Three Tips to DemystifyTense

Question: “Is it ever okay to switch tenses in a story?”

Answer: Since you included the word ever, the answer is yes. Sometimes switching up your tenses adds power and interest. But generally no. These tips should take the tension out of working with tense and help you decide.

#1 – In general, choose one and stick to either present or past.

Because we may switch back and forth naturally in conversation, tense changes can slip easily into writing. It may take a keen eye to notice it, but some people will. Pointless switches signal lax editing and may be confusing. Only switch when you have a clear reason.

Present tense can enhance the tension and make short stories with lots of drama even more compelling to read. It’s an especially good choice for stories written to stand on their own. Past tense may feel more natural and works well for anthologies, composite stories, and memoir.

#2 – You may need to mix tenses if you are writing in the present about someone who died.

For example:

My father loved to tell stories about the olden days, and every now and then he e-mailed stories about cowboys, hunting jack rabbits, raising chickens and other nostalgic topics to family and friends. He was a masterful storyteller, and his work is polished and entertaining. Although it barely scratches the surface of his life, it’s a cherished legacy. We looked forward to each story.

He DID love, and his (remaining) work (still) IS . . .  Mixing tenses is the only accurate way to state this and other cases where one thing is gone and a related one endures. This sort of shift is clear and easily understood.

#3 – Switching tense for flashbacks may be a powerful option and set them apart.

If your main story is written in the past tense and you reflect back to an especially dramatic scene, it can work well to write that scene in present tense, bringing the reader into the moment. Conversely, past tense makes sense for flashbacks inserted into stories written in present tense. Even if the reader does not specifically notice the shift in time, the change of tense signals it to the unconscious, preventing most confusion. Tips on writing successful flashbacks abound on line.

Think of tense as a two-lane highway with fast-moving traffic. In general it works best to stick with your lane. Look carefully for the right time and signal your intent when you have reason to change.

Guest Post: Still Me After All These Years

They say getting old is hell, but it beats the alternatives. Still Me After All These Years, Karen Helene Walker’s anthology of essays and poems on aging, written by 24 authors who know, may convince you it isn’t hell after all. It's a pleasure to be participating in the prepublication Blog Tour for this charming, funny, and enlightening collection, and I thank Karen for agreeing to answer a few questions about the book.

Karen is offering a tour-wide giveaway featuring two print copies (U.S. entries only) of Still Me and two eBook copies  (International entries). Instructions for entering are at the end of this post.

Now for the interview:

What motivated you to take on this project?

It really began when I had to care for my aging dad and then my mother-in-law. I saw what aging does first-hand and began to think about what would happen when I got older. Then an 88-year-old friend made the comment, “I don’t see me anymore when I look in the mirror.” That really stuck with me. While on retreat with a friend, it came to me that putting together an anthology about aging might be inspiring and helpful to those of us who are already seniors, as well as those caring for aging parents.

What value do you find in a variety of viewpoints?

It surprised me when I began receiving submissions that each writer chose a different aspect of aging. I’d been afraid I’d have to reject submissions because they were too similar. Other than surprise at the various viewpoints, I learned a lot from how others think about the aging process as well as how they deal with the issues.

What have you learned about life and aging from this experience?

That I’m not alone. That each and every one of us is at some point in the aging process. That aging is not a choice, but living is. That none of us knows when our time will be up, but we can choose how we use the time we have left. I’ve learned that our attitude about what life hands us is crucial to maneuvering through this process with grace and dignity.

This book seems like a huge project, from soliciting entries to editing, to laying it all out and publishing. This may be like asking a woman who just gave birth if she wants another child, but ... do you think you'd do it again? 

Sheesh. It is like labor pain where the memory of the pain diminishes with time. Working on the anthology was a very rewarding process, especially seeing the end result. There were challenges, though, especially having to reject submissions. As a writer, telling a person I couldn’t use their work was one of the toughest challenges I’ve ever faced. Would I do it again? Perhaps. If I did, the subject matter would have to overpower the reasons why I wouldn’t want to, which at this point would be mostly financial. It was costly to produce this book.

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all the contributing authors for their hard work and diligence in making the necessary edits, but most especially for their wisdom and humor in tackling this most difficult topic. And thanks to Mark David Gerson for his wise counsel in editing and his amazing book design. And lastly, thanks to Kathleen Messmer for her wonderful photography

Do you have any thoughts in closing?

These words from Tom Clancy seem to sum things up:

Success is a finished book, a stack of pages each of which is filled with words. If you reach that point, you have won a victory over yourself no less impressive than sailing single-handed around the world.

Karen, those words are perfect, and I totally relate to them, as I know many readers will. I hope they inspire others to persist with a writing project. Thank you for taking the time to answer these questions! I hope this book will touch countless lives around the world.

Readers, after reading all the stories in this book, I deeply regret that I did not get my act together to contribute. This is an anthology I’d be proud to be included in. If you are already eligible for senior discounts or soon will be, you’ll find meat for both body and soul in these pages. Younger readers, this book will give you personal perspective and empathy for elders. Give copies to senior citizens in your life.

Still Me After All These Years is available at the following sites: Amazon (print and Kindle), Barnes and Noble, Kobo, and iTunes. Be sure to add it to your shelf on Goodreads.

Follow Karen and the other authors on their tour . Check the schedule HERE.

About the Authors:

Rev. Clara Alexander is an ordained New Thought minister who creates and performs sacred ceremonies, including unique weddings, funerals, memorial services, baby blessings and house blessings. She is also a popular speaker, inspiring groups with her talks on how we cling to our grudges, how we overuse the phrase “I’m sorry” and how we can live the life we love.

Wendy Brown recently retired from a career in wildlife biology, where she studied sandhill cranes and whooping cranes as they migrated from Idaho to New Mexico. Wendy eventually found a permanent home in Albuquerque, where she and her husband enjoy the sounds of sandhill cranes from their deck. Since retiring from state government in 2014.

Valerie Capps has bypassed the porch rocking chair to pursue her life-long passion for writing, thereby proving that in today’s world, life can begin again at 65! Valerie lives in Nashville with her husband and their spoiled-rotten Welsh Corgi. Find Valerie's books on Amazon.

Mary W. Clark retired from her law practice in 2007 and transferred her observation and composition skills to travel writing. She is currently working on a book about her father’s World War II experience flying “the Hump” from India to China over the Himalayas. Mary lives in Paris, Texas. www.maryclarktraveler.com

Fran Fischer: “I was born at a very young age and that happened 82 years ago, so I don’t remember much about it. I’ve crammed as much living into my life as possible, and I’m not through yet. I’ve traveled extensively and I even flew in the same zero-gravity plane that the astronauts trained in. I live in California with my first (and only) husband, and we celebrated our 62nd anniversary this year.”

Pat Garcia (Patricia Anne Pierce-Garcia Schaack) is an American expatriate living in Europe. An accomplished musician as well as a writer, she has been writing (and reading) since childhood.

Mark David Gerson is the author of more than a dozen books, including critically acclaimed titles for writers, award-winning fiction and compelling memoirs. Known as “The Birthing Your Book Guru,” Mark David works with an international roster of clients as coach and consultant, helping them get their stories onto the page and into the world with ease. www.markdavidgerson.com

Holly Deuel Gilster plays “make believe” for a living. In other words, she is a professional actress and musician. Holly also loves painting with words as an accomplished poet, an award-winning short-story writer and a book-reviewer for The Or Echo.

Aaron Gordon is a retired social sciences community college professor. He and his wife, Ellie, have been married for 65 years and have three children and grandchildren.

Ellie Gordon is a retired public school teacher who spent the best 20 years of her life in the classroom. A Chicago native, she now lives in New Mexico.

Karla “Rosie” Harper recently retired from teaching elementary school, freeing her to return to her early love of dancing. Today, when not helping out with her grandchildren, Rosie is taking dance lessons, spinning on a dance floor or performing in senior centers and retirement communities with Albuquerque’s Sugartime, as singer as well as dancer.

Linda Hoye is the author of Two Hearts: An Adoptee’s Journey Through Grief to Gratitude, available through major online retailers. A native of Saskatchewan, Linda currently lives in British Columbia (by way of Washington State) with her husband and doted-upon Yorkshire Terrier. www.lindahoye.com

E.V. Legters hasn’t so much retired as she has exchanged one life for another — from rewarding years with career and children (while pursuing the arts on the fly) to a life with the arts at its center. She is the author of Vanishing Point and Connected Underneath and is currently hard at work on her third novel. www.evlegters.com

LD Masterson lived on both coasts before becoming landlocked in Ohio. After twenty years managing computers for the American Red Cross, she now divides her time between writing, volunteer work and enjoying her grandchildren. Her short stories have been published in several magazines and anthologies, and she is currently working on a new novel. www.ldmasterson.com

Kathleen Messmer not only runs a film production company with offices in the UK and the US, she is an avid photographer and wildlife advocate. In the unlikely event that she ever retires, Kathleen plans to live on a ranch with draft horses and pygmy goats and vineyards and fruit orchards, somewhere near the water. Oh, and a cowboy...maybe. www.kathleenmessmer.com

Karen Norstad has worked as cashier/gift wrapper, secretary, boutique seamstress, administrative assistant, manager of employee stock options, executive assistant and budget analyst. Now retired, Karen’s life revolves around lounging about, wearing PJs until four in the afternoon, obsessing over the news, reading, fusing and slumping glass, practicing piano, keeping a small balcony garden and cooking.

Matt Nyman’s nonlinear career path has included working in the geological sciences, teaching high school, stay-at-home parenting and, currently, training tomorrow’s teachers. Poetry equently resides near the surface of his existence, occasionally erupting onto paper.

Jill Plaman was born and began aging in Milwaukee, but she has lived and worked in Albuquerque since 1977. She holds a BS from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and an MSW from the University of Minnesota. Her special interests are travel, international folk dancing, reading, hiking and spending time with family and friends.

Maureen Polikoff is a clinical social worker/ therapist who has always pursued many other creative endeavors, including painting, playing music and, now, writing. A Connecticut native, she lives in New Mexico with her husband, Michael.

MaryFrank Sanborn left Boston 33 years ago, to apprentice with photographer Walter Chappell in Santa Fe. Still in love with the beauty of the Southwest, MaryFrank photographs, writes, hikes, travels, teaches yoga and meditation, makes soups on Sundays, and dreams of the ocean and whales.

Patricia Stoltey is the author of four mystery novels. The most recent is Wishing Caswell Dead. She lives in Northern Colorado with Sassy Dog, Katie Cat and her husband, Bill. www.patriciastolteybooks.com

Susan Swiderski grew up in Dundalk, Maryland, where everybody calls everybody hon and eating steamed crabs is a sacrament. Although she’s happy in her adopted Georgia, part of her heart still lingers on the shores of Chesapeake Bay, explaining the setting for her novel, Hot Flashes and Cold Lemonade. Susan is currently working on a trilogy, proof that this old gal is still a pathological optimist. www.susan-swiderski.blogspot.com

Jan Castle Walker is a retired teacher and an active artist. She lives in Davis, California with her husband, Mack. www.jancastlewalker.com

Karen Helene Walker is a novelist, memoirist and essayist and the author of The Wishing Steps and Following the Whispers. When not writing, Karen is tap dancing, folk dancing or performing with the musical group Sugartime at retirement communities. Karen is currently working on her second memoir. www.karenfollowingthewhispers.blogspot.com

This tour-wide giveaway is for two (2) print copies (U.S. entries only) and two (2) eBook copies of STILL ME … AFTER ALL THESE YEARS: 24 Authors Reflect on Aging. The giveaway will end at 12 a.m. (EST) on Tuesday, April 4.

To enter, click on this link and follow the instructions. The widget may take a few seconds to load so please be patient.

Thanks for stopping by today. Be sure to check out this charming book.

Blog tour managed by  MC Book Tours

How to Write About a Change of Perspective

The meme you see above has prompted millions of laughs, but can you imagine a more life-changing moment than a priest, monk or nun hearing this revelation after decades of devotion?

Misperceptions like this do happen, and they can shape lives. This meme came to mind recently when a woman told me how she spent her child and early adulthood terrified of burning in hell. She knew in the core of her being that ministers thundered messages of hellfire and brimstone “all the time.”

Eventually she discovered that her particular church believed that yes, the wicked did perish in “The lake of fire,” but they did not burn forever. The perishing was mercifully quick and permanent. The wicked were punished only by being deprived  of the multitude of blessings the righteous are due to receive. She did hear about a lake of fire. That was true. But the burning forever part must have leaked in from outside, according to her informant. “I assure you, that was never part of our teaching.”

By the time she heard this, she had moved away from that church. But learning this still angered her: I didn’t have to spend all those years so scared!

Now she’s wondering how to write about this: “I really did believe that. That is how I heard it. If I was wrong, and I only have that one person’s explanation to go on, I still totally believed it. But now things have changed. And I’d definitely never go back to that church. How do I tell this story?”

“That was your truth back then, and nothing has changed that,” I said. “Not even finding out you were, or might have been, wrong.” My advice to her was simple and four-pronged.

1) Write about what life was like back then. Explain what you heard and how that affected you.

2) Write about the whiplash you experienced when you heard the other point of view. Who told  you? How did you know to believe it? How did that affect you? How did you and do you feel about all this? What has changed?

3) Write with compassion. True, you may feel angry and betrayed. Own that and write it. Then consider the angles. Did any one purposely deceive you? Did you ever ask for help or tell anyone you were scared?

4) Sum it all up. By the time you’ve written through steps one, two and three, you will probably be feeling some closure, if you weren’t already there. Stories demand it, whether they’re still at the stage of self-talk or written down. Readers crave it.

Conflict or tension, especially the internal sort, is the meat of this and any story. Jump into the middle of the mud with both feet and let it all rip. Be brave. Write it real. Polish it to flow smoothly, but leave those emotions in place. They are the lifeblood of your tale. They add the juice and the glue that bonds reader to story and helps them gain their own insight from your message.

Two Terrific Tools for Managing Word Documents

Time for some Tech Talk or Geek Speak to answer this reader’s question for the benefit of all concerned.

I have seven chapters and ninety-three pages in my memoir now, and I’m having a terrible time moving around the document. I tried separate files for each chapter, but with seven chapters and counting, even that’s a mess. And I’m a real klutz at moving chunks of text from one place to another. What can I do?

A Faithful Reader

Tah DAH! Help is at hand!

That help is in two little-known features of Word: the Navigation Pane and Outline view. Let’s take a look.

Navigation Pane (F12)

I keep the Navigation pane (or Nav pane as I call it for short) open all the time when I’m working on a long document. Press F12 in a Word document to open it on yourself (or click on the View tab, then click the box next to Navigation Pane). The gray area in the image above is the Nav pane. I can jump to anywhere in my document, whether it has four pages or four hundred, by clicking on one of the items. The arrow points to the section seen at the right. Of course you will not have that red arrow on your screen, but you will see the blue highlight the arrow points to. If I click on Get Off Your Buts and Write!, I’ll instantly be at the top of that chapter.

Here’s the deal. The Nav pane works with Style defined headers. The items above with arrows beside them are chapter titles. Each chapter title has a Heading 1 style attached. Indented items are sections. They have a Heading 2 style. This won’t be as much help in a memoir, because your only headings will be chapter titles, Heading 1. But being able to jump from one chapter to the next will help. And here’s an idea for the adventurous: you could use section headers for your working document and delete them for final copy.

Don’t throw in the towel if your eyes cross at the mention of styles! Believe me, you can learn enough in five minutes to save hours and hours of frustration finding your way around your document, and it will be easier to format later. Here’s the deal. Go to YouTube and search for “using styles in word 2007.” For best results, substitute your version number for 2007 if it’s different. Scan the search results and find one that looks promising. You might want to try two or three.

Outline View (Alt+Ctrl+O)

In Outline view, the Nav pane remains open, but it has a white background so you won’t be confused. In Outline view, you can move chunks of text slick as a whistle. In the view above I have all text displayed. The red arrow points to the round bullet next to a paragraph I want to move. When I triple-click a paragraph or hold the cursor over the bullet, the paragraph background turns gray.

When I hold the cursor over the bullet, it turns into a four-headed arrow.  When the cursor is in that arrow form, press and hold the left mouse button to drag the entire paragraph into a new position.  As you move it up or down, you’ll see a fine horizontal line between paragraphs that show where the one you’re moving will end up if you let go. Spacing will automatically be adjusted. No need to fix extra paragraph breaks, etc.

If dragging with the mouse is awkward for you, or you’re stuck with a laptop touchpad, use the up or down keyboard arrows to move it one paragraph at a time.

You can also highlight a paragraph and use cut-and-paste to move it to a spot too far away to easily drag. Place your cursor at the beginning of the paragraph beneath and paste. Again, all spacing will be adjusted.

By the way, you can highlight and move multiple paragraphs the same way as long as they’re adjacent.

Green arrow

The green arrow points to the outline tools that manage your view. By default the Show Level field is blank and everything shows. Click on the arrow at the right end of that field and you’ll find a number of options. If you want to move entire chapters around, select Level 1. I often work at Level 2, letting me reorder sections.

One other time Outline view really shines is for reordering bullet or numbered lists. Leave the Level view at default (or select All Levels found at the bottom of the list). Move list items around like paragraphs. Numbering will be automatically reordered.

Blue arrow

The blue arrow points to the Close Outline View button, the easiest way out. Please note: the Close button only shows on the Outline tab, and that tab is only there when you are in Outline view.

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While these panels and views aren’t much help for writing simple short stories, but they can be a life saver on longer projects. Take three minutes to explore them. You’ll be glad you did!

What Word tricks make your life easier?

Personal Truth vs. Factual Truth

Rereading old stories often sparks new insights. Ditto with old blog posts. En route to finding an old post about something else, I found “My Brain on Story.” That post is based on an incident where a witness to a mock crime testified that what turned out to be a plastic water pistol was the gun that fired the shot she heard.  Rereading the post led me to reconsider the controversy about Truth I reported there. My son-in-law’s adamant position was that although the perception that a water pistol was a bullet-firing weapon was real, it was not true. I disagreed, clinging to my assertion that the perception was true.

Today a flash of insight penetrated my skull. Sally’s perception of an actual gun and speeding bullets was personal truth  or perceived truth. The documentable fact that the gun was a water pistol was factual truth. While not every instance of questionable truth has documentable evidence to prove it “right or wrong,” in this situation , the matter can be settled. I still maintain that each form of truth is equally valid, but I’ll concede they are different.

Bottom line, in my opinion, it still does not matter. We’re still talking about terminology and the fact that perceived or personal truth plays a powerful role in our lives.

Sally’s personal truth that a pistol was aimed at her and that shots were fired is still as true today as the day it happened in 1984. I did not stay in contact with Sally, but I can say with absolute certainty that she remembers that personal truth, how real it was, and how stunned she was to hold the water pistol. I’m willing to wager that her life turned a corner that day.

The timing of this discovery is amazing. Life has intervened, and that new volume of advice for writing your lifestory is not finished, though I’m deeply engrossed in it again. I believe it’s no coincidence that I’m currently working on the chapter on memory and truth.

This flash of insight holds two jewels for that chapter:

1. Truth comes in at least two versions, maybe more. Each or all are equally valid, just different.

2. Insight and understanding evolve. I’ve written about this before. Lessons sink in and begin to grow when their seed sprouts, and some seeds can take a long to sprout.

My life is full of slow-cooker lessons and evolving understanding. What are some things you’ve been slow to learn?