Talk:Lost (TV series)/Present tense

Due to length, this extended discussion has been moved from Talk:Lost (TV series)

Present tense for character bios in Lost

Long discussion with LeFlyman on the use of the present tense, particularly in the various character biographies. LeFlyman had noticed that I had embarked on changing the bio pages to use present tense in their descriptions of what happens to the characters, and voiced some disagreement with that approach. Here's a portion of the dialog (his text is in italics); both of us would welcome other editors' comments on this issue. --PKtm 03:31, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Hey, Leflyman, thanks for your comment on my user page about the work I'm doing on standardizing to present tense. You make a good point about Boone, to be sure, and as I worked through the various characters (not done yet), Boone was the first one I hit who is, well, no longer with us :).

Not quite sure how to handle, and I agree that it seemed a bit awkward to say he "is" the president of the company, etc. Yet, the use of past tense, basically ever, to describe what happens in a literary or cultural work simply comes off as amateurish, and it detracts from Wikipedia's encyclopedic progress to have articles that do that. (Check out any movie review, any piece of literary criticism, etc.). When we're dealing with a flashback, the Pluperfect tense can be appropriate at times. I don't think I agree that because this is a current, ongoing series, that that makes much of a difference in this (else we slide down the slippery slope of fansite-ness), but I'll certainly give it some thought. Boone's been dead for a while now on the show; would you have a different reaction to Shannon being described in the present tense, since she only recently died? -- PKtm 21:00, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

OK, here's more, after some reflection and some web surfing for comparables. LeFlyman writes,
I think the issue I'm having is that you're changing the tense of character biographies to match the episode summaries (which should be in the present tense).

Yes, that's indeed what I'm doing, and after reflection, I believe that it's the proper thing to do. In addition to relying on my own academic training in this (in literary analysis, that is), I've also surfed around to see if I'm missing anything. (Do a Google search on "literary present", for example.) I have found absolutely nothing that bolsters the idea that character biographies should be treated any differently. The material that is revealed in flashbacks is part of the literary work, and is thus part of what's often referred to, in this context, as "the eternal present."

The bios are not story retellings, per se, but are supposed to track the development/history of the characters, and thus should make sense in time-sequence. Because the show runs parallel story-lines of flashbacks-- which are set in the past-- trying to reference them in the present tense becomes inordinately problematic.

Difficult, perhaps, just like writing about any work that features multiple timelines, but not "inordinately problematic". Having descriptions and references make sense in time-sequence is a matter of proper organization, good transitions in the writing, etc.

Present tense is intended for ongoing or current events.

No, this is actually simply not true with respect to literary or cultural works. The Wikipedia article you cite is weak, in that it fails to mention what is known as the "literary present." (The first Google link on "literary present", for example, explains: "The basic rule is: You should use the past tense when discussing historical events, while you should use the literary present when discussing fictional events. Literary works, paintings, films, and other artistic creations are assumed to exist in an eternal present.")

It seems to me that "flattening" the time-sequence in the biographies by making everything, both on the Island and in flashbacks, occur in the present tense leads to more confusion and less professionalism.

Well, if you talk about "less professionalism", you should provide some "professional" examples of what you mean, and with all due respect, I don't believe you'll find any. Literary descriptions (including discussions of film, TV, etc.), as a convention, use the present tense to describe what happens, even if some parts of it happen twenty years earlier and other parts happen later. If I were writing about, say, Back to the Future with its contorted timeline, I'd still use present tense to describe what takes place in all the timelines--and indeed, the Wikipedia article (which I've never edited) correctly does so for that film.

For example, while you modified part of John Locke's "Prior" section to present form, you had to leave "Locke was a paraplegic— apparently for the preceding four years" because it would have been odd to say "Locke is a paraplegic." So now that article still has multiple mixed tenses throughout.

That's actually OK--it's similar to the Pluperfect tense situation I wrote about earlier. If I were to be writing about events that occur while he was a paraplegic, I'd use present tense. Now granted, my writing is as subject to flaws (and to others' editing to remove those flaws) as anyone's, but use of present tense should be the touchstone, parted from only rarely and in very specific "pluperfect"-like circumstances.

Thus, I would suggest using present tense for each episode summary, and past tense for each biography -- just as it would be if the characters were real people.

But they're not real people, they're part of a literary/cultural work, and that's simply not the professional standard.

--PKtm 23:38, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Guide to writing better articles#Check your fiction. Articles relating to fiction are to be written in the perpetual present tense. Quote: "Works of fiction are generally considered to exist in a kind of perpetual present tense, regardless of when the fictional action is supposed to take place relative to "now". Write about fiction using the present tense, not the past tense." Discordance 12:48, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Revisiting the topic: I've read back over most of the tense-updated bios, and while some of them now read fine, there are a few which were perhaps so poorly written in the first place that the change to present tense makes them sound rather silly. The Boone Carlyle bio is particularly confusing now. I made one minor change to say that he was the CEO, as no one on the island still holds the same job they did prior to being stranded.

I will again make the argument that serial television— in which the story unfolds and changes over an extended period of time— is unlike a literary work which tells a specific tale within a limited scope. This is particularly true of Lost which tracks character's stories in both the "present" and "past." In the case of Boone, it's encyclopedically inaccurate to write such things as "Boone is secretly in love with Shannon" when early in his story, he stops being in love with her. Similarly, the Locke character bio now says, "Because Locke initially lies about how Boone's injuries were received, the death drives a wedge between some of the survivors and Locke — and both Jack Shephard and Boone's step-sister, Shannon hold him responsible for Boone's death." By placing this in present tense, we are to read it as still being true-- although that would now be speculation. It was true at the end of the first season, but as further episodes have passed from Boone's death, such a sentence becomes untrue in the present tense, and only true in the past tense.

The purpose of such articles should be to provide accurate information in an understandable manner, which is not necessarily the same as trying to match a standard used for literature. As noted in the Wikipedia "Guide" Discordance quoted above, "Works of fiction are 'generally considered to exist in a kind of perpetual present tense..." In this case, I would claim that Lost is that particular sort of fiction in which not all of the story can be referred to in the perpetual present; certainly the flashbacks exist in the past, relative to the ongoing plot, and can be referenced as such. But as the plot evolves, we must consider whether what we state as the "present" situation really is accurate any longer.—LeFlyman 10:28, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

I certainly agree that the character bios generally still need a lot of work. In particular, people keep adding scraps of plot summaries to them, which tends to diffuse their focus on the character in toto.

I don't deny that the Lost timeline shifts make our task difficult. As I wrote above, and will reiterate, "Difficult, perhaps, just like writing about any work that features multiple timelines, but not "inordinately problematic". Having descriptions and references make sense in time-sequence is a matter of proper organization, good transitions in the writing, etc."

The answer is not to shift to past tense for things we consider to be done, gone, old news. We know that Hamlet is dead, but it doesn't stop us from writing that he is (not was) angry with his mother, or is in love with Ophelia. It's all a matter of providing the context. In the article about Boone, the context provided by the section "Prior to Oceanic Flight 815" permits us to write about those events in the present tense, where yes, Boone is the CEO and is in love with Shannon.

The alternative you imply (and I'm not sure anymore what you're actually proposing as an alternative, so I may be falsely inferring here) is to use past tense, which in descriptions of fictional events just rings amateurish and detracts from Wikipedia. I believe you may be inordinately influenced here by the fact that the series is still unfolding, but that's not really relevant. In five or ten years, when Lost has gone off the air, these descriptions will still need to use present tense throughout. Yes, this actually is a case of "trying to match a standard used for literature"--this isn't a fan site, as so many of us keep noting in our reversions and edits. Again, I can't find a single professional counterexample to justify use of past tense on anything but a rare and carefully controlled basis, as I wrote above. --PKtm 15:09, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Nearly all the sources I've found about writing in the "literary present" (also called "historical present" in reference to history) deal with printed works, not televised. (see, for example: [1]) In researching the "perpetual present tense" in regards to film/television, however, I've come across this interesting (albeit dense) paper from the Institute of Film Studies in the UK, which touches on this discussion: Present(ing) Tense: Temporality and Tense in Comparative Theories of Literature-Film Adaptation The author notes,

Some of the claims made about filmic temporality are based entirely upon the visual nature of the film image, and these claims can thus be analysed in the light of television also, especially as many television programmes are shot on film and therefore use film images anyway. Clearly, though, television has different extra-textual time-relations constituted through its broadcast form, etc.; I will not discuss these here, but I am addressing them in other work, at present. [emphasis mine]

Yet, even in the matter of literary tenses, in this Hamilton College guide to tenses, it notes:

• Use the past tense when referring to an event that happened before the story begins:

In the opening scenes of Hamlet, the men are visited by the ghost of Hamlet's father, whom Claudius had murdered.

On Wikipedia, nearly all the "biographies" of fictional characters use a mixed form of tense, principally past.

For example, Sherlock Holmes, says,

"Historically, Holmes lived from the year 1881 at 221B Baker Street, London, an upper-storey flat at 221 Baker Street (in early notes it was described as Upper Baker Street), where he spent many of his professional years with his good friend Dr. John H. Watson..."

Likewise, the articles describing Achilles and Zeus (as well as the other Greek myths) are mostly in past tense, although their exploits are "fictional".

Articles about television characters from the past, like James T. Kirk, Archie Bunker and Fonzie, and current ones such as Josiah Bartlet, Jack Bauer and Marissa Cooper (had to find a female character!) -- are all in past tense, when dealing with their histories.

Thus, the alternative which seems to be in keeping with Wikipedia norms, is to use perpetual present in episode summaries, but past tense in the character bios when relating events that occurred prior to the "start" of the story (the crash on the Island), such as in flashbacks. Hence, "Boone was the CEO...", etc.—LeFlyman 02:21, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, citing other Wikipedia articles doesn't prove anything at all, I'm afraid, since they don't constitute the examples of professional discussion of film/fiction that I was asking for, and the ones on film and TV present a higher-than-average risk of fansite-like writing anyway. (Equally, there are Wikipedia articles, such as the Back to the Future one that I cited, or the one on Donnie Darko, that do feature the correct use of present tense in my view--see also the fictional biographies of Uriah Heep, Arthur Dimmesdale, and others). Or, check out any Roger Ebert review of any film you can think of, even ones with complex timelines, such as Sliding Doors (http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19980424/REVIEWS/804240302/1023}. He's a professional, and he's doing this for a reason: adhering to hundreds of years of tradition in describing creative works. Find an example, any example, where he uses past tense throughout a review in describing the action/events.

In my mind, those Wikipedia articles you cite actually come off as quite amateurish through and through, precisely because they do use past tense, not present--which is against the literary norm established over the last few hundred years. My purpose here, in keeping with the Wikipedia policy document cited above (Wikipedia:Guide to writing better articles#Check your fiction), is to get the quality of the encyclopedia higher by encouraging adherence to this basic norm, one which, again, goes unquestioned by professionals in the business of describing fiction, drama, film. Specifically, witnessing the use of the past tense in such description makes any professional reviewer/literary analyst completely wince and, ultimately, disrespect our encyclopedia; it makes the articles read like something out of junior high school, frankly.

The academic paper you link to (and I agree, it's very dense!) is actually a very theoretical one on issues related to cinema. It chiefly deals with the ability of film to represent temporality at all, not with the issues relating to the tenses used to describe plots and action that occurs within films. His purpose is mainly to argue that films can indeed represent a narrative "past". This article, dense and theoretical as it is, also has next to no bearing on our discussion here.

--PKtm 04:01, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Straw Poll

I'll add my two cents on this:

• Put "Prioir to Flight 815" events in the past.
• Put most "On the Island" event in the present.
  • Use Pluperfect where present tense would be confusing.

POLL

Use only past tense

Use only present tense

Use the method I have described

1. SigmaEpsilon → ΣΕ

'Use some other method

Hopefully this can lead to some consensus... SigmaEpsilon → ΣΕ 03:39, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

This discussion is months old and consensus had already been reached. I don't see the need to open it up yet again, particularly since literary present tense is a standard of talking about works of fiction, and the "prior to flight 815" events still are viewed in flashback in the series. Describing fictional events in the past tense just smacks of amateurism. You see that nowhere in professional writing about film or fiction. Let's not let Wikipedia have lower standards. -- PKtm 05:52, 12 May 2006 (UTC)