ancillary stuff be figured out with context clues. SkaAndScreenplays fucked around with this message at 08:40 on Mar 21, 2017 |
# ? Mar 21, 2017 02:49 |
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Djeser posted:present tense is a flashy, distracting fad in fiction I'll also confidently add that I've never found an example of first person present tense that worked outside of some character relaying some anecdote or story inside of a story.
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# ? Mar 21, 2017 05:29 |
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that was actually a joke, i really liked the present tense in Angelmaker and it never bothered me, even during the part where the girl had sex on a bed bolted to train tracks so she could get train orgasms
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# ? Mar 21, 2017 05:32 |
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I've never read Angelmaker but if there is literal running-of-a-train in a sex-context of sex I think I pretty much have to now.
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# ? Mar 21, 2017 06:08 |
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SkaAndScreenplays posted:
You need to read more James Ellroy then.
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# ? Mar 21, 2017 06:14 |
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Thranguy posted:You need to read more James Ellroy then. I will do so.
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# ? Mar 21, 2017 08:41 |
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First person present tense worked p. well in Hunger Games.
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# ? Mar 21, 2017 09:16 |
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Present vs past in general is such a minor style difference, the sheer hate some people have for it just baffles me. Inertia, man.
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# ? Mar 21, 2017 09:30 |
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neongrey posted:Present vs past in general is such a minor style difference, the sheer hate some people have for it just baffles me. Inertia, man. I don't hate present tense, I've just had limited exposure to first person present tense done well as prose. I don't deny that it exists - I just haven't really seen it.
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# ? Mar 21, 2017 10:22 |
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Nah I don't just mean you, I mean that there's a lot of people who really hate present tense in fiction, and they really want you to know that. Really, there's nothing special about it; people see bad present tense prose but I guarantee you they as much bad past tense prose, it's just that present tense prose is less common in general so it's always more noticeable.
neongrey fucked around with this message at 10:36 on Mar 21, 2017 |
# ? Mar 21, 2017 10:29 |
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neongrey posted:Nah I don't just mean you, I mean that there's a lot of people who really hate present tense in fiction, and they really want you to know that. Really, there's nothing special about it; people see bad present tense prose but I guarantee you they as much bad past tense prose, it's just that present tense prose is less common in general so it's always more noticeable. Gotcha. I'd be willing to go sofar as to say there's actually more lovely past-tense prose as it's more prolific. I'm gonna be picking up Angelmaker on Djeser's endorsement and if the reviews are anything to be believed it will break the streak.
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# ? Mar 21, 2017 10:50 |
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Sitting Here posted:Not everyone is aspiring to be the Frank Zappa of writing. I'd settle for being the Residents or Captain Beefheart of the literary world in all honesty...
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# ? Mar 21, 2017 15:58 |
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SkaAndScreenplays posted:I'd settle for being the Residents or Captain Beefheart of the literary world in all honesty... How about Garage Writing? Small writers with none of the virtuosity or out-thereness of the big names but who write passionate and touching work.
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# ? Mar 21, 2017 16:09 |
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Mrenda posted:How about Garage Writing? Small writers with none of the virtuosity or out-thereness of the big names but who write passionate and touching work. im the skip spence of literature
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# ? Mar 21, 2017 19:29 |
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Present and past is even more minor when I tend to write past as "present, but 10 seconds ago," which feels even more noticeable since I work a lot on discover.
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# ? Mar 23, 2017 17:11 |
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Better Fred Than Dead posted:Present and past is even more minor when I tend to write past as "present, but 10 seconds ago," which feels even more noticeable since I work a lot on discover. can you explain
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# ? Mar 24, 2017 14:24 |
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Better Fred Than Dead posted:I tend to write past as "present, but 10 seconds ago," Like, you put the word "just" before every verb?
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# ? Mar 24, 2017 20:19 |
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Better Fred Than Dead posted:Present and past is even more minor when I tend to write past as "present, but 10 seconds ago," which feels even more noticeable since I work a lot on discover. I currently do not understand this ten seconds ago.
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# ? Mar 25, 2017 04:46 |
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The Sean posted:I currently do not understand this ten seconds ago. I will always not have been about to understand it
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# ? Mar 25, 2017 05:24 |
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I'm assuming they meant writing in past tense, but not from a time after the whole story has ended. In some cases, there is a clearer sense of when in the future a story is being told from -- for example when you see asides like "I was about to be proved very, very wrong." Not sure how that relates to mixing tenses for various times in the past, though, since the writing is still in past tense. There's not a grammatical distinction between "I climbed the stairs (10 seconds ago)" and "I climbed the stairs (10 years ago)."
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# ? Mar 25, 2017 09:58 |
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Dr. Kloctopussy posted:I'm assuming they meant writing in past tense, but not from a time after the whole story has ended. In some cases, there is a clearer sense of when in the future a story is being told from -- for example when you see asides like "I was about to be proved very, very wrong." Yeah there isn't a tense confusion so much, but that's what I meant. Framing wise, I don't really relate writing in past tense as strictly "this has ended". I was pretty tired when I posted that and it doesn't really make a ton of sense or matter very much either.
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# ? Mar 26, 2017 05:10 |
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Better Fred Than Dead posted:Yeah there isn't a tense confusion s I was pretty tired when I posted that and it doesn't really make a ton of sense or matter very much either. To be honest, i think the thread gave you the benefit of the doubt but the wording was too awesome to pass up.
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# ? Mar 26, 2017 15:06 |
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I think a lot of past tense is written in that way. You're writing about something you just watched happen. like "holy poo poo, she just got punched in the face!" but instead with the benefit of a few seconds for internal editing: "Rob punched her in the face." "She punched back!"
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# ? Mar 26, 2017 20:57 |
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Chairchucker posted:First person present tense worked p. well in Hunger Games. I read the Hunger Games when it came out and I don't remember being bothered by it. I recently read Red Rising and it definitely bothered me in that. But that's also a garbage book for garbage people. Currently reading Handmaid's Tale and the first person present tense is very off-putting. The book has wonky rear end prose in general. What the gently caress is this yoda-rear end sentence in chapter 2: "Late Victorian, the house is, a family house, built for a large rich family."
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# ? Mar 28, 2017 20:44 |
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Jagermonster posted:Currently reading Handmaid's Tale and the first person present tense is very off-putting. The book has wonky rear end prose in general. What the gently caress is this yoda-rear end sentence in chapter 2: "Late Victorian, the house is, a family house, built for a large rich family." That's stream-of-consciousness style writing. I find myself doing it sometimes when I write a difficult scene in first person, and have to decide after whether I want to smooth the sentence out or leave it choppy, in the way a character in shock would try to piece their thoughts together. Yeah, it can be off-putting until you get used to it (so if I do use it, I use it minimally, for impact). I thought in the Handmaid's Tale it was pretty well done—it gave me the sense the protagonist couldn't shake off the shock at her new hosed-up reality. Stuporstar fucked around with this message at 21:21 on Mar 28, 2017 |
# ? Mar 28, 2017 21:17 |
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Stuporstar posted:stream-of-consciousness style writing awww crap, this is one of those? hated reading Faulkner in school funny how stream-of-consciousness writing results in the exact opposite style of reading in that you have to reread the same passage multiple times to figure out what the gently caress the author is talking about
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# ? Mar 29, 2017 16:20 |
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Jagermonster posted:awww crap, this is one of those? It's probably one of the most readable entries in that style. If you're already past chapter 2, you pretty much already know what you're in for.
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# ? Mar 29, 2017 18:05 |
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Stickying this since the OP is fantastic but we're not getting the traffic to keep it on the first page. Let me know if you think there's anything else that should get pinned, either for a while or indefinitely.
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# ? May 7, 2017 00:25 |
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If I was going to be mentioning a specific street a few times in a story, is it acceptable to abbreviate to St. after the first time? As in, "They walked hand-in-hand down State Street." and later on, "Police cars raced down State St. as they watched.", or should it always be spelled out fully? This is outside of dialogue, of course.
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# ? May 7, 2017 21:48 |
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I vote for spelling it out.
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# ? May 7, 2017 21:55 |
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No abbreviations.
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# ? May 7, 2017 23:35 |
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Generally in prose I'd spell everything out, including numbers unless they're unwieldy to write in prose. State Street, and fifty-five, but 1849. The only time I wouldn't do that is if you're quoting a piece of written text that did use the abbreviation.
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# ? May 8, 2017 00:03 |
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Thanks. I had the feeling it should be spelled out every time, but couldn't find anything about streets/roads/avenues in particular when I tried to look it up.
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# ? May 8, 2017 00:08 |
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Detective Thompson posted:If I was going to be mentioning a specific street a few times in a story, is it acceptable to abbreviate to St. after the first time? As in, "They walked hand-in-hand down State Street." and later on, "Police cars raced down State St. as they watched.", or should it always be spelled out fully? This is outside of dialogue, of course. I don't know about where you are from, but most of the time people just say the name of the street. "I was walking down Lombard," v. "I was walking down Lombard Street." This works with numbered streets, too: "I was at the corner of Sixteenth and Park when the police cars raced past me." In this case, you would use the standard rules for writing numbers, so it would be "I was at the corner of 116th and Park." (http://theeditorsblog.net/2013/01/13/numbers-in-fiction/) This is especially, though not exclusively, true when the context clearly indicates it's a street (walking, driving, the shops along, at the east end of, at the intersection of, etc.) Some exceptions: 1) when the type of street has become part of its name through custom (Abbey Road, Bourbon Street, Fifth Avenue, etc.), in which case both abbreviating it and leaving off the type would look unnatural. 2) when there could be confusion if you don't specify that it's a street (Hollywood v. Hollywood Boulevard). 3) For highways, use whatever the person would say out loud, probably. So I'd say I-5 up here. In Austin most people call Loop 1 "Mopac" most of the time, and the signs usually (but not always) say both. I don't know how I would deal with Austinite's calling Capitol of Texas Highway/Loop 360 only "360" most of the time....that actually seems common in a lot of places. If your narrator isn't your character, you have to figure out what it would be in the narrative voice instead.
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# ? May 11, 2017 18:47 |
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Dr. Kloctopussy posted:3) For highways, use whatever the person would say out loud, probably. So I'd say I-5 up here. In Austin most people call Loop 1 "Mopac" most of the time, and the signs usually (but not always) say both. I don't know how I would deal with Austinite's calling Capitol of Texas Highway/Loop 360 only "360" most of the time....that actually seems common in a lot of places. If your narrator isn't your character, you have to figure out what it would be in the narrative voice instead. Three-Sixty for most conversational usage, most likely, as in "I was driving down [the] Three-Sixty when I heard a thump so I pulled over and..." One of those things where you don't think about how it's actually said most of the time. God I dealt with too many roads in my last job.
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# ? May 11, 2017 19:22 |
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# ? May 13, 2024 10:15 |
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neongrey posted:Three-Sixty for most conversational usage, most likely, as in "I was driving down [the] Three-Sixty when I heard a thump so I pulled over and..." Ok, there's only one thing to do, and that's start paying attention to how other authors do this. "When I left Lydia I didn't go straight down 101 into the city; instead, I veered off at the 580 and drove to Oakland." BUT ALSO "I drove back to the 101 and up to Sonoma County" --Claire DeWitt and the Bohemian Highway, Sara Gran My ramblings: If I read three-sixty, I definitely would not think of the road. The problem, and I don't think this is just me, is that for numbered roads like that, it's not just the sound, it's the look. Like when I read, three-sixty and 360 are not the same at all even though they would sound the same out loud. Similarly, you can't really write "the 101" as "the one-oh-one." Everyone just writes 360 casually, and I would be inclined to do the same if I was writing from an Austin person's perspective. Maybe call it Loop 360 the first time or if I really wanted to start a sentence with it. The 360 issue doesn't bother me as much as Highway 71, because at least 360 should be written in numerals according to the standard rules. If I saw "driving down Seventy-One," or even "Driving down Highway Seventy-One," I would not think of the Hwy 71 that I know and hate. And Oh god, what if you were talking about the part that was Seventy-One/290?! (https://www.yelp.com/topic/austin-mopac-expressway-just-wondering if you want to read a bunch of Austin people talking about roads) Dr. Kloctopussy fucked around with this message at 23:08 on May 11, 2017 |
# ? May 11, 2017 22:58 |