[HPFGU-OTChatter] Re: Silly question

[Child Of Midian]

-----Original Message-----
From: HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com
[mailto:HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Geoff Bannister

Geoff:
Just in passing, I don't know why an attribution to me occurred in your 
heading (which I deleted not relevant to the post).

>>>>>>>>>>>I always leave the first line of the heading from the post I
replied to, so it's possible that I was replying to your post, but to
information in the original post you where replying to, not your actual
post.. that's all, sorry.

Moving on, if you read the quote in context, it makes perfect sense in 
the present tense (no pun intended):
"Most celebrated of these half-magical dwelling places is, perhaps, 
Godric's Hollow, the West Country village where the great wizard Godric 
Gryffindor was born and where Bowman Wright, wizarding smith, forged 
the first Golden Snitch. The graveyard is full of the names of ancient 
magical families and this accounts, no doubt, for the stories of hauntings 
that have dogged the little church for many centuries."
(DH "Godric's Hollow" p.261 UK edition)
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Writing 101, you can't switch tense. 

Okay, 99.9% of the time you can't. If you do, it's got to be separate
chapters. No, she is not talking about a place that exist in the here and
now, because she's the narrator reflecting upon things that already
happened. The place in the here and now is not relevant to events that have
already transpired, and it's not the place the action takes place in. The
place the action takes place in is the there and then, not the here and now.
It's a testament to lazy editing that the tense-shift was left alone. I
really think they decided the books where selling so matter what Rowling
wrote they weren't going to mess with it if it wasn't glaring. I've caught
the tense shifts in other parts of her books and that along with the adverb
abuse are the most frustrating parts of her writing, though the tense shifts
are not constant.

But no, no editor would normally allow a writer to go from present-tense
descriptive to past-tense action occurring in the present-tense place.

md