What I Want to Know Is . . .

[anicalewis]

So, when you talk about events that take place in a book, you use present tense, right? As in, "Howl throws a magical hissy fit and there's green slime everywhere." But what is the protocol for describing your reaction to a book's event? Sometimes, it works okay to put your reaction in present tense: "It cracks me up when Howl throws that

Comments

[toastedcheese]

I think that "storytelling" is present tense and "describing my reading experience" is past tense, and you just have to avoid sentences that combine the two tenses, because they're too awkward for print.

So I would say something like, "They rush back into the castle, and the guitar explodes. That startled me."

I don't think it's weird to worry about tenses - it speaks well to your authorial tendencies!