Silly question

[Geoff Bannister]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "Child Of Midian" <md at ...> wrote:

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).

md:
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.

Geoff:
Yes but it appears that you must add the "On Behalf of..." bit because it 
appears in no one else's messages.....

Geoff:
> 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 i...

<Snip>

> (DH "Godric's Hollow" p.261 UK edition)

md: 
> 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. 

Geoff:
So why do characters in books written in the past tense always speak 
in the present tense?

Hermione is quoting from Bathilda Bagshot's book "A History of Magic":

"The villages of Tinworth in Cornwall, Upper Flagley  in Yorkshire and 
Ottery St. Catchpole on the south coast of England were notable homes 
to knots of wizarding families, who who lived alongside tolerant and 
sometimes Confunded Muggles. Most celebrated of these... is Godric's 
Hollow...""
(DH "Godric's Hollow" p.261 UK edition)

The first-named villages may no longer be notable; some may not still
exist although we know of two of them including Otetry St.Catchpole 
which seems to be a bit of a backwater. However, Godric's Hollow still 
exists and retains its fame to the present day because of its special 
history and "is" therefore still the most celebrated. Its graveyard still 
exists and therefore "is" still full of names.

Frankly, I do not accept that writing has to conform to the rigid 
structures of your Writing 101 which I believe is a Creative Writing 
course? I don't think Shakespeare attended them?

I wonder what Carol, with her background in literature work feels 
about this?