Charlie StrossApr 5

#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.)

Show threadSteve Loughran

@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

Apr 5 at 8:36amWeb
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.