: Re: Using Present Tense to describe a Fact on a story that uses Past Tense newcomer here, and I have a question. I have a story that starts with the sentence, 'the ocean is vast'. However, I'm

@Kevin153

Vote Up Vote Down

If you're deeply in the character's viewpoint, it doesn't matter that a sentence is expressing an everlasting fact. What matters is that it is what the character is experiencing at this moment. Of all the things the character could be thinking about, this is what he is thinking at this moment. So you write it in the same manner as the rest of the character's experience.

The challenge here is that as readers read that first sentence, do not yet know what viewpoint to adopt. They might imagine that this is a character's opinion, even though they don't yet know which character to attribute it to.

But when the next sentence sort of seems to be in Captain Harris's point of view, in past tense, it becomes even less clear whose opinion that opening sentence expressed. It can't be Captain Harris's, because his viewpoint is in past tense. Maybe it's the author's opinion. Uh, oh. Viewpoint confusion. Popped right out of the story before it even begins.

If readers were already in Capt. Harris's viewpoint, you could write the ocean was vast, and readers would get it. They would not take it as suggesting that the ocean is no longer vast.

Actually, I think the viewpoint confusion continues. Until the last sentence, it is not clear whose viewpoint we're in. Until then, the viewpoint is quite aloof. We could be in the viewpoint of someone telling us about Captain Harris. If this were the opening of a movie, all of it (perhaps including the last sentence) could be a voiceover as we watch Captain Harris gazing over the vast ocean.

My suggestion: Leave these opening lines alone for now. Write the story. Then revisit the opening, in full knowledge of how the story goes. Then you'll be a better judge of how to open the story.

(0)

Login to post a comment!