In Describing Fiction
Summaries of the narratives (plots) of works of fiction are conventionally presented using the present tense rather than the past tense. At any particular point of the story, as it unfolds, there is a now, and hence a past and a future, so whether some event mentioned in the story is past, present, or, future changes as the story progresses; the entire plot description is presented as if the story's now is a continuous present. Thus, in summarizing the plot of A Tale of Two Cities, one may write:
- "Manette is obsessed with making shoes, a trade he learned while in prison."
Read more about this topic: Historical Present
Famous quotes containing the words describing and/or fiction:
“Psychologists have set about describing the true nature of women with a certainty and a sense of their own infallibility rarely found in the secular world.”
—Naomi Weisstein, U.S. psychologist, feminist, and author. Psychology Constructs the Female (1969)
“We can never safely exceed the actual facts in our narratives. Of pure invention, such as some suppose, there is no instance. To write a true work of fiction even is only to take leisure and liberty to describe some things more exactly as they are.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)