Present tense storytelling is challenging. Why? We don’t easily adjust to the every-moment-is-now mentality when our mind is wanting to describe something “as it took place,” not “as it is taking place now.” We have to force ourselves not to see the future that we have already experienced, either in real life or in our imagination.
Paula Hawkins does remarkably well at maintaining the present tense, but even she can occasionally drift into unnecessary past-tense telling of what happened, losing the intensity of the moment.
In the following paragraph, let’s see what we can do to move the sense from something that’s happening in the past to something that’s happening right now.
Great words from The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins:
By the time I got to the practice, I’d worked myself up into a state of complete and utter terror: I was convinced that he was going to look at me and somehow know that I knew, that he was going to view me as a threat. I was afraid that I would say the wrong thing, that somehow I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from saying Megan’s name. Then I walked into a doctor’s waiting room, boring and bland, and spoke to a middle-aged receptionist, who took my details without really looking at me. I sat down and picked up a copy of Vogue and flicked through it with trembling fingers, trying to focus my mind on the task ahead while at the same time attempting to look unremarkably bored, just like any other patient.
What we might see for an improved version in present tense:
By the time I get to the practice, I’ve worked myself into a state of utter terror. The psychologist is going to look at me and somehow see that I know. He will view me as a threat. I’ll say the wrong thing, unable to stop myself from mentioning Megan’s name.
I walk into the doctor’s waiting room, boring and bland, and speak to a middle-aged receptionist, who takes my details without really noticing me. I sit down and pick up a copy of Vogue, flicking through it with trembling fingers, trying to focus my mind on the session ahead. At the same time, I try to appear unremarkably bored, just like any other patient.
Logic for making improvements:
- All the past-tense verbs change to present tense: got to get, I’d to I’ve, was to is, walked to walk, and so on.
- “Complete and utter terror” is overdone. Can utter terror ever be incomplete? We need to leave out “complete.”
- “I was convinced that he was going to look at me” is a telling statement as she observes herself. To give readers the sense of being the character, we want to avoid the “I was convinced part” and write: “The psychologist is going to look at me.”
- The subjective sense of “would” describes a supposition that is more distant from her present imagination that is best described using “will.” Instead of “he was going to view me,” we want “he will view me.” Instead of “I would say the wrong thing,” we should have, “I’ll say the wrong thing.”
- “I was afraid” is a telling phrase. By leaving out that phrase, we deepen the point of view and feel the fear directly: “I’ll say the wrong thing, unable to stop myself from mentioning Megan’s name.”
- When she walks into the psychiatrist’s office, we have a shift in the point of focus and need a new paragraph.
- “Noticing me” is probably a more accurate visual than “looking at me.”
