My brother is writing a story and has a problem. He's writing 3rd person-present tense. Here's the issue: he's writing about a small village in a flashback, so must use past tense in this case. HOWEVER, the village still exists in the current story. So, what does he write it as: A) The village was small. B) The village is small. Answer A makes is seem as though the village doesn't exist in the current story, but it does. Answer B isn't past tense like the rest of the flashback though. What does he use? Please explain.
According to the Grinch Who Stole Christmas, "The Village was small." example quote: "Every Who down in Whoville liked Christmas a lot" Use past tense, and if the teacher objects, at least he has Dr. Seuss to defend him. However, that "flashback" was narrated by a present speaker. So, if the "flashback" actually takes you back into the context of that time, use present.
Sounds more like a clarity question than a grammar question. It needs to be past tense for the flashback, and then perhaps could use some additional clarification. Are those the only options? Can you do: * "the village was small then." * "the village was as small back then as it is now." * or whatever?
Yeah, it doesn't sound too much like a grammar issue. What's wrong with saying, "The village was small then, much like it is today" or "The village was much smaller then, unlike today"? EDIT: JV above me pretty much stole my idea, even though it was written 3 minutes before mine.
Just my opinion, but you are making this story far too elaborate, here. Writing a story in present tense, for one thing, is considered nonstandard, and the people that pull this off usually know what they are trying to achieve, beforehand. My advice is to stop worrying about the verbal gymnastics and set a single that you'd like to convey to your reader, and use every available paragraph to convey this to your reader. Say, for example, you want to highlight the fact that this town has a peculiar habit of putting watermelons on fence posts to ward off evil spirits. You need to state this, and then start explaining it every way you can, explain it more than one way. This is how you flesh out stories. Your teacher is not going to care one iota if you used was or is, a reader won't think that if you use WAS that it isn't an IS now, unless you explicitly make that apparent with supporting paragraphs.
btw: all answers need to explain the Star Wars IV opening scroll of a past done in present tense by a present narration voice. my answer,,,present tense narrator is presenting the past in present tense to get the readers/audience ready for a story told from the past in present tense. I think ... or I thought?
It is more correct to say that this Star Wars opening is exposition. Every line of every story has a narrator, but every narrator is not recapping previous events. Some are describing an emotion, a feeling, some a lost love. Some might say, I took a blow to the head, pivoted and threw out a punch, the imagery of an event that it is in the present. A narrator is beside the fact.
I have always had the same question too. Suppose you want to say in a flashback that you opened the door and saw a man. Would you say, "I opened the door. It was a man."? If yes, does that imply the person was a man but he has changed his sex to a woman now? :grin:
:grin:. Good catch. What about... "I opened the door and I saw a man. He was over 6 feet tall." Does that imply he has got shorter since then?
No. His height doesn't have to change. He was 6 feet then; he's 6 feet now; no biggie. Readers can use a little common sense. It'd be different if you changed to a different form of past tense or apply other modifiers (which a reader would expect if he's supposed to understand that something has changed): "He had been over 6 feet tall" or "He was over 6 feet tall back then." However, things are a bit less clear in the village example. People know villages change in size over time (whereas height and gender tend to stay more constant). So if a reader is told the village was small, they may wonder if it is bigger now or maybe gone completely. If they already know the village is small now, they may wonder why they they're being told it was small in the past -- they'd assume it was small and wonder if being given this information implies that something had changed. OP's brother might want to drop the sentence altogether if the reader already knows the village is small.
According to my sister, who is a copy editor, if the flashback is 3rd person, use "was". First person flashback would be "is".
I think it depends on what you mean by flashback. If you're describing what happened in the past, you would use was. If by flashback you mean the story literally goes back to that time, you would use is. According to my wife the copy editor and her best friend the copy editor.
