Reply To: Past perfect tense in novels

[wolfie65Participant 1238xp 0]

I do realize that none of the Black Library – or most authors in any genre – are Tolkien or Eddison, and sometimes, the use of the past perfect tense makes sense, but it gets annoying when they fill page after page after page with nothing but that, short-cutting, as you say, in a mad dash from one battle scene to the next.

And, as I found out just yesterday, they are not completely unable to do it. There’s a scene in C.L.Werner’s Witch Killer where Mathias Thulmann visits an old adversary in a prison, which is fully fleshed out as-it-happens  narrative.

More of that and the book could have been 3 times as long and 10 times better.