Let Me Help You With Choosing the Right Tense for Your Novel
Need help on choosing the right tense for your novel? This blog will help!
Every story has a voice that speaks to the reader. Whether it’s the main character narrating or someone else looking in on the lives of your novel’s characters, YA authors (well, ALL authors) need to decide how they want to tell their story.
It sets your reader’s expectations, as different tenses and points of view (POV) make specific impressions on how a story is perceived. So how you approach this fundamental factor in your novel’s structure matters. But when it comes to selecting the best tense for your tale, there are a few things to consider, so I want to break that down with you.
What Is A Book’s “Tense”?
The tense of a novel has nothing to do with how stressful the content is or whether multiple people are camping (ba dum-psh!). “Tense” is the verb tense you use while writing out the action in your story.
The verbs you use express the time in which they take place, whether events are happening as they’re read or if they’re being related as something that happened in the past or will happen in the future (that said, no one writes future tense). Present and past tense each conveys a different tone to your audience.
Present
As I wrote, everything happens as the narrator sees it happening at that moment. It gives every action a sense of immediacy and urgency that typically draws readers closer to your narrator’s journey.
It makes the story more personal for them as they feel the action is happening to them as it’s happening to your protagonist. That said, it’s a less-common tense, so reading it can be jarring for most audiences, so consider that. Here’s an example for you:
“It’s so hot out, I feel dizzy and worry that I could pass out while watering the garden. Drinking from the hose makes me feel better.”
Past
The more common tense is past. Everything has happened to the characters, and the narrator relates it as such, like you’re sitting down for a coffee, and they’re telling you about what happened to them a few weeks ago.
It makes storytelling less rigid for writers since they can expand beyond one person’s point-of-view and see everything going on, like how people watch TV and film. It also makes the story less personal for readers, for better or worse. Here’s what that looks like:
“It was so hot out. I felt dizzy in the heat and worried I would pass out while watering the garden. I drank from the hose, which made me feel better.”
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Who Is the Reader “Listening” To?
When discussing tense, we can’t leave out POV. The perspective you choose to write from will heavily factor into your chosen tense. As a YA author, you typically write from the first-person POV, as I did for Getting By. But you have a few other options available for sharing your story.
First-Person
This POV uses “I” and “we” to get the narrative straight from the source when discussing the characters. Typically it focuses on one person (the protagonist), but sometimes authors will choose to jump from one mind to another.
As I said, it’s pretty standard for YA authors and used elsewhere across genres and formats. It’s great for making that personal connection with the main character and helping readers feel like they’re a part of the action and emotion, going through everything with the protagonist.
Typically, there’s no mystery to the character you’re writing the POV of if they’re a reliable storyteller, as they share all of their thoughts with readers. Though it’s less popular within this format, your character can purposefully mislead readers to build more thrill and tension, but it’s a tricky device to utilize. Either way, it’s worth keeping that in mind when making your decisions.
Second-Person
The least common perspective in narrative storytelling, this POV uses “you” like I do when writing my blogs directed to readers like you! This tool is used primarily in choose-your-own-adventures, where readers are charged with deciding their path in the story and the odd children’s book.
That said, a few adventurous titles employ this as a device for their narrative structure. It’s interactive, telling the audience to act on what they’re reading, giving the story or narrator authority over what is being read.
Third-Person
Probably the POV you’ve read the most, it uses pronouns like “they”, “them”, “she”, and “he” to share the character’s experiences. It’s like readers are looking down on the world or watching it on a screen, seeing everything happening to everyone from a completely outward perspective. But you can still share a character’s thoughts, depending on how you employ a third-person POV.
Using a limited perspective, readers follow the narration of one of the characters in the book. That allows access to their thoughts and feelings throughout the story, keeping things more personal if at a distance. It’s great for keeping readers guessing since they only have one character’s reactions to events and other people as a metric.
However, if you choose an omniscient perspective, you’re still maintaining the outside-looking-in distance but with a narrator that is separate from your story. This narrator sees everything happening from all angles, allowing readers to form their own opinions with more information.
Within this format, you can have a true-omniscient narrator who can share multiple characters’ feelings, thoughts, and perspectives. Or you can use limited-omniscience, where you choose one character the narrator can get into the head of while still at a distance, allowing readers to see what other characters are up to, though not what they’re thinking.
The Best Choice For Your Novel
So with all of that said, what’s the best tense for your story? Choosing the right tense for your novel all depends on the kind of story you want to tell. Define the goals of your narration, and that can lead you to understand the best tense.
When choosing the right tense for your novel, consider who your protagonist is and how much you want to share about them. Ask yourself who or what is the most important subject in the story, and if you want some mystery surrounding that or want your audience to know all they can about them or it.
Do you want to heighten the tension and drama by putting your readers right into your protagonist’s head or let them take it all in at a distance where they can see how everyone is reacting in a given scene?
When you know how you want your story told, you can figure out who is telling it, allowing you to narrow down the POV and tense that fits your book the best.
When you start writing a book, there is a lot to consider; that’s no secret. But figuring out the tense and perspective you want to write from is almost more important than determining the tone and genre.
It’s the structural integrity your story requires before any other content comes into play. Both tense and POV heavily factor into the impact your book will have on your audience, regardless of whether you write sci-fi romance or young adult mystery fiction.
How you narrate your story defines how your audience will see it all play out and sets you up with specific tools for your writing process while others remain in the toolbox. So make the time to consider it before jumping into your story.
If you have questions about choosing the right tense for your novel or want to stay up-to-date on all the great writing tips I have to offer, find me on social media. You can also get in touch with me more directly at jsims@jairesims.com.
About Jaire Sims
Award-Winning YA Author, Course Creator, Blogger, and Self-Publishing Consultant. At twenty-one and as a junior in college, Jaire was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome. Fast forward one year, Jaire proved that he had overcome all of the challenges he had faced up until this point by graduating from Monmouth College with a Bachelor’s Degree in Communication Studies.
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