A Present Obsession

Guys, guys, guys.*

Can someone please explain to me what is going on with what seems to be modern writing’s obsession with present tense? I don’t think I’m over exaggerating when I say that everyone is doing it (or at least almost everyone). To provide some context, most of you know that I recently entered the NYC Midnight Flash Fiction Challenge. One of the cool things that has been set up within the framework of the challenge is that once you’ve completed your story and have received confirmation of your submission, there’s an online forum where you can post your story and receive feedback. It’s completely private, so if you don’t want to do what I did, and post your story publicly, you don’t have to.

Of course, this means that people then go along and read other peoples’ stories and provide feedback on a lot of different aspects of their work because, let’s be honest… Coming up with a decent story idea is really only half the battle. Now, in the interests of full disclosure, I will tell you all: in all honesty, I’ve been feeling a little crabby lately, and rather antisocial. I can’t figure out if I’m becoming more of a hermit because of my increased antisocial tendencies, or whether my rampant hermitage is because I’m starting to dislike people more and more. Perhaps it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy… But it may also have something to do with missing Australia and get some of those expat blues, especially with the Olympics on at the moment.

Regardless! My point here is that it felt like every damn story I read was in present tense.

It got me to thinking about use of tenses. I have recently forced myself to use past tense of a few occasions because I feel as though I default to present tense too quickly (though, interestingly enough, my novel is in past tense). I can’t help but wonder if the use of present tense is so prevalent in short stories because people feel like they don’t have enough time to create tension, which is only exacerbated with a short word limit like the NYC Midnight Flash Fiction Challenges have (1000 words). Is this preference applicable across all contemporary literature? Or have I stumbled upon the only pocket of people in the world who feel the need to exclusively use present tense? I’m not sure, though this excellently written short story from Electric Literature would seem to support the former rather than the latter.

The thing is, present tense is an incredible writing tool. No doubt about it. It is an amazing way to ratchet up tension in the story by forcing the reader to experience the same immediacy the characters feel and when done well, it’s gripping; I think the above story illustrates strong use of present tense. But is it always necessary? That, I can’t quite reconcile myself to, for the simple fact that: nothing is always necessary. Especially not in writing. As writers we need to be constantly testing ourselves and our abilities by forcing ourselves to write differently and about different things, and also challenging what everyone else is doing as well. Otherwise we’ll stagnate and worse, readers will become bored and lose the love of reading. Which honestly would be damn criminal, because most people don’t read enough as it is.

On a mostly unrelated note, I recently read a pretty great blog post about discovering and using your own unique blogging voice (it’s here, if you’d like to check it out). What I found most interesting was that one of the suggestions was holding your post back for a few days in order to redraft and edit as required… I mean, I can barely get them out in time to make the tri-weekly posts, so there’s no capacity for holding them back to ripen in my documents folder! In keeping with such traditions, I’m pretty thrilled I managed to get something out in semi-decent order in a relatively punctual timeframe today 😀

I’d really like to hear some other peoples’ thoughts about use of tense! Do you prefer past or present in your writing? What do you prefer to read? Do you sometimes feel like the world is nothing more than a melting pot of aspiring authors who can’t relinquish their death grip on present tense? Let me know!

— Ana.

*The term ‘guys’ is used gender-neutrally. It’s one of my favourites.