Regarding the poll

[syredronning]

First of all, thanks for the many replies to and votes in the tenses poll!

AFAIS it's interesting that most readers don't care in which tense something is written as long as it's done well (even among the people voting for past tense are people of whom I know that they read and/or write present tense too).

This should actually relax every writer, because it means that putting too much thought into this aspect is likely ueberproblematisieren (over-problematicizing) (he, that's a word in German! we think like that - we like our problems to be LARGE ;). Whereas stories in first or second POV tend to keep more readers away.

Regarding TOS/Reboot - I write/wrote 95% past tense in TOS but when Reboot fic came up, I was blown by the amount of present tense stories. The movie is so immediate and real-time that present tense seems to be the right tense for it. However, within longer stories present tense tends to get a little stale *agrees with some comments* and looking back I should probably have stayed with past tense ;)

So, split writer is split, and the tense divide adds itself to my indecisiveness regarding eye colors (I can't bring myself to write brown-eyed McCoy and blue-eyed Kirk, so nobody in my Reboot stories has eye colors, sigh).

On an unrelated note, my Pike-Spock icon becomes my "neutral-thoughtful" icon. Amusing :)

Comments

[ayalesca.livejournal.com]

(I can't bring myself to write brown-eyed McCoy and blue-eyed Kirk, so nobody in my Reboot stories has eye colors, sigh).

SAME. I feel so bad XD but I figure people will mentally insert it for themselves!

[syredronning.livejournal.com]

I found one story which explained the change for Kirk - he got himself eye tattoos for whatever reason (something to do with his mother) - Chris Hemsworth aka George Kirk has blue eyes too.

Now we need something similar for McCoy, lol!

[sangueuk.livejournal.com]

That was really interesting although I missed your poll. *pouts*

My two penneth? (pfennings?) Present tense is great for sex scenes - especially as a reader and when heading for the 'denoument'. And, if I can smatter my vocab with French, I'm gonna damn well introduce some German starting with the marvellous, ueberproblematisieren. What a fabulous word!

Off topic, but is it true the glorious Mr Urban speaks German? I saw a quick clip on youtube but I wondered if you knew?

[syredronning.livejournal.com]

Yes, Karl Urban (originally Karl-Heinz Urban) has a father who's originally German from around Frankfurt, and he speaks German himself. I totally hope he'll show up for a con one day!

It's "Pfennige" :) and yeah, ueberproblematisieren is a great word *giggles*

[sangueuk.livejournal.com]

Pfennige - lol - got it!

If he shows up for a con, be sure and let me know I'll be on the first plane with a spare pair of flame-proof panties in my bag!

[illariy.livejournal.com]

The movie is so immediate and real-time that present tense seems to be the right tense for it.

Ah yes, that's a good way of putting it.

Regarding present tense for longer stories, I had another thought: sometimes present tense can feel like an emphasis for me, a way to put a scene into sharper focus, kind of a high point of excitement. So with longer stories, that benefit necessarily wears down a little &ndash a 100K climax is impossible. *g* But well, it's nothing that seems to put off a lot of people and it hardly ever bothers me so, yeah, probably best not to ueberproblematise/ueberproblematisier it (seriously, how would you conjugate that in English?)

Regarding eyecolours, maybe the guys just aren't too focused on eyes and prefer to ogle other parts of the others' bodies? That would evade the whole issue. :P

[syredronning.livejournal.com]

Yeah for looking somewhere else. Though I lied - I had a blue-eyed Kirk in the latest Draws part. Guess I got used to the mental picture after 20K words *palms face* :)

[illariy.livejournal.com]

Heh. Look, I ddin't even notice because I am fiercely denying the existence of the colour differences.

[taraljc.livejournal.com]

I purposely never mention Number One's eye colour in my AOS stories, only because I had mentally cast Jennifer Garner and can't see her with Majel's blue, blue eyes. But I'm starting to slip now and then--especially as I forget about Karl's eyes being hazel.