Switching from past to present tense to increase narrative speed?

Question

In German, traditionally narrative texts are written in the past tense. When the pace of the action picks up, the narrator can increase immediacy and urgency by switching into the present tense.

Is such a tense shift acceptable in English also?

Example:

Last friday, I went to ... On my way home, it was around three, I sat waiting for the bus, when suddenly a car pulls up in front of the bus stop and three thugs jump out and start shooting at me. I throw myself to the floor ...

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Using present tense within a past tense narrative in German to increase suspense is called "scenic present tense" (szenisches Präsens).

Answer 1

No, you can only do that if you're making some sort of break or shift in narrative style. If the story switches to a dream, for instance, or if the characters enter a Fae realm or another universe where they perceive time differently, you might be able to get away with it, but in English prose, if you're not literally going somewhere fantastical, your story is pretty much in one tense for the entire piece.

Answer 2

the narrator can increase immediacy and urgency by switching into the present tense.

John le Carré employs this technique (switching from past to present) throughout A Perfect Spy, the book considered by many (including le Carré himself) to be his masterpiece. Most often, he uses it to signal flashbacks, but sometimes it is employed to raise the tension ever so slightly. An example of this occurs in the opening chapter. For context, the protagonist, the traitor Magnus Pym, has slipped away to his own private safe house, a room in a nondescript boarding house. After settling into his room, Pym's tradecraft kicks in:

Suddenly needing an activity, he switched out the lights, slipped quickly to the window, opened the curtains and set to work checking out the little square, life by life and window by window as the morning woke it, while he searched for tell-tale signs of watchers. In her kitchen, the wife of the Baptist minister, wearing her lovat dressing-gown, is unpegging her son’s football gear from the washing line in preparation for today’s match. Pym draws back swiftly. He has caught a glint of steel in the manse gateway, but it is only the minister’s bicycle still chained to the trunk of a monkey-puzzle tree as a precaution against unchristian covetousness. In the frosted bathroom window of Sea View a woman in a grey slip is stooped over a handbasin soaping her hair. Celia Venn, the doctor’s daughter who wants to paint the sea, is evidently expecting company today. Next door to her at number 8 Mr. Barlow the builder and his wife are watching breakfast television. Pym’s eye passes methodically on, until a parked van holds his attention. The passenger door opens, a girlish figure flits stealthily through the central gardens and vanishes into number 28. Ella, the daughter of the undertaker, is discovering life.

Pym closed the curtains and put the lights back on...

To me, the sudden switch to present tense (with the second sentence) injects a subtle sense of immediacy which serves to raise the tension just a notch: has Pym been followed? But le Carré was a masterful writer (in my opinion, anyway!) and it requires deft handling.

As a postscript, though, it may be worth noting that for all his skill with English prose, le Carré was a lifelong student and admirer of German. I mention this because the original post specifically raised the use of this technique in German. Le Carré began learning the language at 13. Later, he would describe the first time he heard German as "love at first sound", saying: "I discovered that the language fitted me. It fitted my tongue. It pleased my Nordic ear."

Whether le Carré was conscious of how this technique is used in German, and whether that led to or influenced his use of it in English, will remain a mystery. But it is certainly interesting.

Answer 3

I respectfully disagree with the prior respondents. I don't see why shifts in tense are inappropriate English if used with discipline. It's no different, to my mind, than a temporary shift in point of view. It's just a device. What's important is that the writer not sloppily mix past and present tense.

Answer 4

This is extremely rare and very difficult to execute smoothly. While switching into present tense when the action picks up is usually fine, it's very difficult to create a smooth transition in the opposite direction - action ends, and you want to switch back to past tense - it's hard not to make it sound awkward.

What is common, is use of ("timeless") noun phrases for quick passages.

The door swung open and he strode in. A swift punch to his jaw, a kick to his groin, elbow into exposed neck, then landing with my weight on his back, handcuffs snapping on his wrists forcefully drawn behind his back, and I stood up, smoothing out my suit. He gave out a long, pained groan.

That way the transition in both directions is smooth and we create the sense of rapid, hectic sequence of actions.

Answer 5

No this is not appropriate in English. However, a common place where I've seen transition between present and past tense is when the story is primarily written in the present tense and then, when characters think about things past, the tense will switch. This has an effect of slowing the pacing down for those scenes written in the past, giving the reader an easy transition between things past and things present. This style of writing can be seen heavily in The Hunger Games.

For this same reason switching tenses from past to present, can indicate that the past was the narrator's retrospect. For instance your passage could be interpreted as follows:

"I was thinking about what I did last Friday when all of a sudden a car rolled up and 2 gunmen jumped out."

Answer 6

I think that it might work if you switched tense at a large break in the story, such as a chapter. This would especially work well if you were switching the POV character. A friend in my writing class is doing this, where there is a girl and a horse trying to find each other, and whenever the chapter is told from the horse's POV, it's in first person present tense, but when the chapter is from the girls POV, it is third person past tense. It seems to be working quite nicely.

Answer 7

Changing tenses can work as an exclamation mark. Particularly in denoting a mental process. In other words, using past tense and switching to present tense for action scenes is something I wouldn't do - it's just too extensive, and it loses its meaning.

Examples of what I mean by "exclamation mark" (I'm just making these up, they're not from any book). Notice the mental process (flashback and inner thoughts respectively)

1) Switch from past perfect to past tense to indicate the passage into a flashback

Michael felt worried as he looked at his reflection in the mirror. Something was peculiarly familiar about those scars, he'd seen them before. Perhaps when he'd gone on that trip, the previous summer. He'd gone to the lake and had met John in the cabin. The scents were amazing, the trees emitted this amazing aroma that...

2) Switch from past to present to indicate inner thoughts

"What on earth are you mumbling about?" asked Nick.
"I told you, and I have nothing more to say", Mark said. His lips quivered, and his facial muscles twitched, as if he was suddenly nervous.
Leave me alone... I've got nothing more to say
"Come on, man", Nick insisted.

Answer 8

You can do anything that works as long as you don't get in the way of telling your story

Shifting tenses in a story, written in English, within a scene, will tend to read like a grammatical inconsistent. Shifting tenses between scenes or between chapters is no different than changing the view point character or changing the POV.

As long as the shift is immediately clear -- like the Charles character is always past tense and Charlie is present tense -- then the reader will be able to recognize the pattern and adapt to the expected tense. Sometimes authors will presage these shifts with chapter titles or scene titles with the character's name or the date and or time.

For English, I don't think that tense is explicitly impactful with the sense of immediate with the writing. That is a matter of style and method. Less exposition. Shorter sentences. Less reflection and more reaction by view point characters.

In important thing to keep in mind is how the change in tense impacts the "point of telling" of the story. This is important because it impacts the availability of information.

In a story written in the past tense, the narrator knows everything that happens in the story since it is in their own past -- the events have already happened. The narrator can only contradict their relating of events to the reader if they are unreliable. But, a narrator telling the story in the present tense, doesn't know what is going to happen next, only what has happened and what is happening now. I have no idea how this would impact future tense narration of story. But since that is almost always reserved for advertising copy to express an aspirational aspect of the story, I don't think it matters.

Answer 9

The passage you give works in English. This is because it is very clearly in the voice of someone relating a story in a very informal manner, perhaps verbally.

All sorts of grammatical errors and changes in tense and the like are suitable if that's the way the person would speak -- and English speakers do change tenses.

It must remain very informal.

Putting it even in third-person, no matter how tight, would make it less palatable.