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I wrote like gangbusters yesterday and hope to continue the trend today. I'm happy to be writing so volubly again. I have, however, encountered a problem.
I'm writing Die Sprache primarily as a reminiscience. I started it in simple past, switched to present to denote that the thoughts were occurring now, and then descended into almost constant pluperfect, which is a constant stream of hillocks and dunes. Most of the time, this arrangement doesn't present a problem when it comes to actions; it creates quite a conundrum, though, when it comes to dreams and emotional states and beliefs that continue into the present. If, for example, Character A resented his abusive father as a child and continued to resent and fear him as an adult. So, if I'm writing a dream sequence--but writing a dream that has already happened--do I write it in simple past, pluperfect, or, if the emotional truth maintains its truth in the present, present tense?
You see my dilemma, and if I had known what I was setting myself up for when I started, I would've written the whole thing in the present tense, but it was originally intended as a one-shot and inexplicably ballooned into a soul-devouring behemoth.
An example of the problem:
His father's footsteps had grown louder, the rumble of distant thunder, and a shadow had fallen over the small room and filled the tub with a dark sluice that had puddled between his feet and lapped at his toes. A heartbeat of silence, a moment in which Richard had been allowed to hope that the worst was over.
Then, Richard! I know you're in there, you stupid boy. It's time for your lessons. His father's fist against the door. You'll not like it if I have to come fetch you out. The knocks had increased in frequency until they'd become a roaring fullisade, the heart of the storm come at last.
The room had begun to pitch and seesaw with the force of the blows, and he'd known that the door wouldn't hold much longer. It would buckle beneath the blows and let the monster inside, and it would be no monster of burlap and straw and shadows, but solid, blood and bone and drunken hatred. Inside the tub, the rust stains had softened and begun to weep, and he'd moaned in animal terror as the warmth had coated his spasming soles.
I won't open my eyes, he'd thought. I don't want to see.
But in dreams, there is knowledge without sight, and he'd known even without opening his eyes that the sticky warmth beneath his feet had been blood. Maybe it had come from the tub, a tub that had accepted more than its fair share of the liquid into its narrow gullet, or maybe it had come from his clogged nose or his back, which had weltered and sizzled with unseen cuts. He'd also known that if he dangled his fingers over the side, they would find not cracked linoleum curling at the edges, but mud, cold and clinging and merciless.
It had begun to rain inside the yawing bathroom, and Richard had known the end was nigh. The door would fail, and his father would enter and bring the lightning with him. He'd pressed his face into his knees and prayed for his mother or the Hungarian farmer's wife to save him, but his mother had never come and never would. She had always waited until after, when the blows had been struck and the blood had been drying on his bruised, flushed skin. A glass of water and a cold washcloth wouldn't save him.
And the farmer's wife had been long gone, snug in her stone cottage and unmindful of a terrified man-boy cowering in a tub she had never seen.
Maybe it won't hurt this time. Maybe it'll happen so fast that I won't feel anything but the vaccuum pain leaves behind, the dull emptiness of an anesthetized gum. But it would hurt, and there would be no blessed numbness. His father would make sure of that. He always had.
There's a tightassed proofreader and hard-bitten former English teacher inside my brain screaming that switching to the present for the line, "But there is truth in dreams..." is bad and lazy and a dreadful case of Limp Tense, but another part of my brain insists that the use of pluperfect is incorrect because it implies that the statement is no longer true. It is true, now and always, and so here I sit, torn between two masters. Does anyone have any thoughts, or at least a cool compress for my burning brain?
One of my favorite pictures of Richard Kruspe. His cheekbones kill me.
I'm writing Die Sprache primarily as a reminiscience. I started it in simple past, switched to present to denote that the thoughts were occurring now, and then descended into almost constant pluperfect, which is a constant stream of hillocks and dunes. Most of the time, this arrangement doesn't present a problem when it comes to actions; it creates quite a conundrum, though, when it comes to dreams and emotional states and beliefs that continue into the present. If, for example, Character A resented his abusive father as a child and continued to resent and fear him as an adult. So, if I'm writing a dream sequence--but writing a dream that has already happened--do I write it in simple past, pluperfect, or, if the emotional truth maintains its truth in the present, present tense?
You see my dilemma, and if I had known what I was setting myself up for when I started, I would've written the whole thing in the present tense, but it was originally intended as a one-shot and inexplicably ballooned into a soul-devouring behemoth.
An example of the problem:
His father's footsteps had grown louder, the rumble of distant thunder, and a shadow had fallen over the small room and filled the tub with a dark sluice that had puddled between his feet and lapped at his toes. A heartbeat of silence, a moment in which Richard had been allowed to hope that the worst was over.
Then, Richard! I know you're in there, you stupid boy. It's time for your lessons. His father's fist against the door. You'll not like it if I have to come fetch you out. The knocks had increased in frequency until they'd become a roaring fullisade, the heart of the storm come at last.
The room had begun to pitch and seesaw with the force of the blows, and he'd known that the door wouldn't hold much longer. It would buckle beneath the blows and let the monster inside, and it would be no monster of burlap and straw and shadows, but solid, blood and bone and drunken hatred. Inside the tub, the rust stains had softened and begun to weep, and he'd moaned in animal terror as the warmth had coated his spasming soles.
I won't open my eyes, he'd thought. I don't want to see.
But in dreams, there is knowledge without sight, and he'd known even without opening his eyes that the sticky warmth beneath his feet had been blood. Maybe it had come from the tub, a tub that had accepted more than its fair share of the liquid into its narrow gullet, or maybe it had come from his clogged nose or his back, which had weltered and sizzled with unseen cuts. He'd also known that if he dangled his fingers over the side, they would find not cracked linoleum curling at the edges, but mud, cold and clinging and merciless.
It had begun to rain inside the yawing bathroom, and Richard had known the end was nigh. The door would fail, and his father would enter and bring the lightning with him. He'd pressed his face into his knees and prayed for his mother or the Hungarian farmer's wife to save him, but his mother had never come and never would. She had always waited until after, when the blows had been struck and the blood had been drying on his bruised, flushed skin. A glass of water and a cold washcloth wouldn't save him.
And the farmer's wife had been long gone, snug in her stone cottage and unmindful of a terrified man-boy cowering in a tub she had never seen.
Maybe it won't hurt this time. Maybe it'll happen so fast that I won't feel anything but the vaccuum pain leaves behind, the dull emptiness of an anesthetized gum. But it would hurt, and there would be no blessed numbness. His father would make sure of that. He always had.
There's a tightassed proofreader and hard-bitten former English teacher inside my brain screaming that switching to the present for the line, "But there is truth in dreams..." is bad and lazy and a dreadful case of Limp Tense, but another part of my brain insists that the use of pluperfect is incorrect because it implies that the statement is no longer true. It is true, now and always, and so here I sit, torn between two masters. Does anyone have any thoughts, or at least a cool compress for my burning brain?
One of my favorite pictures of Richard Kruspe. His cheekbones kill me.
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