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11-04-2007, 08:58 AM
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#1
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Ink Slinger
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: Out in the bush, Queensland, Australia, far from the madding crowd
Gender: Male
Posts: 4,387
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Tense change within a sentence
I think I read somewhere that tense should be consistent.
So how could I re-write the following? It's a rhetorical question designed to make someone with a lifetime severe but treatable medical condition think; the way I’ve written it, it starts in the past tense then switches to the present:
“How would you like to have had a lifetime condition that is today still untreatable?”
Or is such a sentence an exception to the rule?
Thank you.
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11-04-2007, 09:22 AM
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#2
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Best Seller
Join Date: Aug 2007
Gender: Female
Posts: 529
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OLD
“How would you like to have had a lifetime condition that is today still untreatable?”
REVISED
"Would you rather have an untreatable lifetime condition?"
Just the way I'd do it.
Rose
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I had a rose named after me and I was very flattered. But I was not pleased to read the description in the catalog: "No good in a bed, but fine against a wall." --- Eleanor Roosevelt
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11-04-2007, 09:27 AM
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#3
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Moderator
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: Southwestern Pennsylvania
Gender: Female
Posts: 4,614
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Quote:
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“How would you like to have had a lifetime condition that is today still untreatable?”
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I don't think you really have changed tense though the sentence does feel awkward.
You're talking about two things 'you' the reader and 'a lifetime condition that is still untreatable'.
I'm not sure why you are putting the reader's condition in pluperfect (have had). Wouldn't you just say, "How would you like to have an untreatable condition?" If it is unable to be treated you'll have it for life, correct?
'Untreatable' is still awkward so maybe, "What if you had to live out your life with a condition that could not be treated?" (or maybe '...has no cure')
Then again, I don't know what the context is or what the condition is so my rewrites may not work.
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11-04-2007, 09:32 AM
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#4
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Ink Slinger
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: Out in the bush, Queensland, Australia, far from the madding crowd
Gender: Male
Posts: 4,387
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For me, it's beddy-byes time. I'll sleep on it. Rose is slightly ahead at the moment.
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11-04-2007, 09:25 PM
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#5
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Ink Slinger
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Melbourne Australia
Gender: Female
Posts: 3,065
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'What if you had a lifelong condition that can't be cured?'
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'Beauty stands and waits with gravity to start her death-defying leap. And he, a little charleychaplin man, who may or may not catch her fair eternal form spreadeagled in the empty air of existence.' - Laurence Felinghetti, 'The Acrobat'
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11-04-2007, 11:44 PM
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#6
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Ink Slinger
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: Out in the bush, Queensland, Australia, far from the madding crowd
Gender: Male
Posts: 4,387
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Back on the air.
Thank you all. They're all good. Why is it, I wonder, that so many of us can't see these other ways of expressing something? They're all so simple, after all.
__________________
Why should you vote for me, in valeca’s Writing Challenge contest? Because I’m an all-round nice guy? Because I'm a brilliant writer? Ok, you think of a reason. Just so you vote for me, ok? CLICK BELOW for the voting booth http://www.writingforums.com/writing...n-contest.html
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11-05-2007, 12:17 AM
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#7
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Ink Slinger
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: Fernando Poo
Gender: Male
Posts: 2,433
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Related question: Is it acceptable to use the word "now" in the past tense?
As in "Now he felt like puking." Should it be "then?"
I've seen even published authors use "now," and I'm wondering how acceptable it is.
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"Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons wait for you down there. Little pets they are, little little little pets. Cute little things, they say. Don't you believe it. No man ever saw them and walked away alive. You won't either. That's the final dash, flash. That's the utter clobber, cobber." --Cordwainer Smith, Norstrillia.
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11-05-2007, 06:47 AM
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#8
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Moderator
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: Southwestern Pennsylvania
Gender: Female
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hm. Depends if he felt like puking now or then.
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11-05-2007, 08:13 AM
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#9
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Best Seller
Join Date: Aug 2007
Gender: Female
Posts: 529
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Time tags (now, then, next) are seldom necessary. Most readers will assume the story is progressing chronologically. I only use them when discussing that which is outside the chronological flow of the narrative.
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I had a rose named after me and I was very flattered. But I was not pleased to read the description in the catalog: "No good in a bed, but fine against a wall." --- Eleanor Roosevelt
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