Dear God,

I am a student in my first semester at university, and I am taking a creative writing class. There’s something I don’t understand, and it’s going to drive me insane unless I can get an adequate explanation for it.

Why must people in creative writing classes write stories that happened in the past in the present tense? Why can’t they just write in the past tense, like they’re telling the story that they’re telling, instead of narrating events as they happen, without knowing what comes next?

I’ll give you an example I heard today:

“I sit. The man looks at me. My chest rises and falls with every breath I take. My eyes see the world, but my nose smells it. ‘Hunt the deer and kill it,’ he says. I do not move. My knife is folded in my back pocket. Up in the sky, there is a cloud.”

Aaargh! What the hell is this all about, God?

- Kirk Erlich

Kirk,

It’s an ancient curse that I placed upon all English Departments a generation ago, in punishment for the flower power revolution. All students who take courses in creative writing are condemned to have no memory of the past, but to experience the past as if it is the present, so that their memories are merely perceptions without reflection. This curse cannot be lifted until an entire year goes by without a single stick of sandalwood incense being burned in a college dormitory room.

- God

This entry was posted on Monday, December 4th, 2006 at 10:04 pm and is filed under All God's Advice, Professional Help, Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.