Writing In The Historical Present
This past Sunday, we traveled to the hinterlands of Baltimore County to hear Joyce Carol Oates in conversation with a man who liked the sound of his own voice.
It was an illuminating 45 minutes, crammed into a room with people whose median age hovered somewhere in the mid-60s. And as with all things bright and beautiful, it started late and ended too early, just 45 minutes of conversation (the bulk of which was the aforementioned mansplainer who summarized most of her work instead of asking her to speak on it herself).
I wondered as we waited in line and then as we sat in the room why younger readers and writers weren’t there. Oates’s fiction deals with many issues that have been contemporary since she started writing, and she has a genre for everyone. I could have listened to JC Oates talk for hours. She has a calm wisdom and clarity about her that is soothing and thought-provoking in the best ways.
But one thing struck me, and her explanation for it makes her particularly relevant. She is at work on a new novel, written in the present tense, a convention I loathe. Nowadays, everyone tells stories that have already happened in the present tense. In writing, I understand that this POV is used when someone wants to put the reader/listener into the situation to build suspense or invest them in the outcome. This is a limited, focused use that I accept. But I struggle with hearing everything explained in the present tense. It’s annoying and seems, frankly, dumb.
When Oates talked about her WIP, she noted that it is written entirely in the present tense, and she referred to the tense as the “historical present.” She writes in that way to indicate history in process, not as a tired, done series of events that have then been canonized as “over.”
And I finally understood why younger people (younger-than-me people) seem to tell all of their stories in the “historical present.” The world is on fire — everything is melting, hopeless, catastrophic, and swiftly headed to its perilous end (one of her stories in her latest collection, “Martha” was characterized as science fiction by the interviewer, but Oates went on to explain how it’s not really impossible, and she didn’t see the connection to science fiction. He just sort of stared dumbly at her). But telling stories in the present tense means that there is still hope. A chance of redemption. The potential to change the narrative. Even if the teller’s story has concluded, the book is unfinished. It’s just one scene; even that scene is up for reimagining.
This makes sense to me now. Why not grab onto any glimmer of hope when it comes to living in this garbage fire? If telling stories in the present tense offers comfort and hope to generations with only war, poverty, and rising seas to look forward to, who am I to deny them?
I believe that conventions are a framework but still subject to change and adaptation. If JC Oates’s explanation, at 85, can continue experimenting with alternative ways of thinking and writing, then I certainly can, too.
It was a timely and welcome reminder of the changing nature of everything. Everything is finite, and holding too fast to anything is a recipe for disaster (see also: the American Dream). Better to stay present/tell our stories in the present than dwell too much in the past or with concern for the future. Seems like a recipe for sanity and peace more than anything.
