âYou canât mix past and present tenseâ
Itâs creative writing. Iâm allowed to be creative. Fuck you. I stg Iâm willing to bet English Majors wouldâve never enjoyed Flowers for Algernon if media literacy didnât exist. And since thatâs dying that story really belongs to the philosophers now.
I use present tense when my character is existing in the present.
I use past tense when my character is zoning out bc that wishy-washy feeling feels like watching a memory in real time.
So Iâm using present tense when my character is talking to someone or fighting someone and I use past tense when theyâre lost in thought, relaxing, or losing awareness of time.
If Iâm not allowed to stylize then thereâs no such thing as creative writing, just writing. And Iâm not sitting here writing biographies, news articles, essays, and textbooks. Iâm writing creatively, and Iâm going to get creative.
My story has vibes and Iâm leveraging style to get you to feel those vibes. Stylization exists outside order. Why bother using first person perspectives or unreliable narrators if theyâre going to use English so perfectly they might as well be a machines. If your first person narrator is speaking like a goddamn English major grammar nazi, then your character has to have the personality of an English major grammar nazi.
Before I had a tumblr account and semi-financial-freedom I wrote smut to pay some bills. I guarantee the average literacy of two strangers having sex due to spontaneous situations is probably less than average. No offense to the people who feel represented by those strangers. Opposite in fact I think people who care about my English being wonky in a creative writing project would have too much of a stick up their ass to pull off the amount of spontaneity to mutually disrespect boundaries that by all means should be between them via common sense and lack the communication skills to talk to someone who hasnât had a formal English education without sounding like a total prude/asshole.
âBut itâs just wrong thoughâ
The normal person can read a past/present tense mix and feel the vibes without a parasite of prudish education whispering in your ear that you have to be unable to understand.
It feels like when some loser English nerd will stop you to say âwhoâs they?â Or âwhatâs itâ when you havenât previously stated the subject of the sentence in your conversation. I dunno, you asked me about work/school/vacation maybe use some common sense and not be a pretentious asshole bc Iâm not perpetually cognizant that there are still people who exist that will make themselves look stupid to prove theyâre smarter bc a little bit of education makes them feel like they deserve to act like they canât understand English on the principle that itâs slightly incorrect.
Love to all authors. English rules and education are for essays and textbooks. Not all authors speak English as a first language, and yet they still want to write in English and thatâs okay. Some authors are just teens forcing their way through it in hopes that an editor will help them put together the proper rules later. Most authors arenât formally educated and just have a story in their heart. I will not let assholes cockblock their mind. Anyway, it also helps if youâre breaking traditional rules for a style reason.
Grammar Nazis are the republicans of English language. They will absolutely insist upon holding back anything new/interesting/different on the pretense that nothing should change ever and youâre stupid for thinking otherwise. And also tell themselves that slight differences are in actuality completely indecipherable messes that canât be understood.
