Blue, I find that internal monologue can get boring if I don't ground it with sensory details. Zulu totally got it right. To use her example: If Wilson's sitting at his desk doing paperwork and thinking, I might break away from directly writing his thoughts and let him notice the bars of gold sunlight coming in from the window, crawling across the floor. I might let him put fresh paper in the printer, and mention the clean, faintly acrid scent of office paper and ink. The words you use to describe those things can convey as much about the character's state of mind as any of his explicitly stated thoughts. PWCorgigirl is a master of this sort of thing. I've tried to learn from her and many other of my favorites.

I'm a little late, but I personally think past tense reads better than present.

blue said: DIY Sheep: I think it's her insane cliffhangers that are making you crazy - er! But some people are more aware of grammer and stuffe and thongs liek taht and it annoys them. But some people don't even notice tense swaps and stuff. For me - tone and plot. I'm not looking for something that might impress my year twelve English teacher (she was a twit anyway whom my best friend called big bird - I'm not kidding - she really did bear a striking resemblence), but something that entertains. And I think I'll give any writer the benefit of the doubt if they want to entertain me. That sounded dirty didn't it?

Firefox. If you right click an underlined word that you type into a box like the ones you use here, you have the option to "Add to Dictionary" and it will. Tense: The cat sat on the hat. or The cat sits on the hat. Which one is more interesting? Which can create a better image to work with? Which one can lead to a better story, and help spark your imagination?

But some people don't even notice tense swaps and stuff. These hypothetical people are utterly alien to my experience. Maybe we're not here to be grammarians, but...isn't better to write correctly, if we can? Maybe these hypothetical people don't stumble over tense confusion, but...for all those people out there who do, shouldn't we try and do our best? "Cameron bags the patient, Chase intubated him, and Foreman injects medicine into the IV line." You change one letter, and: "Cameron bags the patient, Chase intubates him, and Foreman injects medicine into the IV line." It's a poor example, maybe, but the second sentence, which is correct, at least has the benefit of showing that everything's going on at once, instead of making us wonder if it's a weird comma-spliced run-on where Chase actually did the intubating last week.

But so do spelling mistakes and unintentional canon issues, yet, many people are perfectly happy to just ignore these. I agree so much - it's important. I think a writer needs to do their darndest. But I once had an article with the first line being: All I new about this... It shames me to this day, but no one picked up on it. Which made me think about how readers read.

Ok, my 2 cents (having finished all of three stories in English yet, so it should be less than 2 cents, really...)... As for writing, I always write past tense, I don't feel comfortable writing present tense. I tried to figure out why, but I can't really come up with a good reason. I do try very hard to avoid mistakes in POV, tense and typing, as I don't want people who are nice enough to take a look at what I write to be distracted by mistakes like this (I always show everything I write to Wihluta first, who never misses a typo or grammar error - very reassuring!). At the same time, when I'm reading stories I don't really care for tense, POV or even typo's as long as the story is gripping. I usually do see all mistakes (I do freelance copy-editing so I'm trained to do so) but they don't bother or distract me as long as I like the story.

It's been mentioned in several fics(mostly spinoffs of the Contractverse) but what does Mr. Super Vicodin Thing look like? I'm trying to make one.

HTR here's a picture of Mr Vicodin, you have to scroll down a bit, it's the entry for Mar 27. Mr Vicodin

Thanks, misanthropicobs!

I am admitting nothing, but maybe I have a Mr V that was made for me - and it's the little dangly legs I love the most. It's like he has little blue furry blue oven mitts on both feet. The only problem with my Mr V is that my dog finds him very tasty and I have to hide him from her or she tries to eat him. I'm not kidding - she is like a little fluffy version of House - she wants Mr V.

Sheep, you have what I like to call a "Hector". (Hectora?) Your dog enjoys eating Vicodin. :D

Only this particular big fluffy Vicodin. But it's good because she was an abused dog and her back legs don't work so well - but when she sees Mr V she goes for him like a banshee and jumps around and uses her legs! I have to hide him in a drawer.