Psychic What?

There I was, sitting in my writer's workshop at Hamline. It was a terribly cold January. The streets were piled with mountains of snow. Inside, the classrooms were toasty, and my toes tingled as they warmed. My workshop leaders, Anne Ursu and Marsha Chall, guided us in discussing the elements of craft in our work. As a novice writer, I copiously took notes while everyone else chimed in. Then the term Psychic Distance was tossed in the wind like it was common as character.

"Psychic What? Please don't tell me that we have to be clairvoyant, too?"

Marsha C read my thoughts. "Do you know need me to explain?" she asked. She shared that PD is a term that John Gardner wrote about in his book, The Art of Fiction. It's the "distance the reader feels between himself and the events of the story." It's like a camera taking a panoramic view and then zooming in closer, or vice-versa. (not her words exactly.)

There are tons of wonderful examples found in great novels, especially by our Hamline staff. But I ran across a light one in Robert Cormier's, I Am the Cheese. I chose this specific passage because of it's brevity.

          I am riding the bicycle and I am on Route 31 in Monument, Massachusetts, on my way to        Rutterburg, Vermont, and I'm pedaling furious because this is an old-fashioned bike, no speeds, no fenders, only the warped tires and the brakes that don't always work and the handlebars with cracked rubber grips to steer with. A plain bike - the kind my father rode as a kid years ago. It's cold as I pedal along, the wind like a snake slithering up my sleeves and into my jacket and my pants legs, too. But I keep pedaling, I keep pedaling (1).

Please feel free to share your examples of PD.

Tense About Tenses

A few weeks ago, Ellen Levine passed around an article by Philip Pullman about the use of the present tense. "What I dislike about the present tense narrative," Pullman writes, "is its limited range of expressiveness. I feel claustrophobic, always pressed up against the immediate." He compares writing in the present to the use of a hand-held camera in film. Writing in the present, he says, is "an abdication of narrative responsibility." (The Guardian, September 18, 2010.)

Really? Since I am 185 pages into a novel told in first person, present tense, my palms began to sweat when I read this. Is my novel claustrophobic? "Pressed up against the immediate..."--in fact, a sense of immediacy is exactly what I am looking for. I'm not sure if I should admit this, but I didn't think much about the choice of tense when I started the book. Instead, I heard Brandon spooling out the story and I wrote it down as he was telling it. Somewhere in the second or third chapter, I realized what I was doing--and just kept on.

My last two novels were written in past tense; one in third person, the other alternating first person voices. Past tense felt natural for both, especially since both stories took place a long time ago. Unless you're writing an epistolary novel (good luck, Gary!) you and the reader buy into the conceit that the narrator is telling you a story that he/she has not written down. First person, present tense requires a similar leap of faith. There's a gauzy scrim between you and the narrator.

When the Pullman article came in, I was reading a novel suggested by my student, Ann Schoenbohm, called The Velvet Room. It's an older book, one I missed when it came out because I was already in college and not, at that point, reading children's novels. The novel is narrated in the past tense, from a third person limited point of view. It's a Once Upon A Time tale that is satisfying and comforting, even in its most suspenseful scenes. So have I made a mistake, writing in present tense?

I went to my bookcase and pulled Ron's Strays off the shelf. It's a present tense novel. I never felt claustrophobic, reading it--just up close and personal with Ted, riding along with him as he deals with tragedy, girls, and talking animals.

So here are some questions: does the choice of tense depend on the story? On the narrator and psychic distance? On the mood you happen to be in when you start writing? Let me know.