On Sun, 24 Nov 1996 19:36:03 -0700 (MST), Eimii <eimii@selway.umt.edu>
wrote:

I've gotten a few messages where people are wondering why i keep switching
around the tense of words and the depiction of actions in my fic. My
answer is, i really don't have a good excuse for why i do this. It just
sort of happens. It might be that i feel that certain sections need more
immediacy and action-oriented reading, thus i switch into the present
tense/stage direction form of writing. Or, it might be that i don't pay
attention to the tense when i write, and am to lazy to change it later. My
personal opinion is that there is something terribly wrong with my 
temporal lobe, and i simply have trouble telling the present and the past
apart. But whatever the problem is, do you think i sould correct the tense
and description before i post? Do you like it the way it is? Do you feel
that i should get my head examined?

While this is not really my area of expertise (especially the part
about whether you should get your head examined), I do think that a
writer ought to be in control of his/her writing. You should not
switch tenses just by accident. If you deliberately decide to switch
tense because you feel it expresses something, then that's different.
Frankly I would guess that the former is the case, but YOU are the
only one who can tell for sure.

Anyway, writing narrative text is not really my strong point, so don't
go by what I say too much. I can get the mechanics right and tell the
story, but that's about it. You'll find out when I post my next fic.

To Gary Kleppie

That's spelled "Kleppe", although it IS pronounced as if it were
"Kleppie" or "Kleppy", or "throat-warbler-mangrove" if you're a Monty
Python fan. :-) 

I don't beat _myself_ over the head.

Maybe not in a LITERAL sense...

Gary
Gary Kleppe
kleppe@execpc.com, http://www.execpc.com/~kleppe
Uninvited commercial solicitations will be charged a Downloading Fee of $5000.
(And I WON'T buy whatever you're selling even if it really IS a great bargain.)