posted
I have assigned myself the task today (it will last at least a week) of trying to understand progressive verbs. I have been trying for years.
1. Her parents screamed at her to come back. 2. Her parents were screaming at her to come back.
#1 is the regular verb; #2 is the progressive.
My guess is that most authors intuitively choose between the two and never think about it. True? So this is a nearly impossible topic to talk about.
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posted
And I expect extrinsic has useful info to share. If anyone cares about this topic:
quote:The progressive tense...shows action that progresses or continues. (Chicago Manual of Style)
I was wrestling this definition, then I realized it made more sense to me in progressive:
quote:The progressive tense... shows action that is progressing or continuing.
Irony, right? But it suggests, to me, a complicated and treacherous topic, not particularly important for each particular decision, and that people don't really care about.
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posted
It's theorized that using some form of the "to be" verb ("were," "was,") puts a barrier between the reader and the action. I try to revise them out after a few drafts, easy to locate and change with a search program...but I don't know its worth in the doing.
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posted
Among many similar other expression facets, progressive tenses clutter ideas and weaken impact. Many exceptions where such weaknesses are strengths, too, all of one design: a rhetorical function (persuasion) strength greater than the weakness.
Progressive tenses include perfect, pluperfect, infinitive, past, present, and future variants, plus noun progressive-tense verbs labeled "gerunds." Past-tense words might also be participles, that is, modify other words, phrases, or clauses. All in one below, a trivial -ly adverb, too, for good measure, and a cluster cluck of a pluperfect past-present-future-infinitve tense sentence:
Malcolm would have had been usually, excepting a leaking tire, getting to going fishing by now.
Also, a present-progressive or past participle clause can be first, middle, or end sentence positions -- for aptest main idea emphasis criteria.
That cluck sentence above can also be, ought best be, revised for dynamic voice and simple past tense throughout, any of manifold ways, and still contain a participle modifier clause, and fewer or no fewer words, plus, place a main idea in aptest emphasis location.
Because of a flattened tire, Malcolm missed salmon open-season day.
Gertrude Stein's ample progressive tense uses express an ever present sense of present being, a stasis state of being, which intimates, little matter how much change transpires, few, if any, substantive circumstances every really change. William Gibson likewise uses ample progressive tenses to express a cyberpunk future is a now-reality stasis. Writers too often justify such -ing and -ing excess -- because, see, Such-and-such does -- emulate those mechanical aspects and miss the underlain rhetorical and aesthetic functions.
Progressive tense constructs are always static voice's stasis state of being expressions -- always take to be or similar to have or to get helper verbs and all too easily are also passive voice. Idi is getting robbed.
Discretionary static and passive voices entail persuasive and forceful expression functions; however, their haphazard uses for prose want reconsideration for prose's several substance, significance, finiteness, definiteness, clarity, strength, amplitude, emphasis, force movement, and persuasion functions.
A thought that just everyone speaks that way anymore every day is valid, always one in a crowd and others echo the one for a persuasive alignment. However, the prose principles of less is more and specific to a characterization purpose work stronger magic mischief than an excess which emulates that real-life babble idiolect and a too easy -ing-ring rhyme nuisance accumulation.
Furthermore, progressive tenses all too often result in not-simultaneous mistakes:
"The misuse of the present participle is a common structural sentence fault for beginning writers. 'Putting his key in the door, he leapt up the stairs and got his revolver out of the bureau.' Alas, our hero couldn't do this even if his arms were forty feet long. This fault shades into 'Ing Disease,' the tendency to pepper sentences with words ending in '-ing,' a grammatical construction which tends to confuse the proper sequence of events. (Attr. Damon Knight)" "Being a Glossary of Terms Useful in Critiquing Science Fiction," edited by Clarion workshops' David Smith, SFWA hosted.
Progressive tenses denote static state-of-being stasis, nondefinite, and nonfinite continued actions or conditions.
quote:1. Because of a flattened tire, Malcolm missed salmon open-season day. 2. Because of a flattened tire, Malcolm was missing salmon open-season day.
If I understand correctly, you are saying: #1 would be preferred because it is more powerful. And that preference holds even if #2 (the progressive tense) has the more accurate meaning.
And I assume there are limits on this. Assuming #2 is the correct meaning, no one wants the more powerful #1, right?
quote:1. I walk to Jeremy's car when I realize I have a problem. 2. I am walking to Jeremy's car when I realize I have a problem.
posted
Accuracy might be secondary to other persuasion and force considerations, and "accuracy" is open to debate. Several other overall tense considerations might substitute for accuracy's place: composition type, syntax, grammar voice, tense sequences, and intent.
Essay composition accepts apt progressive tenses more than performance genre, in general, per se (inherently): fiction and creative nonfiction, poetry least due to too convenient resort to -ing rhyme schemes. The muse forbids last syllable and alliteration, assonance, and consonace -ing rhymes and verse accents. Prose's nature, similar to poetry's, likewise wants no rhymes or too many similar consonant or vowel sounds. The muse forbids me those, too.
Syntax considerations, irrespective of composition types, want aptest force movement and main idea clarity and emphasis.
What's the main idea emphasis for:
"1. I walk to Jeremy's car when I realize I have a problem. 2. I am walking to Jeremy's car when I realize I have a problem."
Ostensibly, "a problem" is the main idea and emphasis.
Aptest syntax, either case, places the dependent clause and its apt subordinate conjunction in first sentence position, the main clause in second position, or third position or so if more than two dependent clauses or phrases, subject to other discretionary placements for force and persuasion movements, though:
//1. When I walk [or walked] to Jeremy's car, I realize [or realized] I have [or had] a problem. 2. When I am walking to Jeremy's car, I [or I'm] realize [or realizing] I [or I'm] have [or having] a problem.//
Same tenses as the originals without the bracket clutter:
//1. When I walk to Jeremy's car, I realize I have a problem. 2. When I am walking to Jeremy's car, I realize I have a problem.//
Any -ing word, by its nondefinite and nonfinite nature of continued actions or conditions, by definition, is static voice, may or may not be part of a passive voice construct. Does prose want static voice? Sparse few occasions, maybe. Prose wants dynamic voice, process statements, and dramatic forward movement altogether, maybe brief, judicious stalls for partial tension relief segments.
Present tense all too conveniently occasions excess static voice and stasis state of being statements. Prose's overall best practice main tense is simple past as a metaphor for just this moment happened events and conditions substituted for simple present. Somewhat a cognitive challenge, though, for inexperienced writers and readers. A general practice is to gentle readers into the extended metaphor, somewhat akin to allegory though not allegory at all. In other words, foster and seduce readers' enhanced reading aptitudes.
Tense wants a consistent tense, one main tense, per se, and apt, judicious auxiliaries. Otherwise, tense shift sequences want smooth time transitions among sequential clauses, maybe among sentences, too, for force movement. Mixed tense sentence clause sequences move one temporal direction, not willy-nilly any which-a-way loose. Maybe, if apt and judicious, a several-sentence tense shift sequence might arch across times for climax force movement, especially for now-moment recollections.
//2. When I am walking to Jeremy's car, I realize I have a problem."
That's one direction, from progressive now and possible continued action toward a simple present tense action and condition.
Likewise syntax, tense movement founds upon simple tenses: past and present. All other English language tenses come from constructed verb phrases that take helper verbs. Perfect, pluperfect, and future tenses take helpers, plus helper-verb construct distinctions for subjunctive mood.
Tense shift movement wants singular temporal direction even for those constructs. At most from a farthest pluperfect past time to a most now-moment present time or vice versa. Or a transition from a present now to a future now or vice versa. Rare, if ever, do tense shifts want a span across more than two now-moments, and which unduly confuses readers.
Tense shift no-no below:
//2. When I am walking to Jeremy's car, I had realized I am having a problem.//
Intent all but cancels all the above for uncommon circumstances, like speech or thoughts of a hypoliterate persona, that is, stream-of-consciousness for persuasive rhetoric or aesthetic characterization features and less is more functions. Though nope, not ever for formal essays.
Otherwise, simple past tense and occasional apt auxiliaries express the more wanted "objectivity" sensibility for prose's sakes, assert the truth of a matter therein. See, this is true, just this past moment actually happened. Or if simple present must be -- a strength is subjectivity. See, I'm not certain this is true. This just this now moment transpires and I don't know for sure what this is about.
posted
If you’re a grammar Nazi such definitions matter a great deal. As a writer, we violate arbitrary rules constantly. But that being said, what’s to understand? In your first case, “Her parents screamed at her to come back,” is what she noticed, and will respond to. In the alternate, “Her parents were screaming at her to come back,” an external observer is reporting what they notice.
In your next example, “Because of a flattened tire, Malcolm missed salmon open-season day,” is the report of something that already happened. Nothing that Mal can do will change that. The alternate, “Because of a flattened tire, Malcolm was missing salmon open-season day,” takes place in his present, and is changeable.
The next example is just silly. “I walk to Jeremy's car when I realize I have a problem,” can’t work. It says that this person begins the walk when they have the realization. And the alternate, “I am walking to Jeremy's car when I realize I have a problem.” Says what was actually meant, but awkwardly.
In general, though, it appears that the primary difference between the two is that one is in the viewpoint of the one experiencing and the other comes as an observation by an external voice.
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posted
"Grammar Nazi" is a misfortunate and fallacious choice of words. That and similar are "Name-calling" fallacies, or a thin reductio ad Nazium specifically, a dangerous fallacy that, because of who someone is or does, believes, values, opines, writes, or says, circumstances that differ from a name caller's are by default biased, bigoted, intolerant, etc., as like Nazis' opinions.
And no even slim logical or rational connection between grammar and either Hitler or the Nazi party, or even fascism, and no Nazi connection, either, to the thread's point or argument or even the response post's point or argument. ----
quote:Originally posted by Jay Greenstein: “Her parents screamed at her to come back,” is what she noticed, and will respond to. In the alternate, “Her parents were screaming at her to come back,” an external observer is reporting what they notice.
Neither above slips away from an external observer report. "they"? The sentences' subjects and contexts are de dicto, of the word(s). De re's, of the thing, narrative distance closure of Mom and Dad, personal to "her" names, nicknames (metonymy), suit close narrative distance mischief. The second "her" pronoun then is a de re third-person natural substitute allusion for a first-person self-reference, otherwise, de se, of the self.
Tense affects close distance mischief maybe an iota degree, due to progressive state-of-being's remoteness, or simple present's enhanced closeness, or simple past's close enough metaphoric closeness. Diction and syntax are far more substantive narrative distance considerations.
The grammar principle here is ergative predicate verbs' pronoun, noun, or verbal objects; an inflection marker for or of a direct object noun or pronoun (accusative case), here, the second "her"; and/or indirect object pronoun, noun, or verbal phrase (dative case), here, object complement "to come back"; of a transitive verb, here, to scream: Webster's, 1, verb, 3.
The net effect of which is, re narrative distance, apt close distance personal thought or speech due to the personal names sentence subject and self-referential substitute "her" emphasis placed in sentence object position, done to by Mom and Dad, that is. Both, too, are tagged indirect speech -- paraphrases. Closer distance yet if direct speech (verbatim).
//Mom and Dad screamed at her to come back.//
//Mom and Dad were screaming at her to come back.//
Tagged direct speech below, an apt occasion, too, for a viewpoint persona name introduction or reminder, likewise, a possible personal nickname:
//"Come back, Mary-kins," Mom and Dad screamed at her. "You come back this instant."//
quote:Originally posted by Jay Greenstein: If you’re a grammar Nazi such definitions matter a great deal. As a writer, we violate arbitrary rules constantly. But that being said, what’s to understand?
If people just want to be intuitive on this choice, that should work okay. But once advice is given, that sets intuition aside.
So, the advice is, if I understand it
Avoid the progressive, even if it has the better meaning.
Of course, the part about better meaning is often left out.
The progressive tense was more accurate, no matter what the point of view. If you are saying something about active versus static, I am going to answer extrinsic on that. (I had no worries about involving the reader in the story; putting the reader inside the head of one character didn't work for the story.)
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quote:Originally posted by extrinsic: Any -ing word, by its nondefinite and nonfinite nature of continued actions or conditions, by definition, is static voice, may or may not be part of a passive voice construct. Does prose want static voice? Sparse few occasions, maybe. Prose wants dynamic voice, process statements, and dramatic forward movement altogether, maybe brief, judicious stalls for partial tension relief segments. [/i]
So, this progressive tense is static. Right?
1. The woman was standing in the far corner of the dimly lit room...
It's just description. Nothing happening. And this is active:
2. The woman stood in the far corner of the dimly lit room... (Cruise, The Promise, start)
But, she did not just stand up. She had been in the corner for a while; she stayed in the corner. So there was NO action corresponding to this. The reader has to understand that she was standing in the corner.
So, to understand the sentence, the reader has to sooner or later understand the sentence as not being active.
So activeness isn't really an advantage here, right?
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posted
Passive and active and static and dynamic voices' distinctions entail diction and syntax considerations.
The sentence subject of an active voice sentence acts upon a sentence object or a sentence subject does the action of a predicate. Both below are active voice. Active voice may be static voice or dynamic voice.
"1. The woman was standing in the far corner of the dimly lit room..."
"2. The woman stood in the far corner of the dimly lit room... ([Crais], The Promise, start)"
1 is active voice + static voice of the second degree, (was + standing). The woman stands is active action though static. First degree static voice is a to be predicate verb alone. //The woman was in the far corner of the dimly lit room...//
2 is active voice + static voice of the third degree, nonetheless a state of being statement, a static action predicate verb irrespective of tense: "stood" or stands or standing, etc., and similar other verbs.
Passive voice places the object of a predicate verb in sentence subject position, and a subject doer of a predicate verb in sentence object position, or omits the doer altogether. Passive voice inverts standard syntax; the figure, hyperbaton. Passive voice is always static voice, too. Passive voice + static voice example:
//The woman standing in the far corner of the room was dimly lit [+/- by the overhead light].//
Dynamic voice, opposite of static voice, and never passive voice, always active voice, is process statements rather than state-of-being statements, uses more definite and finite, robust verbs, diction, and syntax than active voice's static variants.
//A nondescript woman fidgeted in the far corner of the dimly lit room.//
Wordy clutter, though: two trivial prepositions, two sentence objects, one an indirect object, one an indirect object complement, and two or three trivial article adjectives.
Less wordy clutter, active + dynamic voices, more definite, more finite diction and syntax, fewer words, more substance, more force movement, no prepositions, apter articles, apter main idea emphasis, and smoother transition to the original sentence's subsequent stranded progressive tense participle clause and simile end.
"The woman stood in the far corner of the dimly lit room, _hiding in shadows like a fish in gray water_." (Robert Crais, The Promise, page 1):
//The dim-lit den's far corner shadowed a doughty woman, hid like a guppy treaded gray water.//
"shadowed," double meaning, dynamic verb, shaded and followed or haunted. Nonetheless continued present action though simple past tense metaphor, this now and further continued definite, finite time span.
"doughty": valiant, though a cognitive inversion sounds-alike of seems -- what, nondescript, older age, heavy-set, insecure, doughy, and doting? Paronomasia, pun, wordplay: "Using words that sound alike but that differ in meaning." (Gideon Burton, Silva Rhetoricae, rhetoric.byu.edu.)
Let's assume your right. So what? Nonfiction strives for accuracy. It's fact-based and author-centric, as is, "Her parents were screaming at her to come back." It's factually accurate, author-centric, and devoid of emotion because someone not on the scene is reporting it.
But people read fiction to be made to feel. if our protagonist misunderstands something, we want to reader to do the same, so they'll realize the mistake in parallel with the protagonist and feel what that character is feeling. What motivates the protagonist to act/react matters to the protagonist, and should to the reader, as well. What matters to the external observer who's writing a chronicle of events is irrelevant.
quote:So, the advice is, if I understand it: Avoid the progressive, even if it has the better meaning.
Of course not. There's a time for authorial intrusion. But if we're in a live scene, with the scene-clock ticking, an authorial appearance that's not in service of the one living the scene kills any momentum the scene may have built, along with any sensation of reality for the reader.
In short: When the director says, "Action, and until the actors hear "cut," show, don't tell.
As a "by the way. What happens to the line I quoted above if it's prefixed with:
She stopped for a moment and looked back.
As a stand-alone, the line is reported. But if we interject the protagonist, it's being lived in real time. So if the tense remains the same, we can't make a hard-and-fast, "Use this instead of that," judgment.
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Accuracy is interesting. As you note, I could have the parents scream, or I could have them screaming. Because it's fiction, either could be "true".
But "screaming" seems more consistent with her parents and the scene.
If I understand correctly, your complaints about "screaming" are because it is static. Progressive tense seems to be perfect for the static description of a scene, right? But you think it detaches the reader from the main character because it's in the middle of the action scene.
As you have not read the sentence in context, as far as I know, that means you are just looking at static versus dynamic. True? I am not disagreeing with your opinion (at least now, and I'm not worried about POV in that book). Instead, I'm trying to know if these are two problems or one.
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posted
As out of character as it is for me to do so, I have to agree with Jay (it feels sort of tingly.) At least, about the terminology and the relative irrelevance of this type of grammatical minutiae.
To say someone is a something-something Nazi, despite the heaviness of the word, is generally understood to simply mean someone who obsesses about/has super high standards about a thing and tends to aggressively push it/them on others. It's little different, especially in this instance, from something like "nit picker." While no doubt it has been used in other ways, or could be construed to imply more, I've personally never seen such (similar to how, while I don't doubt they have been used with that intent in some specific contexts, I don't think much of anyone on seeing/hearing words like "blonde" or "brunette" is liable to conceive of them as anti-woman slurs of some kind.) I love word and phrase origins, but in the end, how they are generally understood is the main factor.
I also feel that, once you get beyond basic grammar you start to get into 1) a lot of what amounts to hair-splitting over almost imperceptibly fine points and 2) stuff that, even in a professional context, most people have never even heard of, and probably at least half the people who have don't, really, care about.
It leaves the realm of "correct" and "incorrect" and starts to be, essentially, a matter of style.
I'd say the time would be better spent actually working on material, rather than trying to count angels on the heads of pins or kami in grains of rice.
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posted
Other approaches for tense considerations might ask what a narrative's dramatic, rhetorical, grammar, subtext, moral, message, emotional, personal, and social situation is and what choices are forefront per situation instance and span.
Simple past tense's stronger objectivity function spans the several. Present tense's stronger subjectivity function spans the several -- and first person's similar subjectivity and third person's similar objectivity situation functions.
Worth notice that a progressive tense verb wants supports. Stranded sentence fragment or participle clause below, oddly sensical, though:
Joseph being a carpenter at large.
Or apter syntax, subject complement participle clause, attendant punctuation:
Joseph, being a carpenter at large, carries woodworker tools.
A present tense helper verb helps the above stranded fragment participle clause, though is unnatural, awkward, and clumsy, oddly sensical, too, though, and oddly closer an immediate now-time narrative distance facet. Natural present progressive tense wants past tense helpers, in general.
Joseph is being a carpenter at large.
Joseph was being a carpenter at large.
For prose, main simple present tense and natural and essential tense auxiliaries include judicious progressives and simple pasts and past perfects; main simple past tense includes judicious progressives and past perfects and simple presents, too. Future tenses may also apply, though less often than others, most for subjunctive mood's several functions, especially emotional exclamations.
Simple past tense entails a sharp, robust, and rapid pace and could avoid any or all discretionary auxiliary tenses. Simple present entails a looser, more static, and slower pace, part due to present's essential auxiliary tenses, entails more glyph and word count and more elaborate helper verb predicate constructs, and less definite, less finite time spans than simple past and dynamic voice. Arguably, main simple present tense could also avoid auxiliary tenses, albeit risk unnatural language acrobatics, though might be apt for exigent situation occasions.
If a piece, segment, scene, section, or whole wants past or present tense for a situation's span, so be it, and apter appeal for the tense discretion. That -- the several situation criteria outstrip a pure mechanical or convenient habit choice.
Denis Johnson, Jesus's Son, 1992, picaresque novel and short story stand-alones collection, uses main present tense and apt auxiliaries to intimate a drunk, stoned, buzzed, dazed and, at times, sober addict's mental state-of-being status movement and a hypoliterate's journey toward addiction recovery (a toxin-addled slipstream stream of consciousness). Picaresque: rogue protagonist episodic adventures among fraught vice and folly social situations.
-ing, -Ing, -ING ringing -- who's calling for whom, please? (Onomatopoeia and climax figures.)
Fraught with present progressive auxiliary tenses, several gerunds, and occasional simple past and past perfect auxiliaries for recollection time shifts, Jesus' Son's parts and wholes amount to an anachronistic timeline, more or less now-moment subjectivity journey suited to a fluid state of being from "recreational" substance abuse temporal fluxes. Aptest tense choices suit the more substantive dramatic and rhetorical, etc., situations, than convenient mechanics, especially subtext, of the parts and wholes, plus, of course, likewise, first person's similar mechanics and aesthetics for the parts and wholes.
Johnson's other narratives choose other mechanics and aesthetics for the several situations and perform similar-different subtext mojo mischief.
Prose decorum!? Grammar suited to subject matter, intent, craft, expression, appeal, occasion, audience, and each to each other, for a glorious symphony synthesis. ---- Narrative distance facets include grammar features of predicate verb and verbal phrase tense, person, voice, mood, and number; and subject and object (noun, etc.) event, setting and milieu's time, place, and situation, and persona per outsider observer external observations and insider internal and external observer facets; and the distance demeanor and degree between those two persona types, narrator narrative point of view and viewpoint contestant, plus tone's attitude.
quote:Originally posted by MerlionEmrys: It leaves the realm of "correct" and "incorrect" and starts to be, essentially, a matter of style.
Quoted from a longer comment.
I once investigated the use of "for" as a coordinating conjunction. That was interesting, but essentially wasted.
But I didn't know before I started. Usually, anything I investigate is worthwhile and improves my writing. The improvement of course is always small, but I am happy to improve. I had no expectation that this investigation would make a difference.
(I was writing about a different grammar where there was no word cost to using, or not using, progressive. I enjoyed the slight increase in power, but again it was slight. You don't have that freedom.)
Which means, I am very concerned with very small improvements in grammar. You state the majority view -- it's not worth the time and trouble.
I'm not sure there is a realm of correct or incorrect. Grammar and punctuation are tools. There is a matter of style too, but there's a lot more to it than that.
In the case of progressive tense, I currently am thinking that a native English speaker will naturally use them well. So no urgent need to pay attention to this discussion. If you take advice, or give advice, that invalidates your guarantee.
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quote:Originally posted by Jay Greenstein: If you’re a grammar Nazi such definitions matter a great deal.
It seems too complicated to define/describe.
She walks to the car She is walking to the car
I decided that the direct verb means that she s at the car by the end of the phrase. In progressive, whe would still be walking at the end of the phrase. So there is some micro-managing of time.
But:
I trust you. I am trusting you.
Trust seems to be a state. Or static. (extrinsic? help?). The use of progressive seems to suggest a start and end, like I decided to trust him, and/or I might choose to stop later on.
So the meaning is, in a way, in the opposite direction!
John blinked. John was blinking.
Now they are two different actions! Another example:
"Help, help, help," she screamed. "Help, help, help," she was screaming.
The first suggests exactly three screams; the progressive suggests a multiplicity of screams. That seems to happen for actions that are nearly instantaneous.
I would hate to have to teach this to someone who did not know English.
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posted
I have some many years tutored English, casual, informal, and formal, from not-one-alphabet-letter through post-advanced learners, from rudimentary to remedial to grade-level to postdoctorate, English second language learners, too, even tutored native English postdoctorate learners, from the crib up and beyond.
"I trust you."
When? Only this moment now, or some past time forward to now and further, or now forward for a time or indefinitely? Trust is a state of being and subject to a wide time span and variable state-of-being degrees. There above, static voice of the third degree: no to be verb and no progressive tense verb.
"I am trusting you."
Static voice of the second degree, a to be verb, "am," and a progressive tense verb, "trusting." From some indefinite present time until any indefinite future time.
No practical revision of the sentence to static voice of the first degree: a standalone to be predicate verb.
//I am your trust.// //You are my trust.// ?? Nope. //You are mine to trust.// Infinitive verb, nope, a stasis state of being.
//I trusted you.//
Still static voice, a more finite time span at least. From any indefinite past time up until any recent time, maybe just now, no further, I trusted you.
From five minutes ago until just this past minute, I trusted you. Still static voice, though a narrowed, finite time span state of being.
Dynamic voice expresses process statements rather than state of being statements, and declares, indicates, or implies a specific, definite, finite, natural time span for a given process. Dynamic verbs, likewise specific, etc., are a substantial part of dynamic voice, though proximal diction and syntax context and texture and extended contexture wrap may establish or enhance a dynamic voice clause or sentence, and overall of a segment, say, a paragraph or so of mixed active voice and dynamic voice, maybe some judicious passive and static voices, too.
//I now grant you my trust.//
This singular, specific, definite, finite now moment, I give you my trust.
A narrowest immediate-now process statement, "now grant." Dynamic voice. Maybe further trust ahead for a time or indefinitely, though the trust grant itself is of an immediate-now instant of time.
Notice that "trust" converts from a verb to a noun there above. To grant, simple present tense conjugate, is a process statement word. Simple past and progressive, perfect, and infinitive tense verb to grant conjugates, though, convert the sentence into state-of-being statements of a nonfinite and nondefinite time span, stasis of being for an indefinite time span, past, present, or future: static voice.
//I had granted you my trust.// //I had been going to grant you my trust.// //I have been going to grant you my trust.// //I am going to grant you my trust.// //I am granting you my trust.// [I now grant you my trust.] The sole one of these several that's a narrow, finite time span and definite process statement, dynamic voice. //I granted you my trust.// //I have granted you my trust.// //I would have had been going to be granting you my trust.// Pluperfect past-future infinitive tense, subjunctive mood, static voice cluck sentence extraordinaire. Apt for characterization functions and akin to I drunk not how you think I am.
However, everyday conversation habits accept limited dynamic voice significance for such as "I trust you."
Some verbs and some variant tense conjugates might or might not serve dynamic voice's process statement functions, and degree of time-span finiteness and definiteness can span an axis from littlest to more to most extreme ends. Maybe the least best one verb or tense versus another might do is enhance active voice an increment or so more dynamically.
//I am granting my trust to you.//
Trust given this indefinite-now present time and further future for a time or indefinitely until further notice.
//My trust in you ended at the sight of his arms around you.//
A process statement and a process ended in a dramatic and tragic instant -- an instant: dynamic voice of a narrowest time-span degree.
posted
Those sentences could be participle clauses, dependent clauses of sentences. As is, though, those are complete sentences.
Participle clause parts of complete sentences examples, one nested, one antecedent, one subsequent past tense auxiliary, one a subsequent auxiliary cluck. An apt participle clause could be subsequent, at a sentence end, though does not work for these examples, as then the clause aligns the main ideas, the third example; or clucks off-kilter, fourth example:
//Mary, walking to the car, stopped.// //Walking to the car, Mary stopped.// "Mary stopped walking to the car." //Mary stopped to the car walking.// Nope. (Yoda speak, maybe)
"stopped" is a potential immediate-now moment, once-and-done, most dynamic voice facet, even among progressive tense clauses. "started" implies here and now forward for an indefinite time span.
The week allotted for progressive tense study draws to a close. A brief-summary recap of a fundamental progressive tense function: progressive tenses are always auxiliaries of other main, simple tenses.
Progressive tense does not work alone, generally. Hence, progressive tense constructs add to page real-estate consumed from helper verbs and the, by definition, mandated, -ing suffix.
//Mary walking to the car.//
A standing-alone participle clause, sentence fragment, is there above being. Might or might not work for a non-text media or photo caption, a news headline; a song, motion picture, book, or short story title; etc. Or conserve one or two or so glyphs and compose complete simple tense sentences for any of the former progressive tense usages -- glyphs saved add up long term:
//They walk to the car.// //Mary walks to the car.// "Mary walked to the car."
Progressive tense aesthetics principles, enumerated up thread, entail more rarefied complexity and granular nuances than the above mechanicals recap.
quote:Originally posted by extrinsic: The week allotted for progressive tense study draws to a close.
Yes!
I learned that I should have studied -ing verbs, not just progressive tense.
I decided more confidently that a native English speaker can intuitively choose the form that corresponds best to meaning; I already knew about the pressures not to do that. The different meanings are probably too complicated to talk about.
And an unexpected insight. My actual life is events in time, so it was natural for me to think of a story as events in time. But really, the author creates time too, and the author guides and directs the reader through the time of the story.
Really, "Mary was walking to her car" means she started walking before the start of the sentence and was still walking at the end. "Mary walked to her car" means she was done walking by the end of the sentence.
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quote:Originally posted by EmmaSohan: "Mary walked to her car" means she was done walking by the end of the sentence.
And just this definite past moment did end the walk to her car, and might substitute metaphorically for this all but present-tense definite moment span does walk.
Though I do tote my own bales overmuch, I learned, perhaps as much or more -- from the conversation, too.
quote: If I understand correctly, your complaints about "screaming" are because it is static.
Depends on who’s observing. If the protagonist is noting it, and will react, it’s in their viewpoint, and thus, character-centric. If the author is noticing and reporting, it’s author-centric, telling, and comes from someone not on the scene—someone living at a different time/place from when the scene takes place. That stills the scene-clock, killing the sense of reality you’ve built.
quote:Progressive tense seems to be perfect for the static description of a scene, right?
I’d say it’s more an external/internal viewpoint issue—reporting as against living. In other words, it’s an artifact of telling (without my being judgmental about the benefits of show/tell). If you want a close viewpoint avoid the tense where possible.
quote:But you think it detaches the reader from the main character because it's in the middle of the action scene.
Any scene is action if we're in real-time as the protagonist views it. If we're not, we're in overview, and that's a report, unless you're rubber-banding time to skip over unnecessary intervals where something the reader needs to know happens, but it's burried in irrelevant byplay.
What I’m really saying is: 1) save authorial intrusion for between scenes and things that support the protagonist’s immediate needs. 2) Once you start the scene-clock get off stage and into the prompter’s booth so you don’t block the reader’s view of the action.
A few relevant quotes:
“Readers don’t notice point-of-view errors. They simply sense that the writing is bad.” ~ Sol Stein
“There are far too many would-be works of fiction in which plot and character are not revealed, but explained.” ~ Peter Miller
“Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader, not the fact that it’s raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.” ~ E. L. Doctorow
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posted
I usually am not keen on these theoretical discussions. I left that in my previous life as a Lecturer and Professor, wanting to get away from it.
However, I must say that the three quotations at the end of Jay Greenstein's last post were most enlightening and helpful to me.
posted
Hi Jay. I always thought the problem was stopping the scene clock, but maybe it's taking the reader out of the scene? Could that be true?
To return to a familiar example:
quote:She whirled around. Her father tried to grab her arm, but she slipped away. She could hear the tornado now, howling like a giant train. Her parents were screaming at her to come back. She darted up the stairs, almost tripping in her hurry. She threw open her bedroom door. The wind was shaking her windows. She couldn't see Toto!
We could analyze that as constantly stopping and restarting the scene clock. (Especially if "could hear" and "almost tripping" stop the clock.) But none of those take the reader out of the scene.
Progressive tense is avoided by changing "were screaming" to "kept screaming". But does that accomplish anything? It's active for "She saw her parents screaming at her." But does that change anything?
And this is an issue.
1. The tropical rain fell in drenching sheets, hammering the corrugated roof... 2. The tropical rain was falling in drenching sheets, hammering the corrugated roof...
If they mean the same thing, how can one turn the scene clock on and the other not? (#1 is the start, after prologue, of Jurassic Park, Crichton).
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posted
Progressive tenses contain -ing words without exception.
Progressive tenses range from pluperfect past progressive to past perfect progressive to past progressive to present progressive to future progressive to progressive infinitive. Six distinct progressive tenses.
"were screaming" Past progressive tense: ongoing from an indefinite past time through an indefinite present or future time span.
"kept screaming" Past progressive tense, likewise ongoing, indefinite time span.
"1. The tropical rain fell in drenching sheets, hammering the corrugated roof... 2. The tropical rain was falling in drenching sheets, hammering the corrugated roof..."
First sentence, first clause (main), simple past tense predicate verb | sentence object present progressive tense participle, an adverbial modifier phrase | second clause, dependent clause, present progressive tense, likewise ongoing, indefinite time span.
Second sentence, first clause (main), past progressive tense, and adverbial participle sentence object phrase | second clause, dependent clause, present progressive tense, likewise ongoing, indefinite time span.
Whether a progressive tense starts, continues, stops, or reverses or sets back a scene clock is a matter of a predicate's relationship to a present now's in-scene start time and forward elapsed time, or maybe backward if wanted and apt.
Tense anachrony takes readers out of present-now scenes (main simple past tense now or main simple present tense now): maybe to a narrative's other internal time, place, and situation scene or scenes, or maybe to a narrator's external or outsider time, place, and situation, or maybe to a writer's far outsider time, place, and situation.
quote:Hi Jay. I always thought the problem was stopping the scene clock, but maybe it's taking the reader out of the scene? Could that be true?
I think talking about "stopping the scene clock," or "taking the reader out of the scene," are just two ways of illustrating the result of authorial interjection, or any POV break.
quote:She whirled around. Her father tried to grab her arm, but she slipped away. She could hear the tornado now, howling like a giant train. Her parents were screaming at her to come back. She darted up the stairs, almost tripping in her hurry. She threw open her bedroom door. The wind was shaking her windows. She couldn't see Toto!
Oh, are you going to hate me...
I don't see this as being in her viewpoint. It's a series of eight declarative sentences from an external reporter that involve the protagonist, emotionally, not at all. She doesn't react to anything, she just acts, while the external reporter says, "This happened...then that happened...then that happened...and after that...."
I would see a close viewpoint, with a scene-clock running, as something like:
The sound of the tornado, howling like a giant train, drove her to turn and run for the steps. Her father grabbed at her arm, but she dodged, nearly falling, and rushed up the steps and to the window. Ignoring the cries from below, ignoring the sound of the oncoming storm, she leaned far outward, seeking Toto and shouting his name.
Tick 1. The sound of the storm motivates her to run. Tick 2. Her father reaching for her motivates her to dodge, and nearly fall. Tick 3. Her reaching the window motivates her to ignore everything else and look for the dog.
Your mileage may differ.
quote:1. The tropical rain fell in drenching sheets, hammering the corrugated roof... 2. The tropical rain was falling in drenching sheets, hammering the corrugated roof...
Neither involve the scene clock because there's no one noticing and reacting. So it's a static description—a weather report. For the scene clock to tick, someone must notice and react, even if the response is to decide to ignore it. But either sentence could be part of an active scene is someone responds to the sound of the rain. That aside, if they do react, the second sentence reads as more immediate because that "was" drives it into past tense, where only the author can go. But for the one living the story, as in life, our viewpoint is always present tense first person.
posted
"fell" is the simple past tense of irregular verb to fall: fall or falls, fell, fallen, falling.
"was falling" is past progressive tense.
[Edit: Those tenses pointed out for realization irregular verbs want focused considerations. To set is an extraordinary irregular verb, conjugates: set or sets, present tense; set or sets, past tense; setting, progressive tense, and the too often set-sit mistake.
Also, Jay Greenstein's tornado and Toto demonstration revision is an apt and artful in-scene example, and example of excellence for ergative case predicate and sentence object noun or pronoun syntax relationships (de re), fully enough fully realized in scene.]
posted
Hi Jay. You are always polite to me and you discuss writing at a deeper level than most people. I don't remember even being annoyed at you.
Your rewrite of that paragraph seems too distant to me. It sounds like someone telling a story? I wanted something closer to what the character was experiencing.
"ignoring the sound of the oncoming storm," is, I think, too abstract. I used what I call synecdoche -- a sound of the oncoming storm (the windows shaking).
Well, back to topic!
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posted
I used words formed by a verb and -ing four times. Jay's rewrite used six, unless "oncoming" counts, then it would be seven. So he seems to like them more than me. True?
I am not sure what is accomplished by using a participle phrase over progressive tense.
1. she leaned far outward, seeking Toto and shouting his name.
2. She was shouting his name.
Either way, they are supposed to have the same meaning, right? So how can one stop the scene and not the other? How can one be more vivid than the other?
There is a grammar thing, with the participial phrase saving a word, but that's a different issue, right?
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posted
Jay Greenstein's muse is less rigid than mine about -ings and tense aptness overall. Most or all -ings, except unequivocal gerunds, are revisable to simple past, sentence syntax adjusted to suit, and no meaning loss, and maybe enhanced force movement. Use of -ings, for my muse, is optimal if those express a greater significance weight than tense convenient habit, and no apter alternative otherwise is available.
"She was shuddering and writhing in ecstasy beneath him." (Orson Scott Card, Wyrms, 1987)
Context wrap defines (limits, restricts) the as is indefinite time span of that sentence. The past progressive tense there is an auxiliary tense of main past tense, or also an auxiliary of main simple present tense. Would simple past tense be as apt or more so? Yes, for a fraction of readers who realize main simple past tense is a metaphoric substitute for main simple present tense -- intransitive case verb racked, that:
//Ecstasy shuddered and writhed [or racked, or other apt verbal metaphor, etc., by itself] her beneath him.//
//Ecstasy racked her beneath him.//
//Beneath him, ecstasy racked her.//
Are more finite and definite (restrictive, sentence-internal limitation) time span and closer narrative distance to protagonist Patience's internal self-perspective and in-scene now-moment; that is, narrator receives and presents Patience's reflections unfiltered.
That syntax adjustment type, too, translates over-emphasized, instinctive "Keep in Touch" (with a protagonist's perspective) active and static voices' syntax, or passive voice, to apt active and dynamic voices, places a true subject into sentence subject position, or object phrase translated for predicate complement phrase emphasis relocation before a main clause, eliminates static voice of the second degree: to be helper verb + main verb(s): (past preterite [was racked] or progressive participle predicate phrase [was shuddering and writhing]).
Likewise -- readers, and writers, who realize third person, limited, close is a metaphoric substitute for first person. . . .
quote:Originally posted by extrinsic: ...Most or all -ings, except unequivocal gerunds, are revisable to simple past, sentence syntax adjusted to suit, and no meaning loss, and maybe enhanced force movement...
I thought you had agreed they have different meanings.
John was dying. John died.
Totally different, right? The following seems like a normal difference:
I walked into the room. John stood. I walked into the room. John was standing.
Even when they are close in meaning, they can still be different:
I trust you I am trusting you
I typed 5 extra characters because I thought the progressive had a better meaning.
Anyway, my muse is wondering if the progressive is a peaceful way to signal scene-setting. A half-sentence starting a scene:
The wicked witch was flying on her broomstick, thinking evil thoughts, when she saw,...
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posted
Maybe those are different meanings, though wraparound diction and syntax adjustments, adjacent clauses and sentences, that is, mitigate many, most, or all simple past tense auxiliaries. Simple present auxiliaries, maybe not.
"John was dying. John died."
For main present tense present progressive auxiliary, maybe.
//John is dying.//
Or maybe simple past tense alone.
//John dies.//
Context wraparound:
//Late and harried, she arrived in time. John strained for life on his deathbed. His last breath rattled. He died.//
Not briefer for the sake of brevity alone.
This below, to me, is a run-on train wreck and a convoluted tense sequence.
"The wicked witch was flying on her broomstick, thinking evil thoughts, when she saw,..."
Past progressive to present progressive to simple past tense sequence. And the semblance of traditional fable summary and explanation tell from Aesop's few thousand years ago moral learner instructions.
//Scarecrow pointed. "Look, Dorothy." The wicked witch flew high on her broomstick, thought her evil thoughts. When she saw . . .//
More than mechanical words and glyphs saved for the sake of space economy, rather, more-said-with-less aesthetics and more so robust and fully realized dramatic portrait appeals.
quote:if the progressive is a peaceful way to signal scene-setting.
Substitute the word passive for peaceful and I think you have a closer definition.
quote:The wicked witch was flying on her broomstick, thinking evil thoughts, when she saw,...
Prefix that with, "Once upon a time," and you have the feel of the tense more clearly.
Phrased as you showed it, it's someone unknown, in an emotion-free voice, providing data about the situation. The viewpoint is that of the narrator, not the one on the broomstick, because the witch would never see her own thoughts as evil.
That's not to say you can't, or shouldn't begin a story that way, only that it's a distant, and more dispassionate way. The reader knows what's being described, but isn't made to feel what the witch is feeling. If the intent is a fly-on-the-wall viewpoint it's a good method, because facts inform, but are less likely to carry the emotion within the one being talked about. For example...
In, Kiss of Death, Barbara, a psychologist, the protagonist, has feelings for Bill, her patient. In her scenes I wanted the reader to know her on an emotional level, so here I wanted the reader to know the situation as she does:
- - - - Belatedly, she realized what she was doing and pulled back, covering her mistake with, “You tried your best, Bill. No one can demand more than that. Not even you.”
“But…I wasn’t fast enough. I just…wasn’t fast enough.”
She took his hand, needing the contact, then gave in and brought him against her as he cried.
“I know. Just let it out. I’m here.” Concerns about the professional thing to do mattered not at all. He needed her, and he needed her strength. Only that mattered. - - - -
But... Bill has several ex-mothers-in-law who believe him to be a murderer. Because I didn't want the reader to empathize with them I used a more distant viewpoint when they were on stage:
- - - - Single-file, like a line of mourners searching for a funeral, the three women walked from the parking lot to the apartment building, darkening the atmosphere of what should have been a pleasant day. Children playing on the grass near the sidewalk stopped their play to stare, then whispered behind their hands after the women passed.
The smallest of the women, thin and dour faced—the one who led the procession—took the center position as they faced the door to the apartment. Her features carried a trace of the Native American tribe that had been her genesis, her carriage a great deal more. The other two deferred to her and formed a second rank, silently waiting.
“Yes?” The woman who answered was in her forties, and like the women at her door, dressed in the colors of mourning. - - - - In fact, I began that novel in fly-on-the-wall mode because I was trying for an atmosphere like the funeral scene in the film, Charade. I can't say that it worked, or didn't, only that all styles of viewpoint have their uses. And that tense would seem to work best when we don't want the reader to closely identify with that scene's protagonist.
quote:if the progressive is a peaceful way to signal scene-setting.
Substitute the word passive for peaceful and I think you have a closer definition.
quote:The wicked witch was flying on her broomstick, thinking evil thoughts, when she saw,...
Prefix that with, "Once upon a time," and you have the feel of the tense more clearly.
Yes, I agree. It's fitting grammar to function. Right? Signalling to the reader that you are establishing the scene.
quote:Barbara Kosmin was bored. Theodore Starns, her present patient, was playing his usual game of poor me, complaining about... (Kiss of Death, Greenstein)
That's how you started Chapter 2. We are both establishing setting (or what is happening as the scene starts). Your second sentence, my first, both have progressive tense, then a participle phrase ("thinking", "complaining")
You could have written active with no change in meaning, but our readers sooner or later would have had to understand it as what is happening as the scene starts.
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quote:Originally posted by EmmaSohan: 1. The tropical rain fell in drenching sheets, hammering the corrugated roof... 2. The tropical rain was falling in drenching sheets, hammering the corrugated roof...
If they mean the same thing, how can one turn the scene clock on and the other not? (#1 is the start, after prologue, of Jurassic Park, Crichton).
You're conflating gerunds and verbs. First reference I came to (didn't look very hard):
posted
"drenching" modifies "sheets" and, therefore, is a participial adjective, or progressive present participle modifier of a noun.
"drenching" can be a verb part, a participle, or a gerund, as can all progressive tense verbs, and simple present and simple past tense verbs be participles. Participles, regardless of tense, modify nouns and pronouns. Gerunds are present progressive verbal nouns.
Rain is drenching the roof. Verb Rain fell in drenching sheets. Participial adjective Rain gives the roof a full drenching. Gerund Rain flooded the roof a full drench. Present participle Rain wet the roof -- full drenched. Past participle
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quote:He lay flat on the brown, pine-needled floor of the forest, his chin on his folded arms, and high overhead the wind blew in the tops of the pine trees. (Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls, start)
I have decided that this avoidance of progressive tense is suboptimal. Just for the inaccuracy, yes, but also because it does not signal the reader that this is scene-setting. And those communication goals are more important than saving a word.
I mean, the reader has to figure out that he "was laying" and the wind "was blowing". Why not make that easy for the reader?
Better
quote:Ginny Scoot was standing on a third-floor ledge, threatening to jump, and it was more or less my fault. (Evanovich, Tricky Twenty-Two, start)
This is a small thing, of course. And it's hard to criticize Hemingway, and that usage is very common. So no one's going ballistic or drama-queening about that usage. But Hemingway isn't my go-to author for writing that's so easy-reading it seems friendly. Evanovich is.
And Hemingway does use progressive tense, as does everyone else. Everyone.
He was breathing heavily (For Whom the Bell Tolls)
Henry was bubbling with delight. (Swain, Henry Horn's X-ray Glasses)
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posted
Janet Evanovich -- Janet, female protagonist, first person, main simple present tense, though abundant tense auxiliaries, late twentieth century through early twenty-first century, Postmodern New Feminism.
Ernest Hemingway -- Ernest, male protagonists, third person, main simple past tense, sparse tense auxiliaries (minimalism), first half twentieth century, Modernism, cult of manhood.
Likewise, Stephenie Meyer, Suzanne Collins, among several recent blockbuster novelists, female protagonists, first person, main simple present tense, abundant tense auxiliaries, Postmodern New Feminism.
Among other rarefied macro-level facets, what's the substantive contrasted comparison?
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quote:He lay flat on the brown, pine-needled floor of the forest...
Be careful of using a book published in 1940 as en example of how one might begin a novel now. What publishers were smiling on at that time is very different from today. Were he writing today, he would be writing just as brilliantly, but for today's marketplace.
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quote:Originally posted by extrinsic: Janet Evanovich -- Janet, female protagonist, first person, main simple present tense, though abundant tense auxiliaries, late twentieth century through early twenty-first century, Postmodern New Feminism.
Ernest Hemingway -- Ernest, male protagonists, third person, main simple past tense, sparse tense auxiliaries (minimalism), first half twentieth century, Modernism, cult of manhood.
Likewise, Stephenie Meyer, Suzanne Collins, among several recent blockbuster novelists, female protagonists, first person, main simple present tense, abundant tense auxiliaries, Postmodern New Feminism.
Among other rarefied macro-level facets, what's the substantive contrasted comparison?
Hi extrinsic. Thanks for everything. Some day I want to talk about participles and other verb tenses. But I have had my fill of tenses for now. Point of view next?
It's hard to look at styles for grammar (and punctuation), but fun too. Most authors seems normal, with ordinary differences in style and skill. Some will do something good worth noting. Twilight is a great example of creating characters with punctuation (dashes and ellipses). Collins likes fragments and can do them brilliantly.
Hemingway, except for The Old Man and the Sea, seems normal and just of historical value. True?
And there are some author I find worth understanding. Evanovich I think, writes familiar grammar and doesn't break a lot of the rules of what I call Sequential Phase Grammar. So she is my example of that. She must just try for easy reading. So it wasn't surprising that she scene-sets with progressive tense.
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posted
My point -- or question, is more about how different writer identity matrices use different local dialects. Masculine Hemingway, masculine language; feminine Evanovich, Meyer, Collins, etc., feminine language. Normal? I don't believe so. Normal to each's personal language environment and discourse community, less normal, if at all, beyond familiar climes. And little, if any, stretch outside of a local, native dialect, yet an overall blandness of common educated English otherwise.
Hemingway's location within the literary opus is his mastery of Modernism's realism aesthetics, minimalism, and the cult of manhood he represented and presented. No writer since has appreciated honorable masculism and its taboos to Hemingway's compare. Nope, more so the ignobleness of hegemonic masculism reigns among male entitlement writers.
Of note that Gertrude Stein and her progressive present tense abundance for expression of an ever-present present sense of invariant present being and Hemingway's sparse minimalism were contemporaries of the Modernism movement.
Yet Evanovich, et al, justify their progressive tense abundance without a similar different expression function. They take such for granted as given without question or challenge. This is the way it is and always had been, was, is, and will be forever for everyone. Not for a lively language, not when millions of divergent idiolects attend the millions of English language users. My exhortation: Why write the same dreary blandness as millions of other writer strugglers.
Like many high school writers believe "it" syntax expletives are okay because Charles Dickens uses the pathetic and overworked pronoun for the prologue, synchrisis portion of A Tale of Two Cities, and Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Paul Clifford, 1830, uses the pronoun for the first word (syntax expletive), and twice more, of the most deprecated first sentence of all time, among the top hundred best first sentences because of the sentence's infamy.
"It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents — except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness."
posted
I understand now. Interesting idea. I didn't find any progressive tense in the start of Hunger Games or any abnormal use of it in Twilight.
Do you think an editor would have an influence on this? It's kind of at a level an editor might care about and a writer might not.
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posted
Hunger Games and Twilight are each first person, main simple present tense narrative point of view.
However, Games is more a masculine language overall, and Twilight a more feminine language. Yet Games does not lose the feminine tender altogether. Note the feminine name conventions: Peeta, Gale, Cinna, Snow, Seneca, and -y and -ie male name suffix diminutives, for examples. Less pivotal other males' names: some feminine, some lean more masculine, some neuter, some incomparably masculine and to a fault villains. Katniss' perspective also leans toward feminine regards with a masculine pragmatism
An editor of any merit would assay for personal language dialect purposes and disruptive expression otherwise, irrespective of narrative point of view facets, like main tense and apt auxiliaries. More so, an editor worth the shingle would observe standout phenomena, such as Collins' name conventions, and wonder to the writer if more could be made pertinent from such.
posted
What I meant was, I can imagine an editor changing "The rain was falling" to "The rain fell." I might go ballistic, but I don't think most writers would care.
Speaking of rain, does it actually fall? I think the rain drops fall, but the rain moves in, or blankets the town, or stays for days.
Of, if rain can fall, isn't that redundant? If it wasn't falling, could it still be raining?
So I try to be tolerant of "It was raining." "The rain fell" is no fewer words, and the so-called active verb isn't really active.
And what about "It wasn't raining"? Does that rewrite to "No rain fell"? Awkward, right, but probably not as bad as "No sun shone."
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posted
Each of those examples are summary and explanation tells.
A competent editor may correct nondiscretionary grammar errors. Period. All else is guidance, suggestions, coaxes, if that, more so queries: what ifs. More than a few noncompetent editors hold out they're competent and are about as capable as the proverbial stopped clock is correct two times a day.
"The rain fell."
Is active voice, though static voice, too, describes -- summary tells -- an indefinite and nonfinite time span up to this immediate now past moment in which rain falls, and no cue given the rainfall stops at even this immediate past now moment: continues until an indefinite future now time. The syntax -- syntax -- of the sentence is static voice of the third degree, a state of being stasis, though not a state of being to be verb. Not per se a static or active or passive or dynamic verb, rather how the sentence altogether lacks temporal context: when.
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