The Aggravation of Present Tense

Working on the NaNoWriMo story, I realize something about my fiction; I don't usually enjoy reading first-person present tense (for example, "Bring me the cup," she says, "and I'll prove it's not poison. So, I walk over to where she sits at the table and hand her the wooden chalice. She drinks deeply...), but I keep writing in it. One of my '09 Clarion submissions was written this way. I'm not supposed to be editing at this stage of the novel, but I had to go back and change to past tense before I went on ("Bring me the cup," she said, "and I'll prove it's not poison. So, I walked over to where she sat at the table and handed her the wooden chalice. She drank deeply...), and it simply seems more natural. I recognize that it works better this way; hopefully this is breakthrough stuff because I'm already feeling a little freaked that the story is trying to write itself in some awkward way that's not comfortable for me. But I am cranking some generally good stuff, I think.

Back to it.