A question on tenses: what is acceptable, and what makes people point accusingly.

[scarylady]

Hiya all.

I have a question for you, if you'll indulge me.  I'm planning my next, long, chaptered fanfic, and as I'm making my initial forays into writing it I'm strongly feeling that, to get the style and feel right, I want a third-person, present-tense Prologue, and a third-person past-tense Rest of Fic.

Is this allowable?  Or is it sloppy?  I would prefer not to write the entire thing in present tense, but the Prologue is resisting all my efforts to re-write it into past tense.

Comments

[analect]

A-haaaa... I think I see. Tough to suggest appropriate butt-kicking without seeing it, but tell me - what sort of rhythm and construction are you using in present tense? I find, if you have a distinctive flavour there, shifting it into past tense leaves you with the curse of 'was' etc.

Also, what are you doing in the way of sub-clauses for description? Assonance, simile, metaphor? Give us details, and we shall pore over them. Sling summat up if you like. ;D

[scarylady]

Thanks, I'll gratefully bung it over to you. It's not terribly long.

I would prefer to move it to chapter one and carry on from there with the rest of the chapter. But that will mean staying in present tense and I'm not fond of it.