Now is the Right Time

You read the book a week ago, someone else is reading it right now, and still another person will read the book someday far into the future. If you are given an assignment that requires writing about the book, however, it doesn’t matter when you read it (as long as you read it in plenty of time to write about it for your assignment). Discussions of written works are supposed to be written in present tense, also known as literary present tense.

There actually is a reason for the rule that says that writing about writing is done in the present tense. Books, plays, movies, poems, and other literary works are considered to exist in a timeless place; but when referring to them, there is a given time – it is always right now, in the moment, in the present. The logic behind this convention is that even if you read the book five months ago, well into your personal past, the book still exists in the present and continues to do so in the future.

Exceptions to the rule come into the mix when writing about subjects other than literature, though. For some disciplines (science, math, history, etc.), the convention or preference of instructors may be for their students to use past tense, at times even when the students are writing about something they’ve read for a course.

While you probably won’t need to ask an English teacher whether or not past tense is acceptable when writing about written works (the answer is definitely “no”) other instructors may not may insist on the traditional rule. It’s best to double check with individual instructors and verify requirements before composing an essay.

What is likely to happen when you quote from a book about which you’re writing? You’ve probably heard that it’s wrong to mix tenses in a sentence; and it’s equally probable that the quote you’ve chosen to use will be framed in past tense, since most stories are written in past tense. Again, exceptions occur. Continue to use present tense in your own discussion of the literary work.

A sentence that leads into the quote might go something like this:

The author of Zee Book tells the reader his character represents joy when he writes, “Zee loudly proclaimed that she’d never before known such terrible happiness.”

The tenses are mixed, yes, but there is a logic that continues throughout your paper. You have discussed the book and provided evidence of what you say through a quote about the character in present tense, while the quote from the book in past tense flows along without confusing the reader.

As long as you keep to a pattern, that of using present tense for discussions of written works, there won’t be strange or awkward tense shifts in your paper.

See you next time the breeze is cool, the sun is up, and the waves roll into view! ‘Til then, hang ten!