So the fifth draft of the novel has just been completed. This was a draft I’d been dreading, because it was the draft in which I needed to go back and fix the tense of the entire novel.
I think, at least in the first 2/3rds of the book, that I pretty much accomplished by goal.
You wouldn’t think that this would be that big of a deal. Either you write the book in the present or you write in the past. Once you’ve made that decision you just put it in automatic and drive. I, of course, had to go and be more vague about it, flip flopping based on what sounded better for each particular section. Sometimes, there was an immediacy to what was happening so I used the present, and sometimes there wasn’t so I used the past. I used it almost like mph signs, present for the highway and the past for school zones. Anyway, I fixed it, sort of. Most of the book is now written in the present, except for events that took place before the time of the novel (i.e. Xerxes’s flashbacks)
There were a few instances, in the latter part of the novel where I broke this rule. I’m sure my editor will point this out to me, and I’ll have to try and explain myself. There were times when the present just didn’t work, when the writing was too distant from the character and the moment too removed. So I wrote those sections in the past.
Anyway, the whole rewrite made me tense, I’m glad it’s over. Now onto draft #6!