verb tense in creative writing

Past vs. Present Tense: Choose the RIGHT Tense for Your Novel

by Joe Bunting | 75 comments

One of the first decisions you have to make when you're writing a novel or short story is which tense to use. There are only two viable options: past vs. present tense.*

Which tense should you choose for your novel?

*Future tense is certainly technically possible, but it's used so rarely in fiction we're going to skip it here.

What's the Difference Between Present and Past Tense?

In fiction, a story written in past tense is about events that happened in the past. For example:

From the safety of his pickup truck, John watched as his beloved house burned to the ground. With a blank face, he drove away.

Present tense, on the other hand, sets the narration directly into the moment of the events:

From the safety of his pickup truck, John watches as his beloved house burns to the ground. With a blank face, he drives away.

This is a short example, but what do you think? How are they different? Which version do you prefer?

Choose Between Past and Present Tense BEFORE You Start Writing Your Novel

New writers are notorious for switching back and forth between past and present tense within their books. It's one of the most common mistakes people make when they are writing fiction for the first time.

On top of that, I often talk to writers who are halfway finished with their first drafts, or even all the way finished, and are now questioning which tense they should be using.

Unfortunately, the more you've written of your novel, the harder it is to change tenses, and if you do end up deciding to change tenses, it can take many hours of hard work to correct the shift.

That's why it's so important to choose between past and present tense before you start writing your novel.

With that in mind, make sure to save this guide, so you can have it as a resource when you begin your next novel.

Both Past Tense and Present Tense Are Fine

When making your tense choice, past tense is by far the most common tense, whether you're writing a fictional novel or a nonfiction newspaper article. If you can't decide which tense you should use in your novel, you should probably write it in past tense.

There are many reasons past tense is the standard for novels. One main reason is simply that it's the convention. Reading stories in past tense is so normal that reading present tense narratives can feel jarring and annoying to many readers. Some readers, in fact, won't read past the few pages if your book is in present tense.

That being said, from a technical perspective, present tense is perfectly acceptable. There's nothing wrong with it, even if it does annoy some readers. It has been used in fiction for hundreds of years, and there's no reason you can't use it if you want to.

Keep in mind, there are drawbacks though.

The Hunger Games and Other Examples of Present Tense Novels

I was talking with a writer friend today who used to have strong feelings against present tense. If she saw the author using it in the first paragraph of a novel, she would often put the book back on the bookstore shelf.

Then, she read The Hunger Games , one of the most popular recent examples of a present tense novel (along with All the Light We Cannot See ), and when she realized well into the book that the novel was in present tense, all those negative opinions about it were turned on their heads.

Many of the biggest present-tense opponents (like Philip Pullman ) use caveats like this. Some of them even blame The Hunger Games for later, less well-written present tense novels. “ Hunger Games was fine,” they say, “but now every other novel is in present tense.”

However, the reality is that it has a long tradition. Here are a several notable examples of present tense novels:

Bleak House by Charles Dickens

Rabbit, Run by John Updike

Rabbit, Run is sometimes praised for being the first book to be written entirely in present tense. But while it may have been the first prominent American novel in present tense, it was hardly the first in the world.

Ulysses by James Joyce

All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk

Like several of Chuck's novels, Fight Club , published in 1999, is written in present tense .

Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney

Bright Lights, Big City is notable both for being written in present tense and second-person . While it's not necessarily something you should use as an example in your own writing, it is an interesting case.

Other Notable Novels

Here are several other notable present tense novels

• All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
• Bird Box: A Novel by Josh Malerman (I'm reading this right now, and it's great!)
• The White Queen by Philippa Gregory (the basis for the BBC TV Series)
• Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood
• Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

There are dozens of other notable and bestselling novels written in present tense. However, comic books are another example of popular present-tense writing, which use dialogue bubbles and descriptions almost universally in present tense.

5 Advantages of Present Tense

Present tense, like past tense, has its benefits and drawbacks. Here are five reasons why you might choose to use it in your writing:

1. Present Tense Feels Like a Movie

One reason authors have used present tense more often in the last century is that it feels most film-like.

Perhaps writers think they can get their book adapted into a movie easier if they use present tense, or perhaps they just want to mimic the action and suspense found in film, but whether film is the inspiration or the goal, its increasing use owes much to film.

John Updike himself credits film for his use of present tense, as he said in his interview with the Paris Review :

Rabbit, Run was subtitled originally, ‘A Movie.' The present tense was in part meant to be an equivalent of the cinematic mode of narration…. This doesn’t mean, though, that I really wanted to write for the movies. It meant I wanted to make a movie. I could come closer by writing it in my own book than by attempting to get through to Hollywood.

Christopher Bram, author of Father of Frankenstein , says much the same , “I realized I was using it because it’s the tense of screenplays.”

2. Present Tense Intensifies the Emotions

Present tense gives the reader a feeling like, “We are all in this together.” Since the reader knows only as much as the narrator does, it can draw the reader more deeply into the suspense of the story, heightening the emotion.

3. Present Tense Works Well With Deep Point of View

Deep point of view, or deep POV, is a style of narrative popular right now in which the third person point of view is deeply embedded into the consciousness of the character.

Deep POV is like first person narrative, and has a similar level of closeness, but it's written in third person. By some counts, deep POV accounts for fifty percent of adult novels and seventy percent of YA novels.

Present tense pairs especially well with a deep point of view because both serve to bring the narrative closer to the reader.

4. Present Tense Works Best In Short-Time-Frame Stories With Constant Action

Present tense works well in stories told in a very short time frame—twenty-four hours, for example—because everything is told in real time, and it's difficult to make too many transitions and jumps in time.

5. Present Tense Lends Itself Well To Unreliable Narrators

Since the narrative is so close to the action in present tense stories, it lends well to unreliable narrators. An unreliable narrator is a narrator who tells a story incorrectly or leaves out key details. It's a fun technique because the reader naturally develops a closeness with the narrator, so when you find out they're secretly a monster, for example, it creates a big dramatic reversal.

Since present tense draws you even closer to the narrator, it makes that reversal even more dramatic.

5 Drawbacks of Present Tense

As useful as present tense can be in the right situation, there are reasons to avoid it. Here are five reasons to choose past tense over present tense:

1. Some Readers Hate Present Tense

The main reason to avoid present tense, in my opinion, is that some people hate it. Philip Pullman , the bestselling author of the Golden Compass series, says:

What I dislike about the present-tense narrative is its limited range of expressiveness. I feel claustrophobic, always pressed up against the immediate.

Writer beware: right or wrong, if you write in present tense, some people will throw your book down in disgust. Past tense is a much safer choice.

2. Present Tense Less Flexible, Time Shifts Can Be Awkward

The disadvantage of present tense is that since you're so focused on into events as they happen, it can be hard to disengage from the ever-pressing moment and shift to events in the future or past.

Pullman continues :

I want all the young present-tense storytellers (the old ones have won prizes and are incorrigible) to allow themselves to stand back and show me a wider temporal perspective. I want them to feel able to say what happened, what usually happened, what sometimes happened, what had happened before something else happened, what might happen later, what actually did happen later, and so on: to use the full range of English tenses.

Since you're locked into the present, you're limited in your ability to move through time freely. For more flexibility when it comes to navigating time, choose past tense.

3. Present Tense Harder to Pull Off

Since present tense is so much less flexible that past tense, it's much more difficult to use it well. As Editorial Ass. says:

Let me say that present tense is not a reason I categorically reject a novel submission. But it often becomes a contributing reason, because successful present tense novel writing is much, much more difficult to execute than past tense novel writing. Most writers, no matter how good they are, are not quite up to the task.

Elizabeth McCraken continues this theme:

I think a lot of writers choose the present tense as a form of cowardice. They think the present tense is really entirely about the present moment, as though the past and future do not actually exist. But a good present tense is really about texture, not time, and should be as rich and complicated and full of possibilities as the past tense. They too often choose the present tense because they think they can avoid thinking about time, when really it’s all about time.

If you're new to writing fiction, or if you're looking for an easier tense to manage, choose past tense.

4. No or Little Narration

While present tense does indeed mimic film, that can be more of a disadvantage than an advantage. Writers have many more narrative tricks available to them than filmmakers. Writers can enter the heads of their characters, jump freely through time, speak directly to the reader, and more. However, present tense removes many of those options out of your bag of tricks. As Emma Darwin says:

The thing is, though, that film can't narrate: it can only build narrative by a sequence of in-the-present images of action.

To get the widest range of options in your narrative, use past tense.

5. Present Tense Is More Limited

As Writer's Digest says, with present tense you only have access to four verb tenses, simple present, present progressing, simple future, and occasionally simple past. However, with past tense, you have access to all twelve verb tenses English contains.

In other words, you limit yourself to one-third of your choices if you use present tense.

How to Combine Present and Past Tense Correctly

While you should be very careful about switching tenses within the narrative, there is one situation in which present tense can be combined within a novel:

Breaking the Fourth Wall is a term from theater that describes when an actor or actors address the audience directly. A good example of this is from Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream :

If we shadows have offended, Think but this, and all is mended, That you have but slumber'd here While these visions did appear. … So, good night unto you all. Give me your hands, if we be friends, And Robin shall restore amends.

As with theater, novels have broken the fourth wall for hundreds of years, addressing the reader directly and doing so in present tense .

Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie

A great example of breaking the wall is from Midnight's Children , the Best of the Bookers winning novel by Salman Rushdie, in which Saleem narrates from the present tense, speaking directly to the reader, but describes events that happened in the past, sometimes more than a hundred years before.

I am the sum total of everything that went before me, of all I have been seen done, of everything done-to-me. I am everyone everything whose being-in-the-world affected was affected by mine. I am anything that happens after I'm gone which would not have happened if I had not come. ― Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

Dickens' novel, A Tale of Two Cities , also uses this technique of breaking the fourth wall and addressing the reader directly. Here's a quote from the novel:

A solemn consideration, when I enter a great city by night, that every one of those darkly clustered houses encloses its own secret; that every room in every one of them encloses its own secret; that every beating heart in the hundreds of thousands of breasts there, is, in some of its imaginings, a secret to the heart nearest it!

Which Tense is Right For Your Book, Past Tense or Present Tense?

As you can see present tense has its advantages and disadvantages.

If you're writing a film-like, deep POV novel with an unreliable narrator in which the story takes place in just few days, present tense could be a perfect choice.

On the other hand, if your story takes place over several years, follows many point of view characters, and places a greater emphasis on narration, past tense is almost certainly your best bet.

Whatever you do, though, DON'T change tenses within your novel (unless you're breaking the fourth wall).

How about you? Which tense do you prefer, past or present tense? Why? Let us know in the comments .

Practice writing in both present and past tense.

Write a scene about a young man or woman walking through London. First, spend ten minutes writing your scene in present tense. Then, spend ten minutes rewriting your scene in past tense.

When your time is up, post your practice in both tenses in the Pro Practice Workshop and leave feedback for a few other writers, too.

Joe Bunting

Joe Bunting is an author and the leader of The Write Practice community. He is also the author of the new book Crowdsourcing Paris , a real life adventure story set in France. It was a #1 New Release on Amazon. Follow him on Instagram (@jhbunting).

Want best-seller coaching? Book Joe here.

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75 Comments

This is interesting because I’ve found that over the years my natural writing style has shifted from writing in past tense to writing in present tense and I’ve been looking at a piece for a while where I’ve been on the fence about rewriting it in past tense but after reading this I might keep it as is because I have a very unreliable narrator. I’ve found this to be extremely helpful, thanks.

Awesome. Glad you found this helpful, Ashley. Good luck with your piece!

I like present tense narration And trying to write one though scared I’ve been writing poems and prefer first person, hope to do better thank you for sharing your ideas

Very helpful advice. I was wondering about my middle-grade novel. Could I break the fourth wall in it? It would seem a wonderful thing to try.

If by ‘middle-grade’ you mean children’s, I think children’s and young adult fiction is very open to fourth wall smashing!

Though the mass of my fiction is past tense 3rd-person omni, I *do* break the 4th wall sometimes. I just can’t help myself…in a lifetime in music, theatre & dance, I know its power & frankly lust after it in writing. (But one thing those other fields of art taught me was that too much through-the-wall action and loss of control is almost inevitable.) Attempting to remain judicious, I don’t break the wall very often, but sometimes–especially in action scenes–and most especially in action scenes where I’m holding the focus on one out of a number of deeply developed characters, breaking that 4th wall–say, for a mere portion of a single scene–can really do the job!

Great points, Manilamac. We need to do a whole post on the 4th wall, but you’ve said everything I think!

He was not a Londoner or even a British national. He walked the streets of London in January dressed in bright color sleeveless shirt and sandals. People around him who carried umbrellas and wore suits and leather shoes saw him as a strange character who lost his way in the big city.

He is not a Londoner, or even a British national. He walks the streets of London in January wearing wild color sleeveless shirt but acts like he belongs in the big city. People look at him amused by what they see—a young man who needs help.

Past tense gave this a very different feel to present tense.

The present tense gives this a feel that differs markedly from the past.

Agreed! Also, I see what you did there, Davidh. 😉

Hello! I love this blog, but you have mis-cited John Updike’s seminal book Rabbit, Run several times. Can you fix this please?

Thanks Dorryce. What do you mean miscited?

Oh my gosh! How funny. I read that novel and loved it, have read a lot about it, and have thought about it for years, and this whole time I thought it was called Run, Rabbit Run, not Rabbit, Run. It’s amazing how your brain can edit things. Thanks Dorryce. Fixed!

Heheheh- my mind automatically changed it to “Run, Rabbit, Run” too! I think it must have confused it with Forrest Gump… 😮

Glad to hear I’m not the only one!

The term story itself suggests that we write about something that happened in the past.The past tense always fits the bill when you narrate a story of the past.But when you write a how to article, the present tense is always the best and again the content of a how to article definitely is not a story but something that directs somebody to do something.Even Salman Rushdie in his MIdnight Children chose the past tense to narrate his story.Thats what H.G.Wells did in his Time Machine.

I disagree, S. Have you ever told a story to a friend or colleague in present tense? I certainly have! “So I’m walking through the house and it’s pitch dark and then you know what I see… a giant mouse!”

The question is which tense is right for your novel, but not whether you can write a novel in the present tense.In my humble opinion, when you narrate a story of the past, the past tense is most appropriate and when you narrate what is happening now, I mean in the story, the present tense is appropriate.Again, the tense is determined by the content.For example if I write a story of the preindependant era in India, the past tense is a must and more appropriate.

Unfortunately, a long tradition of well respected novelists disagree with you, including Erich Remarch, who wrote about a historical event, WWI, well after the events. It might indeed be more appropriate by some measures to write about historical events, like preindependent India, in the present tense, but that doesn’t mean that it wouldn’t be artistically effective and technically possible if done well.

Our mental predilictions should not, of course, will not determine the right tense required for writing a novel, but certainly it is the content or the subject matter that determines it.

Fascinating article, but I do have some reservations.

Firstly, let me quote from your article: “While you should be very careful about switching tenses within the narrative, there is one situation in which present tense can be combined within a novel: Breaking the Fourth Wall is a term from theater that describes when an actor or actors address the audience directly….”

What about occasions in a present tense story in which your characters engage in reminiscences? How else can they do that but shift to the past tense? This is what is meant by ‘past within present’.

Secondly, I have also recently read a piece (written by a colleague) wherein the tense changes from scene-to-scene. One of the characters thinks and acts in the present, working to reform himself. The other character is dominated by resentments and focussed upon the past. This piece worked extremely well and was a great device for conveying the differences between the characters.

In my own work-in-progress, I have my regret-burdened starship Captain protagonist (and the bulk of the narrative) working in the past tense, whilst her living-in-the-moment AI friend operates entirely in the present tense.

I think tense can be made to shift effectively from one to the other, but only if done with great care and purpose.

I do not buy the notion that all tense shifts are Verboten.

Good question, Davidh. Yes, for flashbacks, you can absolutely use past tense. Just keep in mind, your character is still in the present, even if his/her consciousness is elsewhere. So you have to be careful to make sure the recollections he/she is having are natural, not forced by the story. Otherwise, you’re in danger of info dumping.

Regarding tense changes scene-to-scene, there are some novels that do that. Bleak House, which I mentioned, is one example. It’s hard to pull off, and can be jarring to some readers, though—just as switching POV characters can be jarring to some readers. It’s likely that few mass market, bestselling novels will be written this way, but that doesn’t mean it’s not possible!

Agreed! What can’t be done is careless tense shifts within a chapter (apart from flashbacks or asides, as you mention). Good thoughts, Davidh!

In my novel (picked up by Pen Name Publishing), I’ve done a masterful job creating ‘past within present’ while successfully writing a first person account from a drug-addled stream-of-consciousness. In Beyond The Blue Kite, the real world is present tense while the flashback and three dreams are past tense (thus proving shifting tense can work if you have a unique formula).

I disagree the drawback to present tense includes little to no narration. Pay attention to the character subject and it won’t become a flaw. In addition, the protagonist in Beyond The Blue Kite is portrayed as claustrophobic which is why present tense proved perfect in portraying reality.

What I loved about present tense was giving the reader deep suspense towards the end, and heightening the emotion from beginning to end. Interesting note that present tense draws you even closer to the narrator which made my dream sequences more dramatic when switching tense.

If you’re going to try succeed switching tense, practice and practice and then practice more; and be prepared to put in many hours of hard work. It can be challenging to change tense, but I can’t lie and say it’s not possible.

I m an English major hoping to earn a degree in creative writing, I would like to have a copy of your novel; would that be possible. my email [email protected] thank you, love your response.

Just checking for confirmation that Richard did a truly “masterful job” constructing the “past-within-present” tense? Struggling to master it myself and would love to have some confirmation about good models to examine.

http://www.amazon.com/Highways-Teresa-Marie-ebook/dp/B01A766HU8/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1452047950&sr=1-1&keywords=Highways Hello everybody, I was inspired by Joe to finish my suspense thriller during NaNoWriMo 2015 and … tada! Thanks, Joe. I’d really appreciate any reviews or comments as I need the feedback. 🙂 I’m in your writing community too, so I’ll post a link there. All the best. K.

Wow, congratulations K! That’s a huge accomplishment. And now are you working on the next? 🙂

I’ve never tried writing in present tense, an to be honest have always found it distracting. Most of the books I read to my kids are written that way, and (as sad as it may seem) I usually translate to past tense when I read out loud.

Ha! Cheater! Although, I can’t really talk. I sometimes skip pages if the story is really long!

I did it once & I must say I did it successfully (despite many advising against writing this way). But I am currently writing the prequel. And I think there will be a prequel to the prequel. Do they all have to be written in the same tense? What about the POV? My debut novel is mostly in 3rd person POV. Do I need to do the same for all the books in this series? Sherrie

Sherrie Miranda’s historically based, coming of age, Adventure novel “Secrets & Lies in El Salvador” is about an American girl in war-torn El Salvador: http://tinyurl.com/klxbt4y Her husband made a video for her novel. He wrote the song too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P11Ch5chkAc

Interesting question! Yes, I think it’s best to choose the same tense. Hunger Games is all in the same tense. It’s a bit different, since it’s a prequel, though. I’d definitely recommend keeping the same POV though.

John watches as his beloved house burns to the ground. He watches as flames lick out of the window of his trophy room. Images of his Star Wars figures flash across his mind, he and his nephew battling with the evil Emperor. Before the roof could fall in, he reaches out, turns the key in the ignition. With a blank face, he drives away.

Nice, determined. Where’s the past tense version?

I came, I saw, I conquered. Caesar insisting on his competence to do just that, even before he lands. His (arrogant) self confidence, if you will. An example of thinking positive in the extreme.

Present Walking in the deep, deserted, dark streets of London, where no soul was visible. Quietness was being intruded by coughing of a young man, chugging on his pipe. A lamppost seems to signal him to halt, where he stood leaning against the wall. Timelessly keeping a watch over his watch, waiting for some known or unknown. Every passing shadow lit a light of hope in his eyes, which the street lights also could not hide. Suddenly from nowhere a hand touched his back, making him numb with tears rolling his eyes. Turning seemed difficult for him at this time, even more than moving a rock. The touch & warmth, the breathing by his side was his younger brother, who he thought was not alive….

Past Deep, deserted, dark streets of London, where visibility of any soul was low, had seen a young man chugging on his pipe. His coughing had echoed to the highest point reaching to the deepest point in rebound. Lampposts dancing to the moonlight was left incomplete, due to the presence of this unknown. A bricked wall had lend his shoulder to him, where he ceaselessly kept a count over time. Shadows passed making his expressions grow more intense with time. Lamppost played a role of a spotlight, leading one aching soul to bond with another. A touch on his back was all what he groped, which melted him like an ice. He knew it was his younger brother, who he thought was never alive….

This is so evocative, Diya. I’m not sure “was being” works in the present tense, or “stood.” Should be “Quietness is” and “stands.” There are sever other mistakes in tense. Might be worthwhile to go back through and get clear on them. The past tense has a few issues as well, “knew it was his younger brother” should be “had known.” This piece is very dark and mysterious, though!

Thanks Joe, for this complete guide for writing in present or past tense. You’ve cleared up my doubts and I’m relieved that I have chosen to write my novel it in the past tense. I find it is easier to write in the past tense. I recently read a book written in the present tense and admire the author for her splendid novel. I’d love to imitate her but i dare not because I’d unconciously change the tense some place and not notice it. Better leave present tense alone. Past tense is okay for me.

I’m so glad this helped you realize you made the right choice for your novel. What was the book you finished that was in present tense?

The book I finished reading and enjoyed is titled ‘The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton.

I’ve heard of that, Lilian. It looks good!

Great Post. Here are is the exercise followed by a comment

Funny how life gives you these unexpected moments, as if to say, see? If you weren’t such a controlling, over scheduled sod you might actually enjoy life a little more. Don is just killing time in Piccadilly Circus, itself a kind of accident since his rental car wouldn’t be available till 5PM. Bloody hell, he said like a true Englishman, which he’s not. But it turns out to be kind of unforseen blessing. For there he is, browsing in a bookstore in Piccadilly, just that phrase seems to conjure such possibility, that he meets Angela. It must look to her as though he is hitting on her, chatting her up as they say in England, but he really did want to drink a coffee. And now, here they are in Starbucks, and the whole moment is starting to feel very datey to him.

Funny how life gives you these unexpected moments, as if to say, see? If you weren’t such a controlling, over scheduled sod you might actually enjoy life a little more. Don was just killing time in Piccadilly Circus, itself a kind of accident since his rental car wouldn’t be available till 5PM. Bloody hell, he said like a true Englishman, which he’s not. But it turned out to be kind of unforseen blessing. For there he was, browsing in a bookstore in Piccadilly, just that phrase seems to conjure such possibility, that he met Angela. It must have looked to her as though he was hitting on her, chatting her up as they say in England, but he really did want to drink a coffee. Then off they went to Starbucks, and the afternoon started to feel very datey to him.

I started my memoir in the present tense months ago, mostly because I liked the sound of it and was inspired by Michael Ian Black’s memoir, You’re Not Doing It Right. It is tricky to maintain the voice throughout, and sometimes I would unconsciously slip back into the past voice.

A good example is my chapter call A Social Dis-ease posted on the daily writing section of this site. ( https://thewritepractice.com/community/daily-writing/a-social-dis-ease-revision-of-earlier-posted-from-wdtath/ )

When I need to fill in the back story a bit, I switch back to the past. So far I have seen no reason to not continue, though I recently started a short story all in the past and it seems to be a lot easier to write somehow.

Dan de Angeli

I love the tone of this, Dan. Wry and critical. Very fun. Tenses look great! Funny how the first two lines are both in different tenses and yet remain, correctly, the same in both.

This was a very interesting post! However, again, I have to offer a critique: apostrophes can be evil when they’re used in wrong places (its vs it’s, writers vs writer’s).

Thanks Ash! Evil, perhaps not, but incorrect, definitely. I’ve fixed them. Thank you!

As I walk I’m careful where I put my feet, not wanting to step in some trash or trip over some litter, perhaps a child’s broken toy left lying. Now and then I stop to study the buildings around me, the tenement row houses and run-down apartment blocks. Cramped quarters where you try hard to shut your ears, not wanting to know about the shouts, cries, maybe even screams of your neighbours. Maybe hoping that it’s at least not the children getting the beating. But you tune it all out. You have enough problems of your own.

Snatches of conversation I’m hearing tell me a lot of immigrants are starting out life in Britain right here on these streets. How do they feel now about the Promised Land?

A gust of wind blows at my skirt and I smooth it down, trying to stay decently covered. Three black-haired, black eyed young men in a huddle look my way; one of them whistles. As I pass by they look me over, curious. I cringe a bit, then give myself a mental shake and straighten my shoulders. I’m not some teenage runaway; I have business here.

How did she end up on these streets? And why am I here, trying to find her? This is madness. Again I pray for a miracle: If she’d only somehow materialize in front of me, or I’d glimpse her down the block.

When I get to the street corner my eyes scan the sign posts, willing “Faust Street” to appear on one of them. Next time I’m taking a cab right to the door. No, I correct myself. There won’t be a next time. Ever.

Surely it can’t be much farther. I plod on, conscious that the daylight’s disappearing. I glance up into the murky sky and realize the fog is rolling in. What would it be like to be caught wandering these East End streets in a pea soup fog. My mind flips to the story of Jack the Ripper. I force myself to concentrate on my flower garden at home.

A man approaches, walking toward me, and something makes me look in his face. It’s not the scars that startle me, but the look in his eyes. Like a wolf sizing up a silly ewe. And I’m seeing myself very fitted to the role of lamb kebab.

At this moment finding her seems not half as important as it did an hour ago. All my being is crying to be out of this place, off these streets.

The man is so close to me now I can smell the stale tobacco on his clothes. He stops and eyes me too thoroughly. He seems to think he knows what I’m doing here. Well I’m not, mister! I take a several steps back.

“Where ye going’ lady? He reaches out his hand, gripping my arm with powerful fingers. I’d like ta get ta know ye.” He pulls me toward him.

Half a block behind him I see a bobby step out of a shop and look in our direction. Thank God!

I won’t replay this in third person. If I did, it would read much the same — except that I could describe the MC as she walked along. Now I’m just giving the indication that she’s female and of an age to attract male attention.

I commented on your website, Christine, but I enjoyed your writing very much in this piece. Good job!

Thanks. I love writing opening scenes. But…um… what should come next. Should she find her or shouldn’t she? This is probably why I haven’t written a literary novel yet. 😉

I don’t know. I would start from scratch on that. What I like most is the setting and, especially, the character’s voice.

Thanks again. You’ve set the wheels turning; I’m going to give this serious thought. If the city street can be anywhere…and the search can be for anyone… The voice I can do.

Thank YOU for reading LaCresha. Best!

Thanks for your feedback Joe…I know I’m far from being perfect, but such kind of light always makes the try worthwhile. I did feel present tense made me restricted, where past was easier though.

Interesting observation, Diya. Thank you for giving it a try! 🙂

It’s also important to note that present tense leaves a lot of mystery about the future and makes it so that anyone can die, even the main character. Where as in past tense first person (I did this. I did that.) We usually know the main character will survive because they have to live to tell the story. Of course, this can be worked around with past tense paired with an omnipotent narrator (They did this. They did that.)

I personally have no preference in reading but I notice that I always write in past tense. I guess it just makes more sense in my brain that an event would be recorded after the even happens, not as it is happening.

A London scene? Oh, goodness. I’ll give it my best shot.

Great point, Katherine! Yes past tense 1st person novels make it very difficult to kill your character! Still possible, of course, since many stories are narrated by ghosts or even letters left behind, but still… it’s rarer.

Yes, I’ve read a few present tense first persons that killed of their character, but I really do feel like it’s cheating. Those endings always make me angry for some reason, unless of course we already know that they’re a ghost though the story.

This was really helpful. I always tend to prefer the past tense over the perfect, but have noticed that more and more books seem to be venturing into the present tense. Perhaps, as you say, it is because it is like the movies.

Glad you found it helpful, Tanya. Do you have any present tense novels you have enjoyed?

All the light We Cannot See – but that is such an exceptional book in so many ways. The sentences are short and punchy like a blog post, but it’s superb writing because of the poetry – the choice of verbs is extraordinary.

Isn’t it great? Glad you’re enjoying it, Tanya. 🙂

I really like what Elizabeth McCracken says about present tense – that ‘a good present tense is really about texture, not time, and should be as rich and complicated and full of possibilities as the past tense’.

Thanks for the thought-provoking piece, Joe. So much to unpack here. Have shared it.

Great quote, Bridget. I really like that. Thank you for sharing it. And for sharing our article!

I don’t think you can blame articles on that, Martin. It’s so normal to drift between tenses. I read a lot of first drafts and I can tell you, switching tenses is the one of the most common mistakes I see.

I also am not saying this decision is easy. It’s not really supposed to be easy. But it IS important, otherwise I wouldn’t have devoted 2,700+ words to helping you figure it out. Honestly, it sounds like you need to spend some time alone thinking about which tense is best for your novel. And then stick to it. No one can make the decision for you, but you do have to decide.

Let me know if I can help.

I tried writing a story in the present tense for the first time after reading this article, and I found that I kept accidentally switching back to past tense and had to go back and correct myself several times. That’s probably because I am so familiar with stories told in the past tense that it feels like the default sense to me.

I believe I agree with the sentiment that “Present Tense Intensifies the Emotions”. It seems to provide a sort of immediacy with the emotional changes that a character undergoes because they aren’t telling us something that happened a long time ago, with embellishments and with the foresight of what happens next. Instead, you get to experience what happens to them as it happens, making the narration rawer and possibly more surprising.

Here’s my attempt: http://loonytales.blogspot.com/2016/01/beautiful.html

How is “The Hunger Games” well written present tense? Just look at the first sentence: “When I wake up, the other side of the bed is cold.” This is exactly what Pullman is talking about. The author thinks it means “When I woke up, the other side of the bed was cold.” but it actually means “Usually (or sometimes, or always) when I wake up, the other side of the bed is cold.” You can’t just find/replace the tenses, you have to think about their usual use. This could’ve been fixed by a simple “I awake and realize the other side of the bed is cold.” if only the author knew what she was doing. One of the reasons I couldn’t get through the book was that I couldn’t tell most of the time whether Catniss was coming or going. I couldn’t tell if she was planning to pick up the bow, was picking up the bow, had already picked up the bow… Finally I got tired of trying to figure out what the author actually intended it to mean and switched to a novel where the author was clear, precise and unambiguous.

Sorry you didn’t enjoy it, Catalina. Perhaps present tense is an acquired taste. You should try Rabbit, Run next!

Very enlightening and an invitation to read some great novels. Do you have a piece on past tense that is as detailed?

Not currently, David, although we may update this article in the future. Thank you for reading!

But when you write a how to article, the present tense is always the best and again the content of a how to article definitely is not a story but something that directs somebody to do something. Snapback Caps

When you are telling a story where the reader can not a part of it or wasn’t the part of it, past tense is best. But present tense make the reader feel that he too can be the part of the story.

I am a bit late to the discussion, maybe by two years, but maybe someone will read this. I am one of those people who will throw down a book in disgust if it is written in present tense, Charles Dickens or Salman Rushide not withstanding. Why?

Because, I imagine the narrator must be writing the narrative as it happens. Which means, the narrator has to be both observing and narrating at the same time. Unless it is Quantum Entanglement, I don’t see how that is possible- being at two places or two different timelines at the same time. The narrator can be omniscient, a time-traveler if you will, but then, I am human and I like to read about books that are written with human curiosities and aspirations. So, I not only see writing in the present tense as annoying, but I consider it plain wrong. I know many of us here will disagree, but consider this-

“I am the sum total of everything that went before me, of all I have been seen done, of everything done-to-me. I am everyone everything whose being-in-the-world affected was affected by mine. I am anything that happens after I’m gone which would not have happened if I had not come.- Salman Rushdie.”

This is more like a view into a letter that is written by Salman Rushdie. It is internal reflection. So it can be written in the present tense. In fact, past tense would have made it like Salman Rushdie was writing it as a ghost.

And consider this-

“A solemn consideration, when I enter a great city by night, that every one of those darkly clustered houses encloses its own secret; that every room in every one of them encloses its own secret; that every beating heart in the hundreds of thousands of breasts there, is, in some of its imaginings, a secret to the heart nearest it!- Charles Dickens.”

Again, this comes off as internal reflection, because of the ‘when’. If one had to write this as if this was happening in the present, one could attempt this-

“A solemn consideration, when I entered any great city by night, that every one of those darkly clustered houses enclosed its own secret; that every room in every one of them enclosed its own secret; that every beating heart in the hundreds of thousand of breasts there, was, in some of its imaginings, a secret to the heart nearest it!”

Still works.

Now lets consider this- again, an except from Dickens’s Great Expectations- “…

“Hold your noise!” cried a terrible voice, as a man started up from among the graves at the side of the church porch. “Keep still, you little devil, or I’ll cut your throat!”

A fearful man, all in coarse grey, with a great iron on his leg. A man with no hat, and with broken shoes, and with an old rag tied round his head. A man who had been soaked in water, and smothered in mud, and lamed by stones, and cut by flints, and stung by nettles, and torn by briars; who limped, and shivered, and glared and growled; and whose teeth chattered in his head as he seized me by the chin.

“O! Don’t cut my throat, sir,” I pleaded in terror. “Pray don’t do it, sir.” “Tell us your name!” said the man. “Quick!” “Pip, sir.” “Once more,” said the man, staring at me. “Give it mouth!” “Pip. Pip, sir!” “Show us where you live,” said the man. “Pint out the place!”

Let’s now attempt this in present tense-

“…

“Hold your noise!” cries a terrible voice, as a man starts up from among the graves at the side of the church porch. “Keep still, you little devil, or I’ll cut your throat!”

A fearful man, all in coarse grey, with a great iron on his leg. A man with no hat, and with broken shoes, and with an old rag tied round his head. A man who was soaked in water, and smothered in mud, and lamed by stones, and cut by flints, and stung by nettles, and torn by briars; who limps, and shivers, and glares and growls; and whose teeth chatters in his head as he seize me by the chin.

“O! Don’t cut my throat, sir,” I plead in terror. “Pray don’t do it, sir.” “Tell us your name!” says the man. “Quick!” “Pip, sir.” “Once more,” says the man, staring at me. “Give it mouth!” “Pip. Pip, sir!” “Show us where you live,” says the man. “Pint out the place!”

It doesn’t quite cut it. What’s wrong?

I am telling the story as it is happening to me! Will I? In the situation I am, when a man is terrorizing me, threatening to cut my throat? Will I tell you a story?

Nah, I think writing in present tense is a gross negligence on the part of the writer to respect his/her reader to be a discernible, self-respecting human, and therefore, the writer will then, be writing for an audience of people who have lost it in their heads. So, yes, I will throw the book down in disgust.

Hi, thank you for this article. I’m not a creative writer – I’m an art therapy Masters student looking to make my report on “creative inquiry” more interesting. I started writing it in the present tense to make it more personal, however, I felt out of my depth because it deserved more research and “know how”. Your article has helped me to appreciate the different qualities in past and present tense writing, so I’m sticking with past tense for now. I will, however, look up your recommended readings because you’ve sparked my interest! This is best article I’ve found and easiest to understand. All the best.

Is this sentence correct… “Tonya and Meg ask us for help moving that heavy box.” My teacher put it on a warm up for school and told us that it was incorrect, and that it was supposed to be ‘asked’ instead of ‘ask’. I think that he is wrong, but I’m not sure.

I’ll dump your book immediately if I see present tense. I hate it, and many others do also. When you tell a story, you instinctively tell it in the past tense. That’s what people expect. Telling it in the present tense is jarring. It’s like a radio announcer is reading it. In addition, most of the present tense writing I’ve seen switches to past tense willy-nilly.

I personally undoubtedly prefer past tense, however, I have issue with how to end it. It might be strange, but despite not writing in first person I don’t like the narrator to be outside of the story. I want an omniscient narrator, not for one of my characters to be retelling it, but if the story is told in past tense I don’t feel like it will ever be finished.

Trackbacks/Pingbacks

• The Runaway | Christine Composes - […] The Write Practice today asks up to write a scene about a young man or woman walking through London.…
• King Eats Caterpillar | Christine's Collection - […] prompts, maybe I can turn the tables, go back and post on a past writing prompt. And since The…
• How to choose the right tense for your novel: past tense vs. present tense | Toni Kennedy : A Writing Life - […] How to choose the right tense for your novel: past tense vs. present tense […]
• Links To Blog Posts on Writing – January 2016 | Anna Butler - […] How to Choose the RIGHT Tense for Your Novel – Joe Bunting at The Write Practice with some practical…
• Parallelism: Keep Your Verb Tenses Consistent - […] See how the verbs match tense and form? In this example, all the verbs are in their gerund form, leading…
• Writing Links Round Up 4/11-4/16 – B. Shaun Smith - […] How to Choose the RIGHT Tense for Your Novel […]
• Simple Steps to Writing a Novel | Dawn Ross - Aspiring Book Author - […] There are only two choices in writing tense: past tense or present tense. One would think that writing in…
• Parallelism: Keep Your Verb Tenses Consistent | Creative Writing - […] See how the verbs match tense and form? In this example, all the verbs are in their gerund form, leading…
• Tense about Tense – Tuesday Writers - […] to https://thewritepractice.com/past-tense-vs-present-tense/ most novels are written in past tense. That doesn’t seem right to me, but maybe most adult […]
• Past or Present: why tense matters in our writing, and how to use it well – Words like trees - […] new (even if it isn’t established enough to overwhelm the convention of the past tense). In this article, Joe…
• Should I write my story in present or past tense? – Writing Essentials by Ellen - […] from the past to the present – an issue we discussed in the previous post. Joe Bunting of The…
• The Case of the Inconsistent Tense | Edward Forrest Frank - […] When you are writing something, you need to decide whether you are going to use past tense, present tense,…
• Proofreading Your Novel: 8 Ways to Edit Your Final Draft | The Novel Smithy - […] How to Choose the Right Tense for Your Novel […]

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Writing Resources

Verb tenses — literature.

Use of the correct verb tense allows you to express clearly the time relationships among your ideas. When deciding which verb tense to use, aim for consistency, simplicity and clarity.

Whenever possible, keep verbs in the same tense (consistency), and use either the simple present or the past tense (simplicity). Above all, choose the verb tense that most clearly expresses the idea you want to convey (clarity). In general, use the present tense to describe actions and states of being that are still true in the present; use the past tense to describe actions or states of being that occurred exclusively in the past.

Use the present tense to describe fictional events that occur in the text (this use of present tense is referred to as "the historical present"):

• In Milton's Paradise Lost, Satan tempts Eve in the form of a serpent.
• Voltaire's Candide encounters numerous misfortunes throughout his travels.

Also use the present tense to report your interpretations and the interpretations of other sources:

• Odysseus represents the archetypal epic hero.
• Flanagan suggests that Satan is the protagonist of Paradise Lost.

Use the past tense to explain historical context or elements of the author's life that occurred exclusively in the past:

• Hemingway drew on his experiences in World War I in constructing the character of Jake Barnes.

When writing about literature, use both present and past tense when combining observations about fictional events from the text (present tense) with factual information (past tense):

• James Joyce, who grew up in the Catholic faith, draws on church doctrine to illuminate the roots of Stephen Dedalus' guilt.
• In Les Belles Images, Simone de Beauvoir accurately portrays the complexities of a marriage even though she never married in her lifetime.

Use the present perfect tense to describe an event that occurs in the text previous to the principal event:

• The governess questions the two children because she believes they have seen the ghosts.
• Convinced that Desdemona has been unfaithful to him, Othello strangles her.

Use the past tense when referring to an event occurring before the story begins:

In the opening scenes of Hamlet, the men are visited by the ghost of Hamlet's father, whom Claudius murdered.

Adapted From: “Verb Tense,” Hamilton University Writing Center. 16 October 2017,

Works Cited:

• Webb, Suzanne, Robert Miller, and Winifred Horner. "Hodges' Harbrace Handbook," 14th edition. Fort Worth: Harcourt College Publishers, 2001.
• Zach Brown '03, and Sharon Williams would like to thank the following readers for their assistance in the preparation of this document: Meghan Barbour '00, John Farranto, '01, and Professors Eismeier, Grant, Hopkins, Jensen, J. O'Neill, Strout, Thickstun, and E. Williams.
• Professional Writing
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Writing in the present tense: The good and the bad

Latest posts.

What are the pros and cons of writing a story or novel in present tense?

Before you start writing your novel or short story, you need to decide what tense to write it in.

There is no right or wrong but the choice you make will determine your approach.

Will your story recount events that have already taken place ( Lucy waited by the door ) or will it be set in an ongoing present ( Lucy waits by the door ) ? You can see just from those two brief examples that each option will offer different possibilities in terms of writing style and narrative approach.

You have two tense choices when it comes to writing fiction: past and present.

Using the past tense in fiction is time-honoured and for many, the default choice, but writing in the present tense is a stylistic choice that is increasingly used in modern fiction.

The present tense is used more in contemporary literary fiction, in short stories and in writing that plays or experiments with form – and also in a lot of middle grade and young adult books. Past tense is the default setting for most genre fiction.

As the simple past tense is traditionally used for storytelling, it presents fewer challenges to the reader, who doesn’t notice the tense that is being used and is immediately immersed in the world of the story. Past tense foregrounds the story, rather than the prose it’s written in. Present tense tends to be a deliberate stylistic choice used by a writer to create a conscious effect. You are signalling the reader’s attention to when your story takes place. This tense choice can be particularly effective when you want a reader to understand the world of your story as it unfolds through the eyes of a first-person narrator.

Benefits of writing in present tense

✓ it’s cinematic.

The present-tense is ideal for writing an impressionistic narrative that is playing out in an immediate timescale. Screenplays are written in first person because they express ongoing narrative and a close perspective, and both of these can be used to great effect in fiction. If you’re writing a story and want it to feel as if it’s set in real time, the present tense is a good choice

✓ It’s immediate

You can make readers relate to what’s going on in your fictional world and be involved in it by showing what happens – events, feelings, ideas – in the moment they occur. When each impression or scene you write takes place in the absolute moment, it means that the reader is right in there, experiencing the events of your story as they unfold. This can create a sense of intimacy or dramatic impact.

✓ It can feel more authentic

Because present tense allows for closer narration, it can create the sense of a unique character perspective. A present tense narrative can convey emotions, thoughts and impressions in the moment. Many writers who use the present tense feel that it’s a natural tense to write to reflect the world we live in now, where the voice of the individual is prioritised and what and how we write is influenced by TV, film and online culture.

✓ It’s vivid

Writing in the present tense means the information you present hasn’t got the perspective of being reported later. It’s written in the moment, without an effect of being filtered or processed or reported (though we know it has, because you’re a writer and it hasn’t happened by accident). What the reader has to focus on is the image you create, as it occurs, which makes for dynamic impressions.

✓ It’s good for delivering a deep first-person point of view

If you want to deliver the mindset of a first-person character, the immediacy of writing in the present tense means that your reader is right in there with your narrator, seeing what they see and experiencing the world of the story through their eyes. Rather than being an omniscient narrator, the writer shares the character’s focus. If you are writing an unreliable narrator using the present tense is an excellent way of delivering a narrative perspective at odds with the ‘true’ version of events in your story.

Drawbacks of writing in present tense

χ some readers don’t like it.

For every writer who feels the past tense is a bit ‘old school’ there is a reader who prefers a narrative that sticks with the convention of using the simple past tense. Present tense stories may feel natural for young readers but adult readers with a lifetime of reading work written in past tense may find present tense jarring – and it may be hard for them to get beyond the tense choice and into the world of your story. Literary fiction readers will be more open to experiments in form but for readers of genre fiction who want to be immediately immersed in the story, present tense may detract from their reading pleasure.

χ It can feel contrived

There is nothing more likely to put off readers than a writing voice that feels like a self-conscious pose. If writing in the present tense doesn’t feel like a natural fit for your story, it will read awkwardly and draw your reader’s attention to your attempt at technique rather than the story you’re writing. If you’re unsure about whether to use first person, try writing two versions of a short story, or a few pages of a longer work – one in present tense and one in past tense – to see which approach suits your story best and feels most comfortable for you as a writer.

χ It makes it harder to use time shifts

Writing in the past tense makes it possible for you to set your story at any point in time you choose, and move around between time periods. Writing in the present tense limits you to the present: being committed to the present tense also means being locked into it, and having less freedom than a past-tense writer to manipulate time to your story’s advantage. A past-tense writer can move around freely in time (and use all the available tenses to do so); a present-tense writer is restricted. Again, it depends what suits your story.

χ  It can make the focus too detailed

Although the present tense is very good for conveying a first-person narrator or a close third-person narrator, it also means that the writer wanting to appear naturalistic may overwhelm the reader with details of what that narrator sees, thinks, feels and experiences. It may be tempting for your narrator to describe everything they see, but do readers need to know what they thought about what they had for breakfast? Too much focus on the ongoing internal life of the narrator can detract from the story that is being told. If you use present tense, make sure all the information your character conveys is relevant. The character may be the story, but present-tense narrative still needs to be a story.

χ It’s harder to write

The writer who choses present tense for their story limits their narrative options in terms of available tenses – writers using the past tense have up to 12 tenses they can use; present-tense writers have four. It’s more difficult to maintain a present-tense voice without flipping between tenses. It limits you if you want to write stories with complex time-schemes, or create layered characters other than a first-person/close third person lead. If you want to create and build suspense, present tense will only allow you to convey the kind of tension that arises from not knowing what is going to happen next.

The choice of whether or not to use present tense for your story depends what you want to write – it doesn’t suit everything. It’s a good choice if you want to write a story that feels immediate, or one with a close single focus on the narrator’s viewpoint. It’s less useful if you want to create a story that moves around in time. It draws attention to itself, so if you do use it, you have to use it well or readers will notice the flaws rather than your story. Read some present tense novels to get a feel for how it works and how you might apply it in your own writing. Try The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins; The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins, Rabbit, Run by John Updike, The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood and A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan.

So now you're all fired up, what better time to start writing your present tense story than... right now! Get some ideas for how to start your story here . It's particularly suited to crime and thriller short stories ... Enter now!

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Verb Tenses

What this handout is about.

The present simple, past simple, and present perfect verb tenses account for approximately 80% of verb tense use in academic writing. This handout will help you understand how to use these three verb tenses in your own academic writing.

Click here for a color-coded illustration of changing verb tenses in academic writing.

Present simple tense

The present simple tense is used:

In your introduction, the present simple tense describes what we already know about the topic. In the conclusion, it says what we now know about the topic and what further research is still needed.

“The data suggest…” “The research shows…”

“The dinoflagellate’s TFVCs require an unidentified substance in fresh fish excreta” (Penrose and Katz, 330).

“There is evidence that…”

“So I’m walking through the park yesterday, and I hear all of this loud music and yelling. Turns out, there’s a free concert!” “Shakespeare captures human nature so accurately.”

Past simple tense

Past simple tense is used for two main functions in most academic fields.

“…customers obviously want to be treated at least as well on fishing vessels as they are by other recreation businesses. [General claim using simple present] De Young (1987) found the quality of service to be more important than catching fish in attracting repeat customers. [Specific claim from a previous study using simple past] (Marine Science)

We conducted a secondary data analysis… (Public Health) Descriptional statistical tests and t-student test were used for statistical analysis. (Medicine) The control group of students took the course previously… (Education)

Present perfect tense

The present perfect acts as a “bridge” tense by connecting some past event or state to the present moment. It implies that whatever is being referred to in the past is still true and relevant today.

“There have been several investigations into…” “Educators have always been interested in student learning.”

Some studies have shown that girls have significantly higher fears than boys after trauma (Pfefferbaum et al., 1999; Pine &; Cohen, 2002; Shaw, 2003). Other studies have found no gender differences (Rahav and Ronen, 1994). (Psychology)

Special notes

Can i change tenses.

Yes. English is a language that uses many verb tenses at the same time. The key is choosing the verb tense that is appropriate for what you’re trying to convey.

What’s the difference between present simple and past simple for reporting research results?

• Past simple limits your claims to the results of your own study. E.g., “Our study found that teenagers were moody.” (In this study, teenagers were moody.)
• Present simple elevates your claim to a generalization. E.g., “Our study found that teenagers are moody.” (Teenagers are always moody.)

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find additional publications. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial . We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

Biber, Douglas. 1999. Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English . New York: Longman.

Hawes, Thomas, and Sarah Thomas. 1997. “Tense Choices in Citations.” Research into the Teaching of English 31 (3): 393-414.

Hinkel, Eli. 2004. Teaching Academic ESL Writing: Practical Techniques in Vocabulary and Grammar . Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Penrose, Ann, and Steven Katz. 2004. Writing in the Sciences: Exploring the Conventions of Scientific Discourse , 2nd ed. New York: Longman.

Swales, John, and Christine B. Feak. 2004. Academic Writing for Graduate Students: Essential Tasks and Skills , 2nd ed. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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Verb Tense Consistency

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This handout explains and describes the sequence of verb tenses in English.

Throughout this document, example sentences with nonstandard or inconsistent usage have verbs in red .

Controlling shifts in verb tense

Writing often involves telling stories. Sometimes we narrate a story as our main purpose in writing; sometimes we include brief anecdotes or hypothetical scenarios as illustrations or reference points in an essay.

Even an essay that does not explicitly tell a story involves implied time frames for the actions discussed and states described. Changes in verb tense help readers understand the temporal relationships among various narrated events. But unnecessary or inconsistent shifts in tense can cause confusion.

Generally, writers maintain one tense for the main discourse and indicate changes in time frame by changing tense relative to that primary tense, which is usually either simple past or simple present. Even apparently non-narrative writing should employ verb tenses consistently and clearly.

General guideline: Do not shift from one tense to another if the time frame for each action or state is the same.

Explains is present tense, referring to a current state; asked is past, but should be present ( ask ) because the students are currently continuing to ask questions during the lecture period.

CORRECTED: The instructor explains the diagram to students who ask questions during the lecture.

Darkened and sprang up are past tense verbs; announces is present but should be past ( announced ) to maintain consistency within the time frame.

CORRECTED: About noon the sky darkened , a breeze sprang up , and a low rumble announced the approaching storm.

Walk is present tense but should be past to maintain consistency within the time frame ( yesterday ); rode is past, referring to an action completed before the current time frame.

CORRECTED: Yesterday we walked to school but later rode the bus home.

General guideline: Do shift tense to indicate a change in time frame from one action or state to another.

Love is present tense, referring to a current state (they still love it now;) built is past, referring to an action completed before the current time frame (they are not still building it.)

Began is past tense, referring to an action completed before the current time frame; had reached is past perfect, referring to action from a time frame before that of another past event (the action of reaching was completed before the action of beginning.)

Are installing is present progressive, referring to an ongoing action in the current time frame (the workers are still installing, and have not finished;) will need is future, referring to action expected to begin after the current time frame (the concert will start in the future, and that's when it will need amplification.)

Controlling shifts in a paragraph or essay

General guideline: Establish a primary tense for the main discourse, and use occasional shifts to other tenses to indicate changes in time frame.

• Rely on past tense to narrate events and to refer to an author or an author's ideas as historical entities (biographical information about a historical figure or narration of developments in an author's ideas over time).
• Use present tense to state facts, to refer to perpetual or habitual actions, and to discuss your own ideas or those expressed by an author in a particular work. Also use present tense to describe action in a literary work, movie, or other fictional narrative. Occasionally, for dramatic effect, you may wish to narrate an event in present tense as though it were happening now. If you do, use present tense consistently throughout the narrative, making shifts only where appropriate.
• Future action may be expressed in a variety of ways, including the use of will, shall, is going to, are about to, tomorrow and other adverbs of time, and a wide range of contextual cues.

Using other tenses in conjunction with simple tenses

It is not always easy (or especially helpful) to try to distinguish perfect and/or progressive tenses from simple ones in isolation, for example, the difference between simple past progressive ("She was eating an apple") and present perfect progressive ("She has been eating an apple"). Distinguishing these sentences in isolation is possible, but the differences between them make clear sense only in the context of other sentences since the time-distinctions suggested by different tenses are relative to the time frame implied by the verb tenses in surrounding sentences or clauses.

Example 1: Simple past narration with perfect and progressive elements

On the day in question...

By the time Tom noticed the doorbell, it had already rung three times. As usual, he had been listening to loud music on his stereo. He turned the stereo down and stood up to answer the door. An old man was standing on the steps. The man began to speak slowly, asking for directions.

In this example, the progressive verbs had been listening and was standing suggest action underway at the time some other action took place. The stereo-listening was underway when the doorbell rang. The standing on the steps was underway when the door was opened. The past perfect progressive verb had been listening suggests action that began in the time frame prior to the main narrative time frame and that was still underway as another action began.

If the primary narration is in the present tense, then the present progressive or present perfect progressive is used to indicate action that is or has been underway as some other action begins. This narrative style might be used to describe a scene from a novel, movie, or play, since action in fictional narratives is conventionally treated as always present. For example, we refer to the scene in Hamlet in which the prince first speaks (present) to the ghost of his dead father or the final scene in Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing , which takes place (present) the day after Mookie has smashed (present perfect) the pizzeria window. If the example narrative above were a scene in a play, movie, or novel, it might appear as follows.

Example 2: Simple present narration with perfect and progressive elements

In this scene...

By the time Tom notices the doorbell, it has already rung three times. As usual, he has been listening to loud music on his stereo. He turns the stereo down and stands up to answer the door. An old man is standing on the steps. The man begins to speak slowly, asking for directions.

In this example as in the first one, the progressive verbs has been listening and is standing indicate action underway as some other action takes place. The present perfect progressive verb has been listening suggests action that began in the time frame prior to the main narrative time frame and that is still underway as another action begins. The remaining tense relationships parallel those in the first example.

In all of these cases, the progressive or -ing part of the verb merely indicates ongoing action, that is, action underway as another action occurs. The general comments about tense relationships apply to simple and perfect tenses, regardless of whether there is a progressive element involved.

It is possible to imagine a narrative based on a future time frame as well, for example, the predictions of a psychic or futurist. If the example narrative above were spoken by a psychic, it might appear as follows.

Example 3: Simple future narration with perfect and progressive elements

Sometime in the future...

By the time Tom notices the doorbell, it will have already rung three times. As usual, he will have been listening to loud music on his stereo. He will turn the stereo down and will stand up to answer the door. An old man will be standing on the steps. The man will begin to speak slowly, asking for directions.

In this example as in the first two, the progressive verbs will have been listening and will be standing indicate ongoing action. The future perfect progressive verb will have been listening suggests action that will begin in the time frame prior to the main narrative time frame and that will still be underway when another action begins. The verb notices here is in present-tense form, but the rest of the sentence and the full context of the narrative cue us to understand that it refers to future time. The remaining tense relationships parallel those in the first two examples.

General guidelines for use of perfect tenses

In general the use of perfect tenses is determined by their relationship to the tense of the primary narration. If the primary narration is in simple past, then action initiated before the time frame of the primary narration is described in past perfect. If the primary narration is in simple present, then action initiated before the time frame of the primary narration is described in present perfect. If the primary narration is in simple future, then action initiated before the time frame of the primary narration is described in future perfect.

Past primary narration corresponds to Past Perfect ( had + past participle) for earlier time frames

Present primary narration corresponds to Present Perfect ( has or have + past participle) for earlier time frames

Future primary narration corresponds to Future Perfect ( will have + past participle) for earlier time frames

The present perfect is also used to narrate action that began in real life in the past but is not completed, that is, may continue or may be repeated in the present or future. For example: "I have run in four marathons" (implication: "so far... I may run in others"). This usage is distinct from the simple past, which is used for action that was completed in the past without possible continuation or repetition in the present or future. For example: "Before injuring my leg, I ran in four marathons" (implication: "My injury prevents me from running in any more marathons").

Time-orienting words and phrases like before, after, by the time , and others—when used to relate two or more actions in time—can be good indicators of the need for a perfect-tense verb in a sentence.

• By the time the senator finished (past) his speech, the audience had lost (past perfect) interest.
• By the time the senator finishes (present: habitual action) his speech, the audience has lost (present perfect) interest.
• By the time the senator finishes (present: suggesting future time) his speech, the audience will have lost (future perfect) interest.
• After everyone had finished (past perfect) the main course, we offered (past) our guests dessert.
• After everyone has finished (present perfect) the main course, we offer (present: habitual action) our guests dessert.
• After everyone has finished (present perfect) the main course, we will offer (future: specific one-time action) our guests dessert.
• Long before the sun rose (past), the birds had arrived (past perfect) at the feeder.
• Long before the sun rises (present: habitual action), the birds have arrived (present perfect) at the feeder.
• Long before the sun rises (present: suggesting future time), the birds will have arrived (future perfect) at the feeder.

Sample paragraphs

The main tense in this first sample is past. Tense shifts are inappropriate and are indicated in bold .

(adapted from a narrative)

Inappropriate shifts from past to present, such as those that appear in the above paragraph, are sometimes hard to resist. The writer becomes drawn into the narrative and begins to relive the event as an ongoing experience. The inconsistency should be avoided, however. In the sample, will should be would , and rise should be rose .

The main tense in this second sample is present. Tense shifts—all appropriate—are indicated in bold.

(adapted from an article in the magazine Wilderness )

This writer uses the present tense to describe the appearance of a dragonfly on a particular July morning. However, both past and future tenses are called for when she refers to its previous actions and to its predictable activity in the future.

Click here for exercises on verb tense.

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• Inconsistent Verb Tenses

In formal writing, it is important to keep verb tenses consistent so that readers can follow the progress of ideas and arguments easily. In creative writing, verb tenses may be used inconsistently for effect, but in academic writing, it is important to use verb tenses consistently throughout a paper, carefully signaling any necessary shifts in tense.

Was, felt, and thrived are past tense; trains and seems are present tense. All of the action in the passage above occurred in the past, so all of the verbs there should be in the past tense.

Rule to Remember

Choose the specific tense to be used in the essay, paper, or report and then coordinate all other verbs with it.

Correcting Inconsistent Tenses

Sometimes in academic writing, it is necessary to signal to the reader that one event was completed in the past before another past event occurred. This is where the perfect form of verbs can be used ( have + verb).

The phrase " by the time " signals that the action in the second clause occurred before the action in the first clause. This kind of signal helps the reader follow any shifts in time.

When discussing a specific essay or piece of literature , use the present tense throughout the paper.

To eliminate illogical shifts in tenses, the writer should choose the specific tense to be used in the essay and then coordinate all other verbs with it to reflect future and past events in relation to the chosen tense.

The passage above is full of illogical shifts from the past tense to the present and the future. Since most actions happened in the past, we need to make the verb forms consistent.

Here is the revised version of the passage in which the use of the past tense is consistent:

• Adjective or Adverb
• Commonly Confused Words
• Dangling Modifiers
• Double Negatives
• Misplaced Modifiers
• Parallelism
• Pronoun Agreement
• Relative Clauses
• Split Infinitives
• Subject-verb Agreement
• Use of Numbers
• Punctuation
• Organization

Learn How You Can Maintain Good Tense Control In Your Writing

What is tense control in writing?

It is staying in your selected primary tense and time and then using other tenses to highlight changes in the time frame.

Can you switch tenses in writing?

Yes, of course, you can change tenses and time. But only when you need to indicate a distinct change.

In This Article

Time and tenses in writing

You can write in past, present, or future time in any form of writing.

In each time setting, you have a choice of verb tenses you can use.

For example, if you write in the present, you will mostly use the present simple, present continuous, and perhaps present perfect tense.

Writing in the past uses past simple, past continuous, and the past perfect form.

When writing in the future , you use will, going to, or any other future form.

Switching between past and present tense in writing is always necessary for variety.

But you need to be careful with changes in time to maintain tense control in writing.

Your choice of time and tense depends on what you intend to write.

It will be different for an essay, an article, a story, a research paper, a literary work, or a business proposal.

But you need to keep your tenses consistent.

Tenses for writing projects

Story writing tenses

For short stories and novels, the past is the most common choice.

In fact, the simple past tense is often called the storytelling tense.

You are recounting a series of events in the past through your narration and dialogue .

You indicate changes or switches in the time order of events by using good tense control and selection.

For example, the past perfect says that it is an event older than an event in the past simple.

You can use it for flashbacks to what your characters might have gone through and how they felt at an earlier time.

The past continuous is another option to indicate an action that happened at the time of a past event.

Story writing is usually written in these forms of past tense.

Switching from past to present tense in a story is possible, however.

But it is not an easy feat.

There are possibilities when the narrator moves into the present to talk about facts or generalities.

But generally, you would write most stories in the past in narrative tenses.

One other choice you need to make is your point of view when you write any story.

Essay writing tense

The general rule is to use the present simple tense when writing an essay.

You would only use past tenses if you needed to write a narrative essay, which is quite rare.

In an essay, you are usually expressing facts, your understanding or beliefs, or your opinions.

You can only express these aspects by using present tenses.

The one possibility to change tense in essay writing is when you express a possible future outcome related to your facts or opinions.

Here is a quick example.

In the book, the author says that our waterways are highly polluted and that it now affects our domestic water supply.

I believe this will become a significant problem for our children in the future.

Blog and article writing

When you write an online article or blog post, you are often talking about something that has happened. Blog writing is frequently like news reporting.

You are telling the reader about events that occurred before you sat down to write.

In this case, you would always use past tenses.

However, if you are writing evergreen content like how-to articles or advice posts, you will probably choose to use the present tense.

Anytime that you are giving advice or instructions, you use the present simple or even the imperative.

Think here about a recipe article. You would always write it in the present.

You should always be clear about your tense control in writing before you start and avoid changing tenses unnecessarily in your writing.

One last factor to consider is your choice of point of view when writing blog posts and articles.

Professional and academic writing

You can usually classify this type of writing into three main categories. You are going to write either a plan, a report, or a statement.

For a plan, such as a business plan or a proposal for a new curriculum, you will use future tenses and forms.

If you need to write a sales report or the results of a survey, you should only use the past tense forms.

A statement like a code of ethics, a statement of purpose, or a press release are most often in the present.

For these three writing tasks, when you start writing in a particular tense, you should be consistent unless there is a compelling reason to switch between tenses.

Common mistakes in changing tenses in writing

The most common error in tense control in writing is switching from past to present tense at a sentence level.

One of my favorite examples of mixing tenses in a sentence is this one.

Who said writing is easy?

It is incorrect because the first verb is past, and the second is present.

There are two ways to correct this sentence with the right tense agreement.

Who says writing is easy?

Who said writing was easy?

Both sentences now agree.

Here are a few more examples of incorrect tense agreements and how to keep tenses located in the same time.

I was walking down the stairs, and there he stands , staring at me. Incorrect

I was walking down the stairs, and there he stood , staring at me. Correct

I saw Mary this morning, and she says that she is moving to Canada. Incorrect

I saw Mary this morning, and she said that she was moving to Canada. Correct

After I booked my flight to London, I am finding that all the prices for tickets were falling. Incorrect

After I booked my flight to London, I found that all the prices for tickets were falling. Correct

Tense change in a paragraph

Changing the tense in a paragraph is also an area that can cause problems.

It often happens when you use a pronoun linking back to the previous sentence.

You need to be careful with this and that . This is for present and future references. That is for a past reference.

The police believe the suspect is armed and is suffering from a severe mental disorder. That was why everyone in the district should be on alert. The detective in charge said all precautions were being taken. Incorrect

The police believe the suspect is armed and is suffering from a severe mental disorder. This is why everyone in the district should be on alert. The detective in charge says all precautions are being taken. Correct

With future tenses, mistakes often occur in first and second conditional sentences.

You can only use the future with the present and not with the past.

If I win the lottery, I’d buy a Ferrara. Incorrect

If I win the lottery, I’ll buy a Ferrara. Correct

If I won the lottery, I’ll buy a Ferrari. Incorrect

If I won the lottery, I’d buy a Ferrari. Correct

Use natural tenses

You can write more naturally if you first work out what tenses you would generally use when you speak.

You’ll save a lot of time and spend less time editing and revising.

If you write in perfect tenses that you’re not familiar with, such as present perfect or future perfect, you might find yourself shifting back to a more natural tense.

You need to stay in your comfort zone and your natural variety of English with tenses.

For US writers, past simple is much more common than present perfect. However, for UK writers, the opposite is true.

You should stay within your local voice but still pay attention to any mixed tense mistakes.

Get some help

It’s so easy to mix your tenses. Every writer is guilty of it occasionally.

If you’re not sure, get some help. Find a friend or family member who can read your text and check.

You don’t need to hire an editor, but a fresh pair of eyes always helps.

But don’t rely too much on online grammar checkers.

They are great for finding basic grammar errors, but for tense shifts, they are not as reliable.

You can write in three different times, present, past, and future.

The English tense system has four tenses, or verb forms, for each time.

They are simple, continuous, perfect simple, or perfect continuous.

As long as you use the correct tenses for your time setting, you won’t make a mistake.

When you are writing a story, stick with the past tenses.

For an essay or advice article , stay with present tenses.

If you want to write about a plan, use the future.

It’s that easy to maintain tense control in writing.

Related reading: What Is The Subjunctive Mood And How To Use It?

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7 thoughts on “learn how you can maintain good tense control in your writing”.

Great article! I did notice one potential error in your favourite sentence though… maybe you’ll like it even better with this alternative interpretation ;)

I would argue the primary issue with this sentence is not that it’s changing tense in the middle, but that it’s lost its quotation marks.

I’ve noticed this sometimes happens with well-known rhetorical questions.

Put them back, and there’s no problem:

Who said “writing is easy”?

Now the sentence is no more incorrect than any other dialogue. The narration is in the past, but the speaker is using the present tense. As you pointed out, you can always have narration and dialogue differ.

Laura said “writing is easy.” Laura said “I like peas”. Jill will respond, as she always does “But you used to hate peas, and writing has not always come naturally”.

It’s an example phrase, so I didn’t think it needed to be written in strict dialogue. But yes, it could also be written in different ways. “Who said writing is easy?”, I asked. “Who said writing is easy?”, I wondered. But thanks for your interest and interaction.

Hi Lisa, I have been reading (and rereading) your articles on writing. I have found them to be very interesting and very inspiring. I am enquiring if I can download all your articles into a Word document, so I can read the offline. I know I could this without your knowledge but I find it polite to ask permission to do so.

That’s fine with us, Paul. Glad to hear that our writing articles are useful for you.

I’m from Philippines, greetings from filipinos! Such a good starter pack about writing. It’s very useful, keep it up! :)

Hi Lisa, great article, as all that you write. Keep on doing the good work. And keep on smiling, too.

Hi Lisa- Thanks for the heads-up to writers about the need that “other set of eyes”, professional eyes of an editor. It seems we have a bad rep from some writers, but all we really want to do is help; help the writer with clarity and simple corrections. All this so that the reader is not confused or distracted.

Comments are closed.

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Writing exercises: 10 fun tense workouts

‘What exercises can I do to improve my writing craft?’ Writing often and reading a lot are common answers given to this question. Writing exercises targeting specific aspects of craft help too. Dip into these fun, practical writing workouts on using tenses correctly:

• Post author By Jordan
• No Comments on Writing exercises: 10 fun tense workouts

General tips on tense use:

Knowing how to use verb tenses is key to telling a great story. Switching between tenses should be intentional, without confusing the reader.

‘I went to the store this morning. I am buying milk when I realised I will not have had bread’ is confusing. Why? because we can’t easily pinpoint when which event happens.

Ursula K. Le Guin puts this humorously in her must-read writing manual Steering the Craft :

I could almost state this as a rule, but I won’t, because good and careful writers will blow all Rules of Writing into bits. So I state it as a High Probability. It is highly probable that if you keep changing the tense of your narrative, if you go back and forth between past and present tense frequently and without some kind of signal (a line break, a dingbat,* a new chapter)—your reader will get all mixed up and will not know what happened before what and what’s happening after what and when we are, or were, at the moment. Ursula K. Le Guin in ‘6: verbs: person and tense’ in Steering the Craft : A 21st century guide to sailing the sea of story (1998), p.

10 exercises for practicing tense:

• Switch between tenses with intent
• Mix present actions with memories
• Change verbs and persons of verbs
• Use future perfect tense
• String together present participles
• Recognize tense inconsistency
• Master subjunctive mood
• Play with the infinitive
• Use present perfect continuous tense
• Change irregular verbs

These grammatical tense terms might seem confusing, but read on for explanations and exercises to help you understand them on a craft level:

1. Switch between tenses with intent

Write a 500-word flash fiction in which a character describes events leading up to a surprising encounter at the grocery store.

Use past perfect tense for prior events, and switch to present when they renact the encounter itself. (Example of a switching point: ‘…so I had gone to the wine aisle. Picture this: [words signalling switching tense] I’m standing there when…’)

2. Mix present actions with memories

Often there are two simultaneously narrated time-periods in a scene. Something a character is doing now, and past events they’re remembering. Le Guin calls this exercise ‘The Old Woman’. Her instructions:

The subject is this: An old woman is busy doing something—washing the dishes, or gardening, or editing a PhD dissertation in mathematics, whatever you like—as she thinks about an event that happened in her youth. You’re going to intercut between the two times. “Now” is where she is and what she’s doing; “then” is her memory of something that happened when she was young. Your narration will move back and forth between “now” and “then.” Le Guin, Steering the Craft , pp. 50-51.

Try even more writing exercises for creating characters for extra practice.

3. Change verbs and persons of verbs

Singular persons (‘I’, ‘you’, ‘she/he/it’) and plural persons (‘we’, ‘they’, ‘you’ plural) take different verbs.

For example we say ‘I go’ for present first person, but ‘she goes’ (not ‘she go’, unless perhaps writing a local dialect of English where non-standard grammar gives regional quality).

Rewrite this altered passage by Barbara Kingsolver in second-person, present tense (‘A first child is your own best foot forward…’):

A first child was their own best foot forward, and how they did cheer those little feet as they struck out. They examined every turn of flesh for precocity, and crowed it to the world. But the last one: the baby who trailed her scent like a flag of surrender through their life when there would be no more coming after–oh, that was love by a different name. Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible , edited.

[ See the answer, the original quote, here – try not to cheat!]

4. Use future perfect tense

Some tenses, such as future perfect (‘I will have lived…’) we see and use less frequently than the simple ones.

For this writing exercise, describe a working class character’s grand future plans for when they achieve a major career goal (e.g. becoming vice president). Start with a pre-condition connected to setting (e.g. ‘I will have lived in the capital for 5 years’).

Use future perfect tense to describe at least 3 future conditions that will have been met (e.g. ‘I will have risen through the ranks to become the preferred candidate.’)

Find more future perfect tense examples here .

5. String together present participles

Present participles are ‘-ing’ verbs we use to describe unfolding actions.

For example, the bolded words in the following examples:

• Talking loudly to ensure the other elevator passengers could hear, she described the previous night’s passion to her colleague
• Running and laughing , the valedictorians threw their caps into the air

Chaining together multiple participles is a useful way to create a tumultuous sense of action .

For the fifth of these writing exercises, describe a stampede for the last remaining item (of your choice) at a big chain store on Black Friday.

Use at least 7 present participles to describe various shoppers’ behaviour.

6. Recognize tense inconsistency

Recognising when tenses have shifted incorrectly is key to being in control of when tenses change.

For this writing exercise, copy-paste this altered passage into your word processor and highlight the verbs that should change for correct tense:

So I know I am right not to settle, but it didn’t make me feel better as my friends pair off and I stay home on Friday night with a bottle of wine and made myself an extravagant meal and tell myself, This was perfect, as if I’m the one dating me. As I will go to endless rounds of parties and bar nights, perfumed and sprayed and hopeful, rotated myself around the room like some dubious dessert. Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl , edited.

Rewrite in present continuous tense ( compare to the original quote when you’re done). Bonus round: Rewrite the entire passage in simple past tense.

Note: Which verbs have to change, and which can stay the same?

7. Master subjunctive mood

‘Subjunctive mood’ is another more unusual grammar construction.

What exactly is ‘mood’ in grammar?

In grammar, mood refers to a verb form that shows the writer’s attitude toward the content of his or her words. Margaret Stone, via study.com.

Subjunctive mood is a verb form we use to express a wish, command (AKA an imperative), hypothetical, or suggestion. For example:

• Timmy said, “If only I were a T-Rex!” (a wish)
• “It’s crucial that you pay attention, Timmy” (a command)
• If I were you, Timmy, I would be careful (a hypothetical)
• “Timmy, I suggest that you focus . You do not have tiny arms,” said his teacher (suggestion)

For this writing exercise, write a scene between a student and their teacher. Use at least one wish (‘If only I/you were…’), one command (‘It’s good/bad that you [present-tense verb]…’), one hypothetical and one suggestion.

8. Play with the infinitive

To be, or not to be, that is the question. Or, rather, ‘to get better at writing tense, or to bewilder your reader?’ Ideally, with practice, we’ll do the former!

The infinitive form of the verb is useful for expressing general, broad activity. For example:

• She loved to bake , even if her crusts were always inches thick and had a curiously charcoal hue
• To sing, to really belt it out, particularly when the neighbours were sleeping at 3 am, that was his passion.
• She wanted to dance but the dance floor was full of short jocks doing the raver fist pump… it seemed a good way to get a black eye

For this writing exercise on tense, write a paragraph describing a character’s personality using at least 5 infinitives. Pick one of the scenarios below. Choose between a:

• Lawyer who can’t help falling asleep in court
• Shop owner who loves to chase people who make them anxious from their store
• Restaurateur who loves to argue with customers

For example, you might begin ‘To stay awake was prudent, yet the judge’s gavel was his own private alarm clock.’

9. Use present perfect continuous tense

Present perfect continuous tense (also called present perfect progressive) is used when we describe actions that began in the past and continue in the present moment.

The positive takes the form has/have + ‘been’ + present participle. The negative uses ‘not’ (‘he has not been…’). Examples:

• He has been sleeping in court since the trial began
• He has been eyeing a stick he keeps under the shop counter when a regular customer he finds obnoxious approaches
• She has not been arguing with the couple on their anniversary date about our tinned ravioli for the past forty minutes… at least I sure hope not

For this writing exercise, take the character you created in the previous section. Now describe a tense argument with someone who has accused them of bad conduct. (Remember to change the verb for second person if using dialogue. ‘He has been…’ becomes “You have been…”).

10. Change irregular verbs

Most verbs follow a specific pattern for changing forms.

For example, the past tense forms of verbs that simply take some variant of ‘-d’, ‘-ed’ or ‘-ted’:

• Bake – baked
• Steep – steeped
• Strut – strutted

Irregular verbs are those that do not follow the pattern. For example:

• go – went
• be – was/were
• grow – grew

For the last of these tense writing exercises, create a five-year-old’s written voice. Deliberately use incorrect verb conjugations to create a sense of non-mastery of language.

Begin with a phrase using an incorrect application of ‘the rule’ (e.g. that ‘bake’ becomes ‘baked’ in simple past tense) and have at least 5 more instances.

For example: ‘Deer Journal. Mom says I’ve growed so much…’

Need more writing prompts? Here are 50 categorized writing prompts to start.

Get more writing exercises in the form of easy, step-by-step prompts to develop your story .

Related Posts:

• Writing tense dialogue: 5 ways to add arresting tension
• 50 fun group writing exercises
• 6 creative writing exercises for rich character
• Tags creative writing exercises

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5.6 Editing Focus: Verb Tense Consistency

Learning outcomes.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Apply various editing strategies to a draft in progress.
• Implement consistent use of verbs in a draft in progress.

When you edit, you make changes at the sentence level: phrasing, grammar, mechanics, and wording. Read your paper aloud to check for needed editing. Alternately, you could have your device read the paper to you if it has that feature. As you read or listen, if you notice that something does not sound quite right, your draft probably needs editing at that point. Additionally, if your electronic draft shows blue underlining, check whether you should accept the changes suggested by your software. Once you have thoroughly reviewed each sentence in your draft, read aloud or listen to the entire piece again to see how it flows, making any additional needed changes as you go along.

English Varieties and Verbs

This section focuses on English verb tense consistency when editing. Every English speaker converses in one or more forms of the language. In the past, people have referred to these forms as dialects . Today, linguists more commonly call them English varieties . Every English variety uses verbs, as do most languages. Verbs are the words that express the action in a sentence. Their most distinguishing feature is that they change according to tense—that is, they take on different forms to express action that happened in the past, happens in the present, or will happen in the future.

As you edit your profile, you will need to match the English variety you use to the expectations of your audience. If your instructor is your only reader, you will probably need to use an English variety appropriate for an academic setting. If the instructor has asked you to write a profile to appeal to another audience, think about how the English variety you choose might connect better with that audience.

In every English variety, the form of the verb changes to indicate whether something is happening currently or has happened already. These changes that indicate time differences are called verb tenses . If an action or description occurs now or occurs regularly, in the present time, writers use the present tense . Conversely, if the action occurred in the past and no longer occurs, writers use the past tense .

• Present tense: She walks to class.
• Past tense: She walked to class yesterday.

In simple sentences such as these, choosing a verb tense is fairly straightforward. The author decides when to place the event in time and chooses the corresponding verb form. Although people easily use different verb tenses every day, getting them right in writing can be tricky at times. Writers may accidentally change from past to present tense within a text—or even within the same sentence—for no particular reason. Consider these examples:

• Sentence 1: I lost a glove on my walk, but I underline find end underline it later.
• Sentence 2: I lost a glove on my walk, but I underline found end underline it later.

In Sentence 1, the verb lost places the action in the past; the present-tense verb find is not consistent with that pattern. The revision in Sentence 2 places all of the action in the same time frame: the past. Because changing the tense for no reason can confuse the audience, be sure to use the same verb tense throughout, whether events happen in the past or they happen in the present.

However, you do need to change tenses to indicate a difference in time, and such differences occur often. This situation is why choosing verb tenses in writing can sometimes pose challenges for writers. If you are using the present tense in writing but you want to tell about something that happened in the past, you need to change tenses to make that time difference clear. Look at these sentences:

• Sentence 1: The artist uses bright colors in her paintings. She says that when she is a child, these colors attract her.
• Sentence 2: The artist uses bright colors in her paintings. She says that when she was a child, these colors attracted her.

The writer is discussing the artist in the present tense, and the artist is speaking in the present tense. However, she is telling about her childhood, which took place in the past. Therefore, she and the writer use both past and present tense to make the time distinction clear. To put all events in the present tense would not make sense in such cases. Look at the verb tense consistency revisions Houston Byrd made to his essay in Focusing on the Angle of Your Subject . When he tells about his trip to the store, describes it, and refers to his interview with the owner, he generally uses—or has revised to use—the past tense, whereas most of the essay is written in the present tense.

Proofreading

Another type of editing is proofreading. When you proofread, you check for small details, such as typing mistakes, that need fixing. If your instructor has asked you to follow a given style guide, such as MLA or APA, make sure your draft is formatted according to those guidelines. If any words are underlined in red on your electronic document (indicating a misspelling), address those issues as you complete your draft. Lastly, read each sentence individually, starting at the bottom of the draft, to make sure your spelling and punctuation meet the requirements for the genre and audience.

You may feel that you are not yet a strong enough writer to edit or proofread on your own. If so, take advantage of your instructor’s office hours or your college’s writing center for support in developing your work.

Practice with Verb Tense Consistency

Depending on your writing context, you may be asked to write mainly in either the past or the present tense. For example, MLA style asks writers to refer to textual materials in the present tense, even though they have already been written.

With a peer partner, practice choosing the most effective verb forms in the following sentences. Complete the exercise twice—once for a text written mainly in the present tense, and once again for a text written mainly in past tense. Because events happen at different times, you may have a combination of tenses.

• Carla D. Hayden (writes, wrote) ________ about John Lewis’s courageous stance against injustice when he (led, leads) the Selma protests.
• People throughout the country (admire, admired) ________ John Lewis and (mourn, mourned) ________ his death.
• In 1995, Hayden (receives, received) ________ the Librarian of the Year Award, and in 2016, she (is, was) ________ listed by Fortune magazine as one of the world’s 50 greatest leaders.

To check your draft for verb tense issues, read your profile aloud to a peer partner. If you notice that some verbs are in the past tense and some are in the present, make them all one consistent tense throughout the text— unless they indicate a change in time, which they often do. Making your verb tenses consistent will help clarify your ideas for readers.

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Part Three Editing / Grammar Skills

Unit 14 Expressing Meaning in Mixed Tenses

Learning Objectives

• To learn the verb tense shift strategies
• To identify the correlation between time expressions and verb tenses through multiple examples
• To understand and practice tense shifts in a variety of writing situations

The following ten sentences are about Amy’s interests and study. Some verbs are bold-faced. If the bold-faced part in the sentence is correct, choose “correct”.  If not, choose the other answer. After you finish one sentence, you will get instant feedback on your answer before the next sentence. If you make mistakes, you can retry all the questions or see all the answers at the end of the pre-test.

II. Strategies in Correctly Switching Verb Tenses

This unit culminates [1] Unit 9 through 13 and serves as a review of what you have learned about verbs.

It is very common to rely on more than one or two tenses in expressing your ideas effectively and in helping your readers understand you clearly. In fact, an integration of present, past, and/or future tenses is often necessary in many forms of writing. Therefore, it is important not only to understand each individual tense well but also to switch between tenses within the same piece of writing. Here are some strategies:

1. Understand the individual tenses.

Study each verb tense and know the differences between different tenses.  Review Unit 9 through 13 whenever needed.

2. Match verb tense changes with time expressions .

The verb tense and the time expressions go hand in hand. For example, when you switch  from present to past or from future back to present in the middle of your paragraph or essay, you need to switch your time words.   Mark your verbs and time words for self check. For instance, you may underline the verbs and highlight the time expressions, as shown in Exercise 1 below.

3. Match verb forms with verb tenses .

Once you decide on the correct verb tense, think what verb form corresponds [2] to this particular tense. Remember that verb tenses and verb forms also have to match each other.

4. Pay attention to the context .

Sometimes, a time word is omitted to make the flow of ideas more natural. When this occurs, there should be clear in-context clues [3] to help the readers follow your thoughts.

5. Imagine that you are the reader .

Think about what you want your readers to understand.  Look at your writing from a reader’s perspective. Read your writing out loud and listen to yourself. Do you understand the sequence of actions or the flow of logic clearly?

6. Proofread .

Always proofread before submitting your writing. You will be surprised how many errors you are able to catch and fix.

Exercise 1. Discuss how many times the verb tense is changed in the following sentences. Then discuss how the verb tenses (underlined) and time words and related expressions (boldfaced) work together to create clear meaning.

• My brother liked history in high school . However, he fell  in love with science when he started college . Now he is enjoying physics, chemistry, and ecology courses in addition to a world history class.
• My friend Lucy was a history major in college and has been teaching world history in a local high school for the last four years . She always says that the mankind’s best teacher is its own past. I agree , but l like to look ahead and imagine what the future will be like .
• By the time the Internet was invented , students had learned history through books and movies. Since the Internet started , YouTube videos have become one of the popular means of learning.

III. Time Words in Switching Tenses

Seasons : Clothes = Time Words: Verb Tenses 

The above analogy [4] will help you understand the relationship between verb tenses and time words. The seasons decide what clothes you wear: In summer, you wear a T-shirt, while a coat is needed in winter. In the same way, time words determine the verb tenses: yesterday for past tenses and tomorrow for future tenses.

Of course, you may prefer out-of-season clothes. In writing, there are also exceptions to the above principle, but they are rare.

Below is a compilation [5] of times words and tenses. The chart is just for general reference. When you write, focus on your context as well as the following time expressions.

Exerciser 2. Use the sentences in Exercise 1 as examples.  Underline the main verbs and highlight related time expressions in the following paragraph about the American dream. Then discuss how the verb tenses and time words work together to express clear meaning.

The American Dream

          For many generations, the American dream has promised an equal society and material prosperity. For millions of Americans in the 1950s, the American Dream meant the chance to have a house of their own, a car, a dog, and two kids. The Big Three – Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler – began producing more cars. The construction of thousands of miles of high-speed roads started. At the same time, many families decided to have more children after the Second World War, and the country enjoyed a postwar [6] baby boom [7] . Meanwhile, thousands of people began to move to the suburbs. With the ability to own a home, many Americans soon enjoyed better living conditions than their parents. Shopping centers and fast food restaurants made the suburban life easier. The American dream had gained [8] a new meaning by then. Today, suburbs are still attracting people for better schools, fewer crimes, and wider space.

Adapted from “Suburban Growth”

http://www.oercommons.org/courses/american-history-from-pre-columbian-to-the-new-millennium-ushistory-org/view . Last accessed on September 22, 2021.

IV. Unit Review Practice

Exercise 3. Read the following paragraph about American activism. Based on the underlined time expressions, fill in the blanks with the correct verb tenses. The first one is an example.  When you complete the entire exercise, you can click “Check” for feedback. You may retry or see all the answers.

Adapted from “ Activism in the US ”. https://www.oercommons.org/courses/activism-in-the-us/view . Last accessed on September 22, 2021.

Exercise 4. The following paragraph is about a famous case “Brown v. Board of Education” in the American history. Based on the underlined time expressions, fill in the blanks with the correct verb tenses. The first one is an example.  When you complete the entire exercise, you can click “Check” for feedback. You may retry or see all the answers.

Adapted from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_v._Board_of_Education , last accessed on September 25, 2021.

Exercise 5. Read the following paragraph about Clarence Earl Gideon. There are ten more errors in the use of verb tenses (not including the example). Find the errors and correct them. Use the time words and context as your guide. The first one is an example.

Clarence Earl Gideon

          Clarence Earl Gideon was born in a city in Missouri in 1910. He ha s (had) a very hard childhood and ran away from home at age fourteen. He committed robbery, burglary [9] , and other crimes. As a result, he was arrested multiple times. On June 3, 1961, he break into a pool hall in Panama City, Florida. After he was arrested, he has no money to hire a lawyer to represent [10] him in the court. Clarence had to act as his own lawyer. He does not have an education, nor does he have any legal training. Naturally, he lose the case and was sentenced to five years in prison. However, Clarence believed that the court not give him a fair trial. He did not give up. He appealed [11] to the Florida Supreme Court, but the court decision remained the same. He then asked the help of the U.S. Supreme Court [12] . The Court appointed a lawyer to represent him. With the help of the lawyer, Clarence had received a new trial, and he was finally set free. Clarence Earl Gideon died of cancer in Florida in 1972.

          Clarence did not just help himself. He helped many others. Before his case, the court send many people to Florida jails because they could not afford a lawyer. After his case, those people had new trials, and some of them have been able to go home. Since then, the U.S. courts allow poor people to have legal representation without spending too much money. Now it is the law that every defendant [13] has a right to a lawyer.

Adapted from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarence_Earl_Gideon. Last accessed on September 26, 2021.

Exercise 6. Choose one of the following topics to write one or more paragraphs. Use appropriate time words and verb tenses.

• Write about a social justice issue in your native country or in the U.S.
• Write about an important event in the history of your native country and its causes.
• Write about an important event in the world history and its effects.
• Write about a worsening environmental issue, the reasons for it, and its possible solutions.
• Write about a period of your life, for example, your teenage years.

  NSNT Practice

Go to The NSNT Free Writing Approach and Additional Weekly Prompts for Writing in Appendix A. ( Open Appendix A here. ) Choose two topics that you have not written about. You may start with the NSNT approach. Then revise and edit your paragraphs. Pay attention to the use of verbs and time words. You are encouraged to share your writing with your partner and help each other improve.

Vocabulary Review

The words here have appeared in this unit.  The best way to learn them is to guess the meaning of each word from the context.  Then hover your computer mouse over the number beside each word to check its meaning and part of speech. These words are also listed in the footnote area at the end of each unit.

Here, you can use the flashcards below to review these words.

• Use appropriate time words and related expressions to signal the verb tense shift.
• The verb tense, verb form, and time words must match each other.
• Remember Seasons : Clothes = Time Words: Verb Tenses 
• Always proofread before submitting your writing.

Media Attributions

• history books is licensed under a Public Domain license
• houses in the suburbs © Photo by David McBee from Pexels
• Martin Luther King Jr. and other people © Photo by Unseen Histories on Unsplash
• a yellow school bus on the road © Photo by Maximilian Simson on Unsplash
• a pen and a notebook with the word “lawyer” © Photo by RODNAE Productions from Pexels
• a pen writing in a notebook © Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash
• a page in a dictionary © Pixabay
• culminate: verb, reach the final or highest point ↵
• correspond: verb, match, fit ↵
• clue: noun, a hint or an idea to help others understand ↵
• analogy: noun, a comparison based on similarities ↵
• compilation: noun, collection, gathering ↵
• postwar: adjective, after the war ↵
• baby boom: noun phrase, a time when many babies are born ↵
• gain: verb, get, obtain ↵
• burglary: noun, a crime of breaking into other people's house to steal things ↵
• represent: verb, to speak for a person and defend that person in the court ↵
• appeal: verb, formally ask a higher court to review the case ↵
• the U.S. Supreme Court: noun phrase, the highest court in the United States ↵
• defendant: noun, a person who is charged with a crime and who appears in a court ↵

Building Academic Writing Skills Copyright © 2022 by Cui, Lin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

CREEES Professional Resources Forum

Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies at The University of Texas at Austin

Grad Program: MA in Creative Writing in Russian (Moscow)

Application opens February 2019

For fiction/non-fiction writers in Russian.

MA “Creative Writing”  is:

• Practical and theoretical/historical courses, such as  Creative Writing Workshop ,  Storytelling in Different Media ,  Literary Editing , Poetics of Novel and Screenwriting ;
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• Flexible timetable  enabling students to work while studying.

Our graduates already work in the best publishing houses, universities and schools in Moscow. Their writing is published in the authoritative literary magazines. Their projects (such as prize  “_Litblog”  for the best literary blogger and first Creative Writing Internet resource in Russian  “Mnogobukv” and collections of prose) have gained much attention.

Language of instruction: Russian

You can apply to non-paid place as a foreign student in February. Looking forward to seeing you at Higher School of Economics!

More information about the programme:  https://www.hse.ru/en/ma/litmaster

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