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Switching to present tense in the epilogue would suggest that the story is in a frame. That is, the story is a narration in the present of events that took place in the past. The narrator is not re...
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#4: Attribution notice removed
by
System
·
2020-01-03T20:41:51Z (over 4 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/25135 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added
by
System
·
2019-12-08T05:43:08Z (over 4 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/25135 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision
by
System
·
2019-12-08T05:43:08Z (over 4 years ago)
Switching to present tense in the epilogue would suggest that the story is in a frame. That is, the story is a narration in the present of events that took place in the past. The narrator is not relating in real time, but is looking back over the entire story and relating it in hindsight. This is a common enough technique, but if it is employed only in the epilogue that means that you are springing the fact that there is a frame on the reader at the end, rather than placing it in the frame from the beginning. I don't see why that cannot be made to work, but I think you have to think about it consciously, and make sure the main story is narrated as if it were in a frame, even if the reader is not aware of it. This may be subtle, but I think if it is done well, the reader should feel satisfaction, rather than surprise, when the frame is made explicit in the epilogue. In other words, the switch to present tense should make structural sense in the book as a whole, rather than coming across as a random change.
#1: Imported from external source
by
System
·
2016-11-04T17:30:57Z (over 7 years ago)
Original score: 15