The Grand Illusion
Why are you using such an odd tense in From The Forest, etc.? I think you used it in other narratives too. I find it strange to read neither here nor there. I can find no reference to it anywhere. Did you create this idea yourself?
The tense I used in writing From the Forest is known as the “present tense.” I certainly didn’t invent it. It’s always been part of the English language, but the majority of English/American fantasy and science fiction is written in the simple past tense. I chose the present tense as a way of keeping the action and thought close to the present and the character.
if your correspondent really wants their mind blown, then they should try Damon Runyon, and the third person continuous present. “Now, at this time she is dealing them off the arm at Mindy’s restaurant” (may be a misquote from delighted memory)
I forget which foreign language it was, but one of the ones I learned back when, the instructor talked about “historical past.” It wasn’t a separate tense, but a way of noting that, in that language, events were related using past tense.
English does that too. But not exclusively.