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Past perfect tense in novels

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January 13, 2024 at 12:21 pm #1857687

wolfie65
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So I’m on kind of a Black Library binge, having finished both of Anthony Reynolds’ Bretonnia books , now finishing C.L. Werner’s Witch Hunter series and while they are good reads, there’s something that bugs me about novels of this type and that is the extensive use of ‘had done x’ or ‘x had happened’ (before).

The Grand Theogonist HAD MET with the guilmasters – or some such thing.

Why not describe the event ? It would make the book longer, probably more interesting, certainly better quality and it wouldn’t be just a rush from one battle scene to the next. It would give the author a chance to actually flesh out the characters – they would become more than just a guy with a blade – to develop the story, to build suspense.

Do they not do this beacuse they can’t or because the publishrs believe their audience to be somewhat retarded with the attention span of gnats ?

January 15, 2024 at 11:19 am #1857988

wolfie65
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I do realize that none of the Black Library – or most authors in any genre – are Tolkien or Eddison, and sometimes, the use of the past perfect tense makes sense, but it gets annoying when they fill page after page after page with nothing but that, short-cutting, as you say, in a mad dash from one battle scene to the next.

And, as I found out just yesterday, they are not completely unable to do it. There’s a scene in C.L.Werner’s Witch Killer where Mathias Thulmann visits an old adversary in a prison, which is fully fleshed out as-it-happens narrative.

More of that and the book could have been 3 times as long and 10 times better.
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