In the Moment (or, the Benefits to Present Tense)

One of the last decisions I need to make, regarding the second draft I’m about to begin, has to do with tense. Not tension, though there’s plenty of that. In this case, tense is a noun, not an adjective, and I need to choose one.

More and more books seem to be written in present tense these days. I read 3-4 books a week, and while past tense still seems to be more common, books written in present are no longer a tiny minority. I don’t think this will ever become a stylistic mandate, like omniscient narration gave way to non-omniscient viewpoint. But I think it’s been used often enough that we can make some observations about its effects.

So what’s the difference? Let’s compare some examples.

George walked over to the body. He drew a pencil from his pocket and used it to pry the mouth open. Without any warning whatsoever, an alien larva leaped out and bored its way into his brain. He was dead in seconds.

versus

George walks over to the body. He draws a pencil from his pocket and uses it to pry the mouth open. He sees motion there, behind the tongue. There’s no warning, no time even to flinch. It’s already in the air. He catches a glimpse of the creature as it dives at his face. The pain was indescribable, but mercifully brief.

There are other stylistic differences between these two examples, and that’s part of the point - something happening right now is more of an experience, whereas something that happened in the past is, fundamentally, a retelling of a little piece of history.

I’ve observed a handful of benefits to present tense as a storytelling form:

• It puts the reader right into the action. There’s a sense that these events are happening now. It’s almost too easy to make action exciting…and I’ll talk about the flip side later.
• There’s a sense that every event is a surprise. As in real life, the future is unknown. In past tense form, it’s never quite clear how long ago these events happened, and whether they are in any relevant to the present.
• When combined with first-person perspective, past tense generally promises the survival of the protagonist. Present tense makes no such guarantee. Some books and movies have famously exploited this assumption by violating it, e.g. American Beauty, but it always seems awkward to me. The suggestion that the protagonist will survive—and by extension, win the conflict/succeed in the quest—brings subtle but far-reaching consequences to the story and reading experience. I find it very hard to fear for a protagonist when I know, deep down and with conviction, that not only is she going to win, she’s already won. Because this is the future, and we’re already there.

These are pretty compelling reasons to consider present tense. But there are downsides as well, and I’ll go into them next.