(1835 - 1910)
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Here's a grammar question for you: if I am writing in first person, past tense, and my MC (main character) is REMEMBERING something that happened, do I write that in past perfect? We had been in the weight room when ....? I wrote a paragraph like that and it seemed so...cumbersome. Weak. So I switched it to past tense--but that didn't seem quite right. Although maybe I could do this as a flashback? With a white space above and below?
Or maybe I should just take that memory out and make it a separate scene and put it in the linear timeline? Then it would be past tense. Maybe this would make it more active?
And is there any benefit for having it one way or another? I mean, I've read stuff about mixing up the timeline to create an impact. But I guess I'd love to know what impact it is supposed to have.
Any thoughts on the matter?
9 comments:
Sarah;
Send an e-mail to Cerise. I think she's the grammar guru. Might try Marcie too. Maybe just try what reads right to you and to hell with the rules.
Sarah,
I'b baaaack. Mackinaw City was great fun, even if I did play tourist more than write. But I'm home and ready to get back to it.
Using the past perfect can be cumbersome. What some people do (and what I do) is to use the past perfect at the beginning of the memory to tip off the reader that the event takes place in the distant past. Then you can switch to the simple past and just sprinkle the "hads" in the section. The the transition out of the memory has to be clear by word choice or white space. Generally, the sections I've done like this haven't been very long. Now that you've posed the question, I'm interested in going back to things I've read and seeing how they've done it.
I'm so excited to get writing again. I can actually start to see how lots of things scenes are going to piece together and take me almost to the end. I've even broken my own rules and (gasp!) written down most of the upcoming events so I don't lose track of them.
Word Count: Unknown and holding (at the moment)
What I'm listening to: Melissa Etheridge "The Road Less Travelled" (she's fun to sing with :-0 )
**laughs**
Well, that'll teach me to publish something without re-reading it.
I meant to say "I'm back," not sound like I've got a head cold.
Sarah;
Check the library for "The Road to Tinkhamtown" by Corey Ford. It will be in any hunting anthology. Try the best of Field & Stream: A 100 Years of Great Writing. He slips in and out of the present and the past several times. You also won't ever forget the story. And the amazing thing it was published first draft with no editing.
If you can't find it let me know. I have the original first published in the magazine in 1970.
Thanks, for the suggestions. I'll take a look at that article, Larry, and I'll try your suggestion, Robyn. And then the cool thing is I can bring it to my small group on Monday. See what they think.
How cool is it, Robyn, that the end is in sight?! And writing it down doesn't mean you are stuck with it. I do "rough" outlines all the time--just things I think should happen and the order in which they should happen. And then it changes when I actually start writing. So then I change the outline. But that's cool. It would be boring otherwise.
Of course, you're talking to a person who makes lists and then does things that aren't on the list. Then I write it on the list just so I can cross it out.
Sarah;
I like you retroactive list making. Very funny.
You can also find "The Road to Tinkhamtown" on the web. In addition to writing for Field & Stream in the 50s and 60s, Corey Ford wrote novels and screenplays. He hung out with the stingily witty Ms. Parker, Ring Lardner and other humorists of the era.
You who write novels, amaze me. I get ideas, but sit down to write and freak. I don't have the patience to let the story develop; I want it finished in a day or two. I have an idea for a story where the main character is the land, our land to be exact. The abstract states that it was granted by the United States to the first owner in 1851. In the 156 years it changed hands numerous times, often in the same family--conflict, which might be worked into a plot. Of course, the names would be changed. Maybe I need to try it in the safety of a small writing group or at Khardoma.
Larry,
I read it. Made me cry. Made me feel like I was there, could hear the bell, see the blowdowns.... Reminds me a little of The Last Battle--C.S. Lewis. Familiar, yet not.
Interesting thing in The Road to Tinkhamtown is that the narrator moves between past and present--yet the author writes the whole thing in past tense. There is even past perfect in there when he was remembering a conversation he had with Doc.
Sarah;
I probably should have warned you, but didn't want to spoil the ending. I've read it several times and have yet to make it through with dry eyes.
Hope it helped with your question.
I've used passages--like the lillac bush in my own writing. Lots of the state game areas were once farms that went bust during the depression. Often there's an old foundation, apple tree, or lillac bush.
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