I don't expect you to change the tense of your monster of a story...
It's only... *sigh*
Well, I think there's good reason for the fact that most long stories use simple past: for young ones we call it "Erzählzeit" in German - "tense of story telling". That's mainly because you tell a story after the fact. If you tell a story as it happens it may seem that it has more direct impact, but it is next to impossible to keep the other tenses and the references to future or past events correct.
That's why I would not advise anyone to use present tense for a long story. It's neat in a short story - even if I sometimes feel that it's a cheap trick to give a tale more direct impact where the story really would have needed work on style & plot. Oh well.
You are doing very well, actually. There have been times in each chapter, where you got me frowning at either the logical chain of events in relation to the tenses used or the tenses as such, but for the most part I was not doing the *headdesk*.
But now that you told me how HUGE your monster is, I really can't promise to stay the distance.
I love your style and characterization and I am very excited to see how you go on with the story, but... I just can't say now if I have the endurance for so much present tense. Sorry. *blush* I feel so embarrassed about that.
And I am so sorry for being so pernickety with grammar and things. I don't know for sure (not having changed schools), but I think German "gymnasiums" (=schools for chilren older than 10 who are likely to be good enough for studying at university; we don't have one school for all, but three types of schools for children older than 10) are pretty strict about grammar... be it in German or English. I also spent seven years learning Latin and that really makes you learn grammar (if you nill or will...).
As I said, I don't expect you to change the tense of your story because of me: that would be utterly ridiculous. I only wanted to explain *now* why I might give up commenting thoroughly.
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rosecarmine
(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-04 07:10 pm (UTC)It's only...
*sigh*
Well, I think there's good reason for the fact that most long stories use simple past: for young ones we call it "Erzählzeit" in German - "tense of story telling". That's mainly because you tell a story after the fact. If you tell a story as it happens it may seem that it has more direct impact, but it is next to impossible to keep the other tenses and the references to future or past events correct.
That's why I would not advise anyone to use present tense for a long story. It's neat in a short story - even if I sometimes feel that it's a cheap trick to give a tale more direct impact where the story really would have needed work on style & plot. Oh well.
You are doing very well, actually. There have been times in each chapter, where you got me frowning at either the logical chain of events in relation to the tenses used or the tenses as such, but for the most part I was not doing the *headdesk*.
But now that you told me how HUGE your monster is, I really can't promise to stay the distance.
I love your style and characterization and I am very excited to see how you go on with the story, but... I just can't say now if I have the endurance for so much present tense. Sorry. *blush* I feel so embarrassed about that.
And I am so sorry for being so pernickety with grammar and things. I don't know for sure (not having changed schools), but I think German "gymnasiums" (=schools for chilren older than 10 who are likely to be good enough for studying at university; we don't have one school for all, but three types of schools for children older than 10) are pretty strict about grammar... be it in German or English. I also spent seven years learning Latin and that really makes you learn grammar (if you nill or will...).
As I said, I don't expect you to change the tense of your story because of me: that would be utterly ridiculous. I only wanted to explain *now* why I might give up commenting thoroughly.
Please forgive me.