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Breaking the Rules: Using Present Tense in Fiction

In my copy of the 1922 edition of Emily Post’s Etiquette, she says “…a first rule for behavior in society is: ‘Try to do and say those things only which will be agreeable to others.'” So, I wonder if I’ll be ruffling any feathers when I publish this post on writing a novel in present tense?

I know. Throw “present tense” in the midst of a discussion on fiction and you beg for trouble, maybe even set the stage for a form rejection.

But hear me out.

My first writing teacher, Ariel Gore, reminded us one day that a good memoir reads like fiction and great fiction can read like a memoir. The art of the narrative is critical in both genres.

Writers of creative nonfiction often use fiction techniques. And, once in a while, a technique for writing memoir crosses over into fiction. I first considered how the practice of writing memoir can influence a work of fiction in a post I wrote on Stanley Kunitz, Memoir and Fiction. When I flipped open my June issue of The Writer and read an article by Mimi Schwartz on using present tense in memoir, I wondered again about transferable techniques.

I punched out the first draft of my current novel-in-progress during NaNoWriMo two years ago.  In thirty days, I wrote a little over 50,000 words of a story that unfolded in present tense. At the time, I was very much a novice writer and didn’t consider the rule that fiction is usually written in past tense. I didn’t consider anything. I was hunched over a keyboard chasing down a character and her tale before she got away. In the end, I was thrilled at having written a full story, even in its most raw stage.

In between the first draft and a serious rewrite, I read a novel that is written in present tense. I barely made it through the novel; each chapter sounded like a running commentary. So, when I sat down to study and rework chapter one of my WIP, I weighed my options: keep the story as is – in present tense – and risk losing the reader after the first few pages, or rework the story into past tense.

As an emerging writer, I wanted to learn my craft (and earn my way) by following the rules first; I could break them later. So, I changed the tense of the story. Each time I re-read my new version of chapter one, though, something pulled at the back of my throat. My gut twisted. My head was telling me to go one way, but the story insisted I go another.

Isn’t that just how it works sometimes? The story has a mind of it’s own, and I am simply a conductor. I couldn’t ignore the pull to return to present tense.

Here’s where Mimi Schwartz’s article (“The special power of present tense”) comes in. Schwartz mentions a few specific ways that present tense can strengthen memoir.

“For creative nonfiction writers, the act of discovery is what makes the genre so appealing.”

When reading a story written in present tense, the audience experiences the immediacy of the character’s own discoveries, adding to the suspense of the story.

Schwartz also says that using present tense can highlight the main character’s “[changes] over time.” Sure, you can do this with past tense as well, but Schwartz emphasizes her point by sharing her own experience when she used it her memoir Good Neighbors, Bad Times: Echoes of My Father’s German Village:

“…[T]he village and the villagers kept drawing me back, literally and figuratively, into their living rooms and kitchens, as I tried to uncover why these people mattered to me in New Jersey, 70 years later. And the present tense let the reader come along; we walk together in my father’s old world, trying to figure it out.”

Writing fiction in present tense can be a stylistic choice that taps into the readers senses and emotion on a deeper level.

There’s still a part of me that worries I’m biting off more than can chew, being so green and all, but I like a challenge. And I also like to listen to the way the story wants to be told. That means, my choice to stick with present tense must be a stylistic move and not a way of avoiding a major restructuring of a draft. Throughout the whole rewriting process, I must make each word, phrase, and passage count.

What are your experiences with present tense? Have you written a short story or a novel that cried out for it? Or, have you read a novel that used it successfully?

*****

Schwartz, Mimi. “The special power of present tense.” The Writer. June 2010: 26-27. Print.

Post, Emily. Etiquette. United States of America: Funk & Wagnalls Company, 1922. p.  Print.

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My Secret Map – Writing Exercise

Linda Lappin’s guest post a few days ago, on “the soul of place,” struck a chord with me (if you haven’t read it yet, back up a post before you read more here). She spoke on maps and how – often – the physicality of layout eclipses a greater meaning.

“We all have our private maps of the neighborhoods, houses, rooms and other places where we have lived.”

“Such maps are uniquely individual to each lover of a place.  No two will be alike. Our private maps attempt to localize and identify the “quality” or spirit of place as it has interacted with us on an individual basis and influenced our lives.”

The writing exercise at the end of her post asks the writer to choose an environment, or a space in time, and explore feelings and experiences associated with that time or place. I read her post and her exercise, and then I pulled out a memoir piece I wrote well over a year ago. The piece is a short essay that grew from writing prompt entitled “where I’m from.” I wrote about the house where I lived from the time I was eleven until I moved out at twenty.

My memories of that house stick with me like the warm sun on the first Spring day, or like the weight of a heavy stone I’m forced to carry. Once in a long while, I drive by the house, to make sure it’s still standing. To remind myself that it was real. To stretch my neck and peer into the windows, looking for life inside.

I worked Linda’s exercise with that memoir piece – that house – in mind. Choosing a few significant places in the house and drawing a sketch of the layout was easy. The bigger challenge came in drawing a line from site to site and writing down a verb that described that connection. I knew each line marked a passage, to safety or discovery. Eventually, I wrote down these verbs: discover, hide, open, close. Another word that rose to the surface – not a verb but still significant – was “secrets.”

After Linda’s exercise, I took two paragraphs from the original piece and rewrote them.

The original text:

That house seized me the first week we moved in. My bedroom wasn’t finished yet, the fancy wallpaper still had to be hung. So I slept upstairs in the exercise room at the other end of the hallway. The room felt huge, with just a bed and no other furniture. There was a door that led to the attic. Strangely, the door could be locked from the outside. To keep something in, I wondered?

That door, in partnership with a large oak tree right outside the window, filled me with fear most nights. I would stand at the doorway, one hand on the light switch and the other pulled back in a running stance. I would click and run, one-two-three steps, then dive onto the bed. I had to time it just right, so that milliseconds after the click I would be safely under covers. If I looked over at the window and saw the tree, I was doomed. So I pulled up the covers and stared at the ceiling until I fell asleep. I hated that room.

The new version:

From the first week we moved in, that house seized me.

My bedroom sat empty at one end of the hallway, the walls chalky and unfinished. The floor bare of any furniture. It smelled of new construction, but it was uninhabitable. For the first several weeks, I slept in the extra room at the other end of the hallway – a space that would later be termed the exercise room.

The exercise room took up twice as much space as a regular bedroom. A window looked out onto a large oak tree that blocked my view of the back yard. Under the shadow of night, the tree morphed into a series of crooked arms.

Opposite the window was a door that led into a walk-in attic. The attic housed some sort of HVAC unit and one of the bull horns for the house alarm system. After we first moved in, the alarm went off at the slightest provocation. If I was in that room when it sounded, I didn’t stay long. One piercing howl from the alarm sent me bolting out the door and down a flight of stairs in two jumps.

And, for reasons unknown, the attic door locked from the outside.

To keep something in, I was sure.

At eleven years old, I stood at the doorway of that room at bedtime, bookended by a crooked old monster and a cave. My only refuge was the bed set up in the middle of the room. I stood at the doorway, one hand on the light switch and the other pulled back in a running stance. I had to time the click of the light and my run to safety just right, so that milliseconds after the light went out, I would be safe under covers.

I focused on the bed, my target. I took a breath. I flipped the switch.

In one-two-three long strides, I was close enough to jump the remaining distance to the bed and slide under the covers. If I looked over at the window and saw the tree, I was doomed. If the house alarm went off, I slept downstairs.

I pulled up the covers and stared at the ceiling until I fell asleep.

Did you try Linda’s exercise? What discoveries came to light as you sketched your secret map?

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Fiction vs. Memoir

On Salon.com, Laura Miller wrote “A new book says: Fiction is dead, long live the age of autobiography,” in which she reviews Ben Yagoda’s book Memoir: A History. Laura Miller quotes Ben Yagoda when he claims fiction has become “like painting in the age of photography — a novelty item.”

He isn’t the first to say that nonfiction, including memoir, sells better than fiction. Nathan Bransford, in his recent article in the Huffington post, said “for many years adult nonfiction was the bread and butter workhorse of the industry.”  It isn’t that fiction is better than non, or vice versa, it just seems to be a fact that we are drawn to the stories of real people more often than the tales of our made-up friends.

It’s easy to slide on over to the nonfiction section in the bookstore and get caught up in the lives of real people suffering, and surviving. Reality TV plays a big part in our attraction to the memoir, as does our need to know that someone out in the real world might be worse off than we are. I think Laura Miller would agree, since she says “the characters and events in memoirs are often, like real people and events, the subjects of energetic controversy….”  Even when we know the ending of the story, we still ravage ourselves with the details.

So, Laura Miller’s article got me thinking. I like memoir, but I also like good fiction. I walked into the bookstore today with my daughter determined to leave with a new novel. While she twirled and tumbled in the middle of the store, I scanned the Indie Bound bookshelves.

I’m terrible at making decisions under pressure, so I let her pick out a book. She finally sat down on a couch, and I turned and found a bookcase of all the Best American anthologies. When I saw Alice Sebold edited the The 2009 Best American Short Stories, I stopped looking.

Alice Sebold’s introduction also acknowledges recent trends in the publishing industry. She says “highlighting good fiction is more important now than it ever has been.” I agree. She could have been talking about memoir or fiction when she writes “a story about grief can comfort; a story about arrogance can shock and yet confirm; a story populated largely by landscape, whether lush or industrial, can expand the realm that we as individuals inhabit.” But, she insists that great fiction narrative is just as critical to the publishing industry as great memoir.

If nonfiction is the mainstay that pushes the publishing industry through a recession, then taking risks and publishing fiction becomes even more critical.

“Stories provide an endless access into another world, brought forth by an infinite number of gifted minds,” Alice Sebold writes. Great fiction, like memoir, must find readers. And, it can’t find an audience if it’s never published.

I can’t wait to dive into the stories Alice Sebold deems Best of the best.

***

Sebold, Alice, ed. The Best American Short Stories. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009. Print.