As you read a memoir (or novel) written in the past tense, you automatically find yourself switching the story which is generally written in the past tense (“she said”; “he did”) into the present. You see the memoir character doing something in story time, IN THE PRESENT. (“She says”; “he does.”
The imagination seems to see everything in the present. That is why when you have dreams they are enacted in the present and why, when you rehash an old insult, it is again unfolding for you in the present and you once again feel the pain that had dominated you years ago. The present is the language the imagination uses. When you are writing a memoir, you and the reader invariably imagine the story in the story time present.
The historical present
The “present” of the story is sometimes called the “historical present” but is written in the past tense. When we read, “She said,” we are not thinking the past. The character is moving about in our imagination and we see her as “present.” Most memoirs and novels are written in the past tense—or, as we writers call it, in the historical present.
The two presents challenging the writer
Writers will sometimes confuse the present when they are writing a story and the story-time present of the story. For example, one twenty-first-century writer wrote about walking with his mother and seeing a 1931 Cadillac which he described as “an old Cadillac.” When pressed for the date, he and his mother were walking downtown, he confessed it must have been 1931 or at the latest 1932. So in fact, in the story time, the car was either new or fairly new. Calling it “old” is inappropriate and will only confuse the reader.
In conclusion
Pay attention to the historical present and do not confuse it with the present of writing time.
How to be a Better Storyteller
In this YouTube video on how to be a better storyteller, I share with you how you can learn to make effective use of a variety of technical skills to shape successful lifestories.
Before Sending a Manuscript To An Editor / Part 3: Time Sequencing and Flashbacks
Note from the Editor: This third installment of Before Sending a Manuscript to an Editor series offers basic editing tips around time sequencing and flashbacks. For Part 1: Self-Editing Techniques Click here. For Part 2: Use of Time Click here.
A writer can effect these tips to bring a manuscript to a higher level of finish before sending the piece off to a professional editor. In this section, I write about use of time: specifically, cause and effect time sequencing and flashbacks.
Cause and Effect
In the previous post on the use of time, I wrote about the cause-and-effect sequence as a sub-aspect of proper chronology.
Before I get to the cause-and-effect sequence which is an absolutely necessary styling element to understand, I need to review an essential element of memoir writing (as of fiction): the suspension of disbelief.
A writer can effect these tips to bring a manuscript to a higher level of finish before sending the piece off to a professional editor. In this section, I write about time sequencing: specifically, cause and effect sequencing and the flashback. [Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]
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Historical Present: A Better Relationship to Memoir Story Time
Your relationship to memoir story time
Writers often jumble the use of time in the memoir. The time in which the story unfolds is considered to be the present of the story—often called the “historical present.”
When I write, “She ran into the woods,” the run occurs in the present of the narration—that is the memoir story time. While I have used the past tense (ran), the reader sees the woman running in the mind’s present. We call that the “historical present.”
The reader is always mentally in the present of the story. Following is a line from a text I edited recently. The present of the text is in the spring of the year while the move mentioned in the story was sometime in the past of the story present. That is, it occurred some time previous to what we consider the story present [the historical present].
This is the line the editing client had written, “…a couple of months after I moved into my new apartment…” [Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]