The Reading Present
Most people read sitting down. Once in a while, you will see someone standing in a subway compartment, juggling their book, or lying down on their bed or couch. Put yourself in their position. They are reading your book now, at this present moment in their lives. They take this present moment and equate it to one of the timelines presented in your narrative, and that becomes “the reading present” for them. However the narrative is framed, wherever it jumps around to, the reader’s expectation is that they will be returned to this time period in which they feel most at home to find out what happened.
The reading present is not necessarily the most recent time period.
The reading present is not concerned with the actual era in which events are taking place. Texts written hundreds of years ago still happen in the reading present when we open their covers. The reading present is not necessarily the most recent time period in the course of the narrative. Many stories are set up with a frame, by which an aged narrator recounts his or her history beginning at some key time in their youth. This does not mean that the entire book happens in the form of a flashback. Rather it is the narrator’s formative years that constitute the reading present and determine whether events that occur prior to or after this time period are included, and how, and when.
There cannot be two reading presents.
This does not mean that you can’t take advantage of multiple timelines in your narrative which follow each other in rhythm and inform each other, interacting in a meaningful fashion. The blending of various series in this manner actually creates that one unified, entire book that is at the heart of the concept of order. Yet the reader will choose one reading present from which to process all that goes on, whether backwards or forwards. This reading present gives us our sense of anticipation, our involvement with the destinies of the characters, and ultimately, our ability to assess the meaning of your story.
The reading present is connected with the voice of the narrator.
To explore the reading present to its full advantage, you must develop the voice or voices of your narrator. It is the narrator that we trust to take us to different time periods (and far-flung locales), while the characters themselves remain oblivious to the greater machinations of the plot they find themselves in. It is the narrator’s bravado which will carry us into a world where we don’t know what’s going to happen. It is the narrator whose voice accompanies us in the reading present.
The four rules of the reading present:
By way of recap, the four rules of the reading present. We will allow the narrator to guide us provided that certain rules are observed:
- We flashback from the reading present for a reason, which is revealed to us.
- We don’t leave the reading present for so long that we lose our bearings upon our return.
- The narrator does not fall in love with another time period and dally there, favoring it over the reading present.
- Information in the “past” (of the reading present) is contained in scene, with all of the benefits a scene creates: immediacy, reality and suspense.
If we follow these rules of the reading present, ordering your narrative in a non-chronological way can be achieved in an effective and illuminating way.
