Writing in Present Tense
Writer’s Guide: Writing in Present Tense
Still stuck trying to choose the right tense for your novel? This is the second installment in the tenses series where we guide you to the perfect fit for your novel. In this post, we are examining writing in present tense. So, if the past tense didn't fit your story, let’s find out if present tense will. Read on!
In today’s market, you’ve probably seen a ton of books written in the present tense, that’s because it’s a modern phenomenon. Present tense novels are most popular among YA (young adult) and fiction. However, these are not the only genres that write in present tense; choosing a tense is always a style choice by the author— do what is best for the story you are telling.
Story examples: The Hunger Games, Divergent, Twilight, Ulysses, All the Light We Cannot See, Happy Place, and It Ends with Us.
You get the idea.
You also may have noticed that books written in the present tense are often paired with a 1st person point of view. This gives the reader a sense of immediacy— it puts them right in the world with their protagonist.
For this case study, I am pulling from present tense 1st person point-of-view books. We will discuss POV in another post, but for now, let’s see what writing in present tense looks like.
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Pros and Cons of writing in Present Tense
Pros:
Immediate intimacy with your protagonist
You can create an unreliable narrator for a twist
Deep point of view
Cons:
It's difficult to write stories that take place over a longer timeline
Limits the narration
Time jumps can be jarring
Akin to the previous article on Writing in Past Tense, you are locked into the tense you choose. That’s not to say you can’t embed scenes using different tenses to show different timelines— you can. If you do, the shift needs to be clear. For present tense novels, this will occur through flashbacks. I’ll break down flashback in another article, so be sure to subscribe to this blog— you don’t want to miss it.
For this case study, we are examining and may spoil the following books: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins and Happy Place by Emily Henry.
For exaMple, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins:
“Twilight is closing in and I am ill at ease. The trees are too thin to offer much concealment. The layer of pine needles that muffles my footsteps also makes tracking animals harder when I need their trails to find water.”
Did you notice the present tense verbs in this excerpt? Is, closing, am, are, offer, muffles, makes, tracking, need, find.
This sentence is littered with verbs that put us into our narrator's shoes; we feel everything because we are in the protagonist's mind. We become and move with everything they do.
This style choice became popular amongst YA fantasy writing. And for good reason— it’s highly immersive. When a reader steps into a fantastical world filled with adventure, unlike the real world, we love the thrill of transporting into it. The reader becomes the protagonist.
Here’s another example, Happy Place by Emily Henry:
“He’s wearing a gray T-shirt, half tucked into slate-blue chinos, and the color combination brings out all the green in his eyes as they rove over what I now must rename my Vengeance Dress. He misses a half step in the process but recovers quickly, averting his eyes as he heads to the fridge and starts filling his water bottle.”
Comment below and tell me if you spot the present tense verbs from this excerpt.
From the above passage, did you notice we are observing everything in real-time from our protagonist's perspective— we don’t know what the male is thinking— all we know is how our protagonist perceives him in that moment. We feel what the main character is experiencing— we move through time linearly, as they do.
That is what you're deciding when writing in present tense— to move linearly with your narrator to portray a story.
Writing in present tense has different forms:
The Simple Present Tense: habitual actions.
Ex: “I write every morning.”
The Present Progressive Tense: an action that is happening now and continuing.
Ex: “I am writing…”
The Present Perfect Tense: an action that is happening with the help of auxiliary verbs have or has. It’s used to describe a verb that has happened in the past and still continues in the present.
Ex: “I have written every morning…”
The Present Perfect Progressive Tense: an action that started in the past and continues in the present, is incomplete up to the present, or expresses emphasis.
Ex: “I have been writing since this morning.”
I know it’s a lot to take in, but the best way to understand the verb tenses is to practice; reading and writing are your allies. I hope this guide to writing in present tense is helpful to you. Leave a comment below and tell me!
Approaching tense in your novel.
The next time you approach your current writing project, I challenge you to read what you’ve written thus far and focus on the tense. Has your project already chosen its tense unconsciously to you? Do you find yourself jumping between tenses?
If you are weaving between writing in present tense and then jumping into past (not by flashback), I implore you to rewrite the same page separately in both past and present tense. Feel out what your story chooses— surrender to its call. Once it reveals itself to you, stick to it. And if you need guided help— come back to this post for reference, pick up a book in the tense you’re writing in and study it, or do both!
You got this! Remember, writing is rewriting.
