style question
28 Feb 2012 02:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jennickelsI'm working on this story I started last week for a stargateland challenge (didn't finish it in time) but I've run into a problem and not sure how to work this.
Can you start a story with "once upon a time" and then write it in present tense?
Because I started it in past with the whole "once upon a time" (so right there it's taking place a long time ago) but after the first paragraph I realized it went to present tense. I started typing up what I had written and since there was this disagreement with the tenses I tried to change the entire story to past tense but... it's not working. It sounds so much better in present tense.
When I'm reading it to myself it makes perfect sense for the first paragraph to be past tense, setting up the story but the rest told as if you are right there in present tense (there's also an element of 2nd person with the narrator speaking directly to the reader). But I'm not sure if other people would appreciate that or think I was just dumb and can't get my tenses straight.
My brain is just fried, apparently, because I just can't figure this out.
Can you start a story with "once upon a time" and then write it in present tense?
Because I started it in past with the whole "once upon a time" (so right there it's taking place a long time ago) but after the first paragraph I realized it went to present tense. I started typing up what I had written and since there was this disagreement with the tenses I tried to change the entire story to past tense but... it's not working. It sounds so much better in present tense.
When I'm reading it to myself it makes perfect sense for the first paragraph to be past tense, setting up the story but the rest told as if you are right there in present tense (there's also an element of 2nd person with the narrator speaking directly to the reader). But I'm not sure if other people would appreciate that or think I was just dumb and can't get my tenses straight.
My brain is just fried, apparently, because I just can't figure this out.
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Date: 28 Feb 2012 10:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 28 Feb 2012 11:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 29 Feb 2012 06:56 am (UTC)Once in present time,...
If it niggles at you, then hang a lantern on it.
If you want my personal opinion, It wouldn't bother me if the "Once upon a time" were in it's own paragraph, an introductory phrase to tell you it's a story, like a voice-over before the movie begins. I think it would bother me if it were an introductory half to a sentence that continues in the present tense ["Once upon a time, Sam notices that blah, blah, blah"]. I think I'd find that a bit jarring, but that's me.