The Eternal Now: How Present Tense Fiction Is Eroding Literary Depth

The rise of homogenized fiction and the cultural cost of losing perspective

As some of you may know, I am currently querying my novel THE LILAC ROOM in an attempt to sign with a literary agent and land a publishing deal. Over the past several weeks, I have been hard at work honing my opening pages for the best shot at standing out to agents, and recently, I had the idea to read the initial chapters of literary fiction books published within the last five years to see what the heck agents expect from debut fiction authors. As you might guess, the result of reading the opening chapters of about fifteen of these novels only reinforced my hopelessness in the literary world: while many of these books are indeed well-written (though not all of them), they are all written in the same style and share several elements in common.

Every single one of these books begins in medias res, immediately introducing the two main characters, usually with a dialogue or some piercing revelation from one character to the other. Every single one of these books prioritizes action over description, with a particular aversion to setting—it matters less where we are and more whom the story is about. Every single one of these books consists of surgically-treated sentences that contain relatively few subclauses and absolutely no extraneous words.

And every single one of these books is written in the present tense.

I could write you an entire dissertation on why this overall standardization of literary fiction terrifies me—and how the homogenization of writing through the MFA degree killed authorial voice and uniqueness. But I’d like to focus today on the last of these items—what, in my eyes, is the most egregious of these literary fiction sins: the collective conversion of all literary writing to the present tense.

Don’t believe me? Take every other successful literary novel written in the past five years—The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, Intermezzo, Nightcrawling—and you will find sentences written almost exclusively in the present tense; while several others experiment with a hybrid model, where past and present tense complement one another and become interchangeable, and yet others, of course, still do adhere to the traditional past tense narration, the overt shift towards the present tense betrays a uniformity of literary momentum that, in turn, exposes a broader cultural upheaval.

If we had to point fingers, I would accuse the MFA degree, which, in many cases, is a somewhat unhelpful time drain reserved for two distinct groups of authors. The first of these is the wealthy elite: members of this category are usually mediocre writers who wish to try their hands at becoming Brooklyn-based artists for the “cred.” Coming from more privileged backgrounds, these sorts of writers don’t seem to mind dishing out $100k+ on a program that strips your sentences of uniqueness and provides you with many of the same contacts you can secure through cold-emailing. In many cases, these writers, coming into the MFA program with existing power and influence, produce the literary fiction we consume today, and because they are mediocre writers to begin with, their prose all ends up sounding the same—they lack distinct authorial voices.

For this reason, I have never taken a creative writing class in my life because, in my view, the moment you incorporate what worked for someone else’s writing into your own style, you renounce your own unique voice. I have honed my writing purely through reading great literature rather than taking a failed writer’s advice on what works and what doesn’t (MFA professors are, of course, typically your failed writers). In fact, I have purposely stayed away from all iterations of creative writing classes for this very reason, and after reading the opening chapters of these literary fiction novels, I can confirm that, in developing my writing style in the vacuum of the literary canon rather than the procession of contemporary trends, I have come up with something that sounds like me and adheres to the noble pursuit of authenticity—a writer’s most important duty.

Yet not all MFA-ridden writers fail to develop a personal voice. There is a second type of writer who goes for the MFA degree—he is, indeed, the true artist, the decent yet naive craftsman who gets duped into pouring his life savings into a degree that promises publication and connections yet does not deliver—that is, unless he adheres to the sort of writing style epitomized by the first group of middling Brooklynites. In the case of the defrauded visionary, I offer my pity, but the genuinely good writers who go into the MFA machine are few and far in between. Most writers just come out sounding like one another.

And while I cannot tell you precisely what goes on in an MFA program, I have a hunch that the tilt towards the present tense might arise from an MFA professor’s insistence that the present tense creates a greater sense of immediacy and helps the reader better connect with the book’s characters. In contrast to the past tense, the present tense is urgent; it places the reader in the moment with a novel’s characters and, in creating an atmosphere where every action feels consequential, it entices the reader to turn the page—the prime goal of marketing conglomerates. In a world where the doctrine “show don’t tell” reigns supreme (Peter Biles debunks that for us here), MFA professors gain from emphasizing a stylistic choice that lends itself naturally to “showing,” resulting in the peculiar illusion that the reader is there with the novel’s characters.

The present tense thus becomes a leading contributor to the perception of psychological intimacy. Because we live in a society that is deeply preoccupied with questions of mental health and psychological acuity (likely informed by the “mindfulness” movement that has permeated our overworked society), character psychology has risen to the forefront of literary fiction, and the present tense offers the most straightforward method to tap into raw and immediate thoughts—what better way to get inside someone’s head than to report their immediate reaction to a given event? And while I do sympathize with the push towards psychological depth—literature should, fundamentally, provide us with a window into the human psyche—this present tense method is often clunky and undesirable—and also somewhat narcissistic.

In writing a novel in the present tense, authors of literary fiction strive to emphasize the “now,” reflecting an obsession with the immediate self at the expense of perspective and reflection. By rejecting the past tense, present tense narratives push depth, context, and reflection to the wayside, providing a myopic view of events that encourages a single interpretation to reign supreme. The present tense limits literary writing to descriptions of a particular moment, overshadowing the importance of narrative structures that promote reflection and thematic layering. This “eternal now,” in turn, mirrors the solipsism of our modern culture: the absence of a reflective narrative voice allows us to indulge in a particular moment and obliterates the necessity for both forethought and hindsight. The present tense functions by propelling a narrative forward, creating excitement yet eliminating depth.

By encouraging novelists to operate in the present tense, the MFA professor pumps out factory-made books that are pre-screened for agents and publishers, driving book sales by enticing a reader to stay for just another moment. The problem with this method of enticement, however, which casts a work of literature as a sort of vineyard made for Tantalus (or, at the very least, a bad soap opera), is that this mode of thinking, which presumes that a reader only stays for a book because of excitement, is fundamentally flawed: contrary to your TikTok feed, literature demands patience. In creating a world where literature is simply about “reeling you in,” we are destroying the deeply intimate purpose of literature: reflection on the human condition.

In contrast to the present tense, the past tense is valuable precisely because it demands reflection. It implores us to consider our actions from a distance and judge them with a critical eye. In Anna Karenina we are presented not just with Anna’s immediate relationship with Vronsky but also with a commentary on the circumstances that lead her to engage in adultery. In The Great Gatsby, the past tense is the vehicle through which Nick Carraway reflects on Gatsby’s story with both criticism and nostalgia. In Pride and Prejudice, Austen uses the past tense to weave in irony as she presents us with an incisive social commentary. These great works of literature are not great simply because they tell interesting or provocative stories—they are great because, in conveying these stories, they force us to reflect on the content of their narratives. The beauty of the past tense is that it compels us to consider a given scenario with a clearer head.

Yes, the past tense might create distance; it might lack the immediacy of the present tense, and it certainly might feel less “thrilling.” But the overall shift towards the present tense in the literary fiction realm reflects a larger danger in our society: the loss of perspective and reflection. In manufacturing narratives filled with urgency and spontaneity, the publishing industry asks readers to renounce their capacity to think critically and instead focus on a series of present moments that will simply keep pages turning.

Is this the purpose of great literature? Of course not—our ADHD-ridden society has simply convinced publishers that readers prefer books that turn pages to books that explore a unique facet of the human condition. The shift towards the present tense exemplifies this unfortunate trend away from critical thought, creating a battalion of books that stand with “the now” rather than with the “stop and think.” In consuming books in the present tense, we risk losing a key component of ourselves that great literature encourages us to tap into: our capacity for reflection.

So while I am not sure at what point precisely we collectively decided as a society that we were going to publish literary fiction in the present tense, I am more than confident that we need to advocate immediately for a return to the past tense—not only so that books are more readable again, but also so that we can restore our capacity for critical thought.

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