Charlie Stross

#writersCoffeeClub Apr. 4: Do you switch between past and present tense? How do you make it work?

Present tense: generates a sense of immediacy, useful for action sequences, but also for regular narrative with uncertainty about the future.

Past tense: conveys certainty about the past.

Now, writing fiction in *future* tenses is stunt writing!

(And yes, I've done all three.)

Apr 5 at 6:48amWeb
Show thread🇨🇦🇩🇪🇨🇳张殿李🇨🇳🇩🇪🇨🇦Apr 5
@cstross I'm curious, have you ever done a substantial work of fiction (short story or longer) entirely in the first person?
Show threadAlan BellinghamApr 5
@ZDL @cstross He's done second person even
Show threadCharlie StrossApr 5
@ZDL Sure: My novel "Glasshouse" (which made the Hugo shortlist in 2007). Also some of the early Laundry Files novels. I've even done a couple of novels in the second person.
Show thread🇨🇦🇩🇪🇨🇳张殿李🇨🇳🇩🇪🇨🇦Apr 5
@cstross Cool. I wish I could get more of your books here. I like adventurous authors. 😁
Show threadJens Finkhäuser6d ago

@cstross I have to admit that I have read your novels *a lot less* than I've read your blog (and now stuff here), and this thread reminds me yet again that this is Not Right. There's a Stross-shaped hole in my bookshelf though, as it were.

@ZDL no idea if it's workable, but I can buy double and send you a copy or something? Any in particular you'd like?

Show thread🇨🇦🇩🇪🇨🇳张殿李🇨🇳🇩🇪🇨🇦6d ago
@jens @cstross Thanks for the thought, but I was going to instead just keep the name in mind for my next trip to Canada. :D
Show threadAlice Averlong🏳️‍⚧️Apr 5
@cstross when I was a preteen, I my english class said that you can't write fiction in a future tense, which annoyed enough that I had to go write some fiction set in the future tense just to prove that you obviously can
Show threadStephen Cox AuthorApr 5

@foone @cstross

put it in second person at the same time, and add a prologue

Show threadSkjeggtrollApr 5

@stephenwhq @foone @cstross

"Oh, old stranger-friend, you look confused to be hailed as hero. In two years since it will have make more sense. Then you shall have met us for the second-third time will have tell us thow you will have was gone to the future where you twice-will be'd meet the Space Princess-to-be Iridia and with her help shall-has-done perfected your time-machine and foughting the Empire of Woe, broughed joy to the time-stream and much despair to English departments everywhere."

Show threadStephen Cox AuthorApr 5

@skjeggtroll @foone @cstross

I salute anyone who plunges in to have fun with a mad idea

Show threadPhosphenesApr 5

@foone @cstross

Well now you've got us going, we want to see it!

Show threadAllpointsApr 5
@foone @cstross Isn't all future tense fiction until/unless it happens?
Show threadCharlie StrossApr 5
@allpoints @foone No, because fiction is *intentional* lying: a plan or schedule looking forward—a railway timetable, for example—isn't constructed as fiction, it's intended to become real. Fiction in contrast is *not* intended to become real.
Show threadAllpointsApr 5
@cstross @foone fair point
/me rescinds the question.
Show threadOldCoderApr 5
You've got me trying to remember the name of a story or novel that includes an intelligent bear-like species. The bears consider fiction to be lying and immoral until the utility of extrapolative writing is demonstrated. They refer to extrapolative wring as "scientific lying".
Show threadCarl MuckenhouptApr 5
@foone @cstross Makes me think of this old Usenet post in which I speculate about using the future tense in interactive fiction: https://groups.google.com/g/rec.games.int-fiction/c/Gywgnbp-e6o/m/G8hV52gnFhoJ
[COMP01] Some Random Observations

Show threadWolf_BaginskiApr 5

@cstross

Surely the only tense possibility would be future imperfect?

Show threadSteve LoughranApr 5

@cstross lot more tenses to play with in other languages, especially if you look beyond the European ones.

(i just asked how B. many Gujarati has and got stroppily told off "I don't know just use it!" With more exclamation marks surfacing as i tried to me more specific. So no insight from English there)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_tense

Grammatical tense - Wikipedia

Show threadSteve LoughranApr 5
@cstross now I 'm wonder growing up in London with Weegee being the language home and its different words, puts me in the "couldn't speak English until I went to school" category that Reform always denounce. Probably.