Term for the 'present tense' within traditional past-tense narration?
Currently reading a trending novel, in 1st-person past tense, which is super conventional.
Usually though, while technically past tense ("I swung my sword and struck the monster's hand aloft"), most narration places you in the active moments of events unfolding, evoking a sense of things happening before your eyes in present tense. "She trembled, her fingers broke the wax seal, the envelope sprung open."
The book I'm reading doesn't do this. It's 1st-person past as usual but the narrator is recounting dramatic events in actual like, it has already happened in the past while he's narrating. Like it happened off the page. "Two hours later, we'd found a few groups of enemies that weren't too hard to dispatch, and had been searching around for a couple more hours."
I want to express this difference in "present" past tense vs. "actual past tense of past tense" but I lack the language to name the different conventions.
Is there a term or accepted language to describe what I mean? Like JRRT wrote LOTR in the past tense but the rhythm of your experience evokes present tense. A lot of modern mainstream books seem to get to a scene, reference the actual past before the book or between chapters, and that's how the characters kinda teleport from obstacle to obstacle.
Yeah so, does the traditional pseudo-present past tense narrative style have a more specific name? Is there better language to describe the difference?
thank you, cheers