ばか！バカ！　馬鹿ー月！

Hey guys,

first: I've looked through the topics here and don't seem to find an answer to that.

So, I find this problem with every novel that is told by an I-narrator, Haganai, OniAi, OreShura, you name it.

There are thoughts of the narrator, he is thinking right at the moment. Then there's situational stuff, like someone who's entering the room and whatnot. And there are also flashbacks.

The first thing I am keeping in present tense, they're his thoughts at this moment and about the scene in front of his eyes. Second thing in past-tense. He's in the present and tells things that happened. And then there are the flashbacks. That's my problem, they should be put into past-perfect, right? But this whole "had had had" sounds odd to me. So I am getting more confused by the second, especially on long flashbacks. Listening to my gut-feeling on this, it's a somewhat dumb question, I just want my peace of mind back.

Let me thank you guys in advance.

Regards

One solution I've used is to put only the first sentence and the last sentence of the flashback into past perfect and keep the rest in past tense. In other words, you just need to "initialize" the context for the reader and his understanding will automatically make the time switch, hopefully.

Did a quick google search, and it looks like this article mentioned what I mean: http://www.writersdigest.com/qp7-migrat ... flashbacks

Signalling the beginning and ending of the flashback sounds much better, thank you. I skimmed over the text, they seem to be pretty do-able stuff, in my case they often switch from event to event like crazy, so I signal every single event anew to make it clear to the reader? For example if the narrator goes like: She was like this, because that happened, people said I am like that, but in truth once... etc.. So the changes between narration and a new flashback are signalled once and I'm good with past-tense? That doesn't disappoint me and helps pretty much, I think. Thank you Eusth!

Well, I get the feeling I gotta get over my past works again sometime to check.

EDIT: Lucky me, only haganai needs a deeper review due to flashback. Tomorrow, tomorrow...

Sometimes it's obvious monologue, like:
blah blah blah blah? blah blah blah! そう思って

The preceding blah blah blah blah? blah blah blah! is monologue at that time, so I normally use present tense for that, but I'm not sure whether it's legit in English writing.

I also found that it's pretty awful if the author himself doesn't hint at what really is a thought. OreShura Vol. 1 #1 starts off with three pages worth narration... or is it narration? Could also be thoughts, then it'd be "present-tense" but it's too unnatural to be a bunch of thoughts.

Do you guys just take a guess yourself or is there a certain trick to it?

Thanks again.

Personal preference: I like to keep it past tense whenever the MC is narrating/telling the story. It's pretty much the convention in English literature, I think. Past tense unless it's dialogue or anything that might get marked off in quotes (explicit internalized thoughts, in this case, count as dialogue too), in which case that's in present tense.

For example (spontaneously writing a random sample):

I crept along the edge of the building, my fingers trembling as I held the knife in my hands. I was afraid he would see me.

If he looked up even a centimeter from his book, I was sure it would all be over. The hopes that my friends and family laid on me would all go to waste. The dream that Alexander and I shared would crumble into dust. Despite all their sacrifices, the situation would collapse to ground as a pile of rubble. I didn't want that. I couldn't bear to think that they would need to go through all of that again.

...Just stay calm, and he'll never notice. Just stay calm...

I closed my eyes for a moment and leaned my back against the wall, the knife clutched in my hands. I gulped down a ball of anxiety that was forming in my throat.

I can do this... I can do this...

With all the power that I could will upon myself, I pushed myself off the wall and threw my body into the light.