Bragatyr wrote:I thought it was interesting that when I Googled present tense I discovered numerous articles bemoaning just how omnipresent it had become. One in particular was suggesting that it's a real bane in modern writing and that students have even become convinced that it's the only "proper" way to write in the modern era, and that past tense is a thing of the 19th century (which, just, wow).
I've seen it mentioned a few times in different sources that allegedly the popularity of The Hunger Games is to "blame" for writers now wanting to do all present tense, all the time. Whether or not that's actually the case, meh, who knows. I will say, though, that I think THG is one of those stories that did benefit from the use of present tense, as it really enhanced the action in certain scenes and built up the "oh no, what's going to happen next?!?" tension. I can't imagine it being written in past tense.
For what it's worth, I read the first book of the Divergent series, which has been compared to THG a lot, and didn't bother with the rest. Honestly, I don't remember if it was written in past or present tense, but without looking it up, I'm about 99% sure it was present tense. One of the reasons I didn't continue reading was that to me, all other plot and character comparisons aside, the quality of the writing simply wasn't at the same level as THG. Moral of the story? Write however you want, just as long as you do it
well.