Editing User talk:Velocity7 (section)

== I'm confused about tenses with suddenly. (a bit long) ==

Project Administrator, 

As you notice, in the game there are often scenes where something is said or done, then Tomoya says that's what was said or done.  Would this be says or said?  For example, Sunohara says "Haaa..." then Tomoya narrates that he sighs.  Sunohara did/does sigh (I already get confused here, since you can also not put did/does, and put sighs/sighed instead), but it is current, so would the narration be sighs or sighed?  (Also applies to someone said/says something, then Tomoya says that's what that person said/says) [I put says.]

There are also times when someone is getting out of his/her seat and then running off (ex: Fuuko).  Tomoya describes the current actions, but it just happened (like a sudden response). It presently happened, but which tense is it?  Getting out of the seat was before running off, so do those have separate tenses too? The action is simultaneous (implication of running out of the room) but they're two actions in a row. [I put gets up from the seat and runs out of the classroom.]

Also a question about 'soon after' just doing something. If it is being described, is it present or past? Tomoya described what he/they did, but that's what they did, so it's current with an implied transition that that's what they did. If it encompasses a period of time, like eating lunch, I would put ate. The other confusion is tensing an action that has 'soon after' or 'after that' in the same sentence. (Ex: We did this 'after that'.  We do this 'soon after'. 'Soon after that' this is what we do/did. 'Soon after that' we do/did this.) Sentence ordering itself can vary, but the denotation of the tense is important.

I read on your guidelines about class ending. Based on that, it sounds like Tomoya would say 'class has ended', but it doesn't change the fact that while he's speaking presently, 'ended' is still past tense, even though 'has' implies it's current. Also, would such a case usually be superiour to say, 'class ends'?  I'd put class ends because usually you have the bell rings before that.  This can be analogous to 'one hour passed', but I would put 'one hour passes' (anything other than 'one' is more distinguishable due to forcing hour to be plural, because you can't use 'passes' unless it's singular. So, I would use passed instead of pass for three hours, because pass has many more meanings. I get slight confusion with past vs passed too, like 'one hour passes by' as opposed to 'one hour past by'.). However, these examples are a certain period of time happening, so it's a bit more clear, whereas I'm stumped with 'suddenly', 'getting up from the seat and dashing out of the room', and 'that's what he/she says'.

I'm getting confused in tensing these particular scenarios. As you notice, they're all rather similar, but they're all circumstantial. I just want to know how you distinguish them so I can match these more consistently. The class example is good, but these slightly vary.  If you could provide me with a brief clarification, I would greatly appreciate the help.

-Amoirsp 4/13/2007 15:20

:Right now though, the nature of visual novels is also a bit convoluted to me in terms of tenses... for the most part, things do happen in present tense, but every once in a while Tomoya will also speak in past-tense, and sometimes future tense. It seems to be dependent on the situation and what kind of narrative he uses.<br><br>For the most part, you can expect him to speak in present tense, but there are going to be some exceptions here and there. --[[User:Velocity7|velocity7]]

:: I'll use my best judgment for now then and not worry so much about it, but as you know, such tensing like this happens almost all the time, so I wanted to minimise going the wrong direction. Thanks for the pointer. I'll think of a plan of how to tackle this so I can be a bit more consistent. -[[User:Amoirsp|Amoirsp]]