Past, Present, Action!

What is your story doing? What are your characters doing? And by doing I mean to ask are they going, running, searching, crying, laughing, dying? The action—verbs—are being called to attention today as we dive into Chapter 6 of Steering the Craft by Ursula K. Le Guin, specifically their person and tense.

While we’re not jumping ahead to steal Chapter 7’s thunder (which is all about point of view), when we start thinking about story events, we naturally have to consider these things: who’s doing the action and how will that action be conveyed to the reader. Are we relaying events through the lens of the I/me/my or she/he/they? And what kind of voice will that narration have, past or present? Passive or active?

Lots to think about! There may be times when you get started on an idea without doing too much active thinking about which choices you’re making; you just have an idea and you run with it and you circle back later during the editing to determine if you made the right decisions way back at the beginning. That’s perfectly okay. You’re allowed to do what you will with as many drafts as you desire, testing out voice and seeing what works. 

It’s interesting to think about how we even have options, when it comes to whether we’ll write in first-person or third-person. I suppose, you can also throw second-person in there, too, but that’s less utilized. Anyway, why is this interesting? 

Le Guin gives us a mini history lesson, sheds some light on craft evolution. Up until the 16th century, writers wrote all forms of prose in third-person. No question. That’s how things were done. Letters, confessions, diaries, writings of those natures were, of course, told from the “I” but that made sense because they were nonfiction. When it came to fiction, “authors at first felt they had to justify presenting a character in the first person” because that narrative angle had a certain artificial, odd quality about it (48). Because the fictional self was so obviously not the author themselves, that perspective was too contrived. Yet, it was put into practice enough, epistolary novels breaking out, that, by the 18th century, fiction told from the first-person perspective was as common as could be. Interesting, right?

Because we exist post-18th century, our writing norms tell us we can be experimental in trying out various angles for telling our stories. Stories are action and change, and the technical elements we pick to get the job done matter.

Now, full disclosure, I find myself disagreeing with Le Guin in this chapter regarding a few takes she has on verb tense, so let’s get into that.

We’ve got two tenses we’re working with here: past and present. She did vs. she does. He was there vs. he is there. You know it. This is elementary school stuff. Choosing a tense is how you’re choosing to navigate through time in your story. You don’t have to select one and be married to it forever, and you can even use both in the same story, so long as there is reason to and you’re not confusing your readers. After all, “a writer who uses only one tense seems a bit like a painter who, out of a whole set of oil paints, uses only pink” (54). Variety is the spice of life, is it not?

What I disagree with is how Le Guin views present-tense as less flexible and limited (50). Some authors pick this tense because it makes the plot events appear more immediate and real, like they’re coming from an eye-witness. How Le Guin views it is that present-tense shines the light of a flashlight whereas past-tense is the sun. Meaning: “one shows a small, intense, brightly lit field with nothing around it; the other shows the world” (52).

I’ve written stories in both tenses, and I haven’t found that. What I’ve found is that the limitations, how much light you’re able to shine on the world you’re creating, have more to do with who you choose as your narrator. Le Guin believes present-tense narrative “sounds cool—flat, unemotional, uninvolved” (53). I have to wonder who she was reading because there are many examples of present-tense prose that evoke considerable emotion and liveliness. 

I’m wondering, with this chapter, if Le Guin has given verb tense too much weight in the grand scheme of storytelling, especially if she thinks it’s the reason why a story came across as “cool” and “flat.” Could that not have been the fault of under-developed characters? Lack of foils? Descriptions for scenery and atmosphere that could have been more robust? 

As writers, we’re playing around with a whole bunch of components, trying to piece them together and order them so they’re coherent and pleasing and progressing the plot. To pin so much on verb tense comes across as odd and shortsighted. 

Do I think you need to be smart in selecting your person (I vs. she) and the tense in which their verbs are presented (past vs. present)? Absolutely. Le Guin is always asking us to be mindful. 

So, be sharp and aware of the choices you’re making for your story, and don’t be afraid to pivot and try something different, should you need to. And, if you’re looking for some guided practice with verb tense, Le Guin, as usual, has an exercise for us.

EXERCISE FIVE: The Old Woman

Instructions: This should run to a page or so; keep it short and not too ambitious, because you’re going to write the same story twice.

The subject is this: An old woman is busy doing something—washing the dishes, or gardening, or editing a PhD dissertation in mathematics, whatever you like—as she thinks about an event that happened in her youth.

You’re going to intercut between the two times. “Now” is where she is and what she’s doing; “then” is her memory of something that happened when she was young. Your narration will move back and forth between “now” and “then.”

You will make at least two of these moves or time jumps

Version One: PERSON: Choose either first person (I) or third person (She). TENSE: Tell it all in the past tense or all in the present tense. Make the shifts between “now” and “then” in her mind clear to the reader, but be subtle about it if you can.

Version Two: Write the same story. PERSON: Use the person of the verb you didn’t use in Version One. TENSE: Choose a.) present tense for “Now,” past tense for “Then,” or b.) past tense for “now,” present tense for “then.”

Don’t try to keep the wording of the two versions identical. Don’t just go through it on your computer changing the pronoun and the verb endings. Write it over! Changing the person and tense will bring about some changes in the wording, the telling, the feeling of the piece, and that’s what the exercise is all about.

This is a more involved exercise, so good luck with it! Le Guin’s exercises are for you to play around, learn some things about how you write, and acquire some tools to better your process. So, have fun with this one, I’ll catch you next week for Chapter 7, and happy writing, friends!