The vast majority of the edits for Fatehaven were not scripting errors or pronoun mistakes. They weren’t second-person perspective missteps either, though I did grow tired of writing “You”! No, they were problems with present tense.

Specifically, I naturally wrote in the past. It was a tendency that was hard to avoid even 100k words into the tale. The Wheel of Time, A Game of Thrones, Harry Potter—the books I’ve read and have been influenced by, all written with said’s and saw’s and was’s. And while the effort to rewrite Fatehaven in present tense was an educational one, it probably wasn’t worthwhile. Here’s why:

In David Jauss’s book On Writing Fiction, he details seven advantages and ten disadvantages to using present tense. It is generally agreed upon that the latter outweigh the former, but awareness of common pitfalls can even the scales a tad. This forum post summarizes the points. I’ll do the same, but with a focus towards choose-your-own-adventure games.

Advantages:

1) Present tense is more immediate. An arrow flies by you, grazing just past your ear. There’s a tension and stress there that an arrow that flew by you won’t immediately have. It’ll have the same effect, it’s just that past tense requires the reader to translate the character’s past (“The arrow flew by me”) into the reader’s present (“That arrow nearly fricken hit me!”).

2) The time passes for the character in the same manner it passes for the reader. This adds an element of realism and can help immersion, but it comes at a cost that will be detailed further on.

3) Present tense is less familiar to readers, and this “defamiliarization” can make some scenes more intense.

4) Because it’s less familiar, it can be a bit confusing and a bit surreal. This is helpful in writing a stream of consciousness, any thought-heavy sequence or interpretation.

5) The tense lends itself to a constant bout of small actions the protagonist must preform, because (as mentioned in 2) time cannot be manipulated nearly as much. This can help characterize a main character in ways that make him/her appear restless or relentless.

6) Less can be glossed over when “boxed in the present”, which can make it ideal for recounting past events as precisely as possible. Details cannot be overlooked as easily.

7) Present tense is simpler. Time relationships are less complicated. In past tense you have “I moved”, “I was moving”, “I found myself move”, “I had moved”, “I had been moving” and so on. “I move” and “I find myself moving” offer a more limited shift.

Disadvantages:

1) As an author, present tense kills your ability to manipulate time. You can’t mix chronological orders, and you can’t easily play around with duration:

“You spent ten years as a slave, before finally gaining the freedom you so desired.”
“You spend ten years as a slave, and then you finally gain the freedom you desire.”

The decade spent slaving away in the second sentence feels out of place and reads like an amateurish oversight. In present tense, the reader is more inclined to ask what happened to their shackles on day 1,971.

2) It’s much more difficult to create complex characters and depth when you cannot manipulate time. Your life may contain a great series of interesting events, but if we are restricted to examining you only by what you do today, well. “Gosh this bloke is dull, all that time wasted reading blog-sites on interactive fiction!”

3) Foreshadowing is darn near impossible, because the narrator is reciting what he sees as he sees it. “She interlocked her hands with his, and looked up to him with those doe-like eyes. The streetfighter never stood a chance.” These little foretells can add suspense and spice to any scene. The reader now eagerly reads on, to find out what she intends.

4) It’s argued that present tense doesn’t actually recount past events any more accurately. This isn’t much an issue in interactive fiction, however.

5) The tempo or pacing of a story written in present tense doesn’t vary. Everything happens fast, to the beat of the character’s heart. Observation, movement, observation again. Combat sequences designed to be quick and fast-paced seem less urgent in comparison. This is because all time has to be accounted for in the present.

6) This quick pace leads to perceiving events more so than understanding them. The reader doesn’t have time to examine, contemplate and see how the situation fits within the web the author has weaved. The character has already made their move, and the reader’s mind is forced to take a backseat.

7) Focus is forced upon the inner life of the character to compensate for the problem mentioned above. This is particularly the case with Fatehaven, in which the protagonist spends much more time in his/her mind than out of it. This often doesn’t add any vividness to the scene, and can pull the reader out of the character’s present dilemma.

8) Present tense encourages trivial events, because they cannot be as easily skipped. If the character must idle about for an hour prior to an important meeting, the author is urged to fill that hour one way or another. Paragraphs upon paragraphs of what cat pictures were found on Reddit serve no purpose—aside from increasing your word count!

9) Specifically for the first-person perspective, narrators are forced to be both actors and observers. It’s an awkward mix that forces a detachment that loses emotions in translation. The example is that the isolated “Hi” details a much greater sense of disinterest than a “‘Hi,’ I say as I pass you on the street.”

10) Addressing the audience is a useful literary technique. But it feels odd and out of place when done with a present-tense narrator.

“I grabbed my backpack that was placed up against the wall. This wasn’t where I usually kept it. It was a good example of how strange yesterday was.”
“I grab my backpack that was placed up against the wall. This isn’t where I usually keep it. It is a good example of how strange yesterday was.”

In the second example, the reader may be inclined to ask why the narrator is talking to an empty room!

Conclusion:

If you’re an amateur writer like myself, you’ll find yourself drifting in and out of tenses all the time. Before you nail down what you want your tale to be in, write a few paragraphs and see what comes out naturally. Chances are, you’re stuck in the past as much as I am.