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I am currently reading "I Am Legend" by Richard Matheson and when describing a sequence of events, the writer constantly forms these sentences:

First, he separated the bulbs [...]. Then he cut each pink [...]. The air thickened [...].

All good here until now. Then, on the next paragrah, he writes:

Now he reached over and took an icepick [...]. He punched holes [...]

In this sentence, "Now" - present, that means present moment- is combined with "reached" - past tense.

He does this frequently. Is this correct writing? It sounds very odd.

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"Now" can mean "then". Chambers confirms this ... "now: 5. (in narrative) then".

This is partly being used as a literary device to draw the reader into that moment. I suspect a contemporary writer might be tempted to use the present historic. I would urge them to resist this.

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    I agree that this is an equally valid reading (as good an answer as mine). An example of a similar usage of now is, The drunkard made his way down the street, now stumbling left, now right.
    – Paul Tanenbaum
    Commented Dec 12, 2023 at 11:06
  • @Paul. I was trying to think of an example, that's quite good.
    – timchessish
    Commented Dec 12, 2023 at 11:11
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    Feel free to add it if you wish.
    – Paul Tanenbaum
    Commented Dec 12, 2023 at 11:16
  • Thank you both for the answers. To sum up, it is grammatically correct, however, we can also agree that the suitability of this literary device is rather subjective. I find the repetitive use quite annoying. But opinion is not very technical, literarily speaking. Both answers are good, I've accepted this one because the author has less imaginary internet points.
    – João Neves
    Commented Dec 12, 2023 at 13:50
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    it's kind of jarring to shift between the simple past and the present historic.
    – Barmar
    Commented Dec 13, 2023 at 16:17
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The author is using now to mean something like “at the point in the story where you, dear reader, at this current moment find yourself.”

The usage is a bit unusual, but not tremendously so.

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