I recently submitted a couple of stories in which I had used the historical present.
I open the message from the moderators and find a rejection: My story changes tense and does not involve time travel. I am shocked, disappointed. Don't the moderators know that the historical present is a time honored device for establishing immediacy?
It sounds like rejection based on the quality of the writing.
I'm a little surprised by that. I had no idea that, beyond an obvious, purely minimalistic requirement, that the moderators' criteria included anything beyond the site guidelines.
Might it not have been clear that the characters were of the correct age due to the use of this literary device, somehow?
Unfortunately in modern writing it just tends to look a bit wonky. It's not helped by the fact that it's most commonly used these days in pub conversations, usually about football (soccer)
"So, yeah, he turns 'round to me and starts givin' it all that." "He gets the ball, cuts inside, leaves the defender lookin' like a fish in a tree and bang! Back of the net."
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Why not read some stories instead
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