Do you struggle to keep to the correct tense when you’re writing? Read more to find out why it’s important and how to identify each.
When you’re writing fiction, you have a variety of options available to you when deciding on the tense, namely present, past, past perfect and habitual past. It doesn’t matter which you pick but it does matter that you’re consistent within each sentence.
If you jump between tenses, you’ll leave your readers feeling confused, and you’ll disrupt the natural flow of your narrative.
Here’s a look at the different tenses and how to keep to the same one.
Choose what’s right for you
When you begin writing, one of the most important decisions you’ll make is the tense for that particular piece of work. The best thing to do is to choose the tense that feels the most natural to you.
It’s possible to alter the content to a target audience by changing the vocabulary and the tone, but if you’re in the wrong tense it will just sound stiff and awkward.
If you pick a tense that you think you “should” be writing in rather than the one that’s intuitive, you’ll inevitably end up drifting out of it. It’s far better to just stick to the tense that works the best for your style from the start.
For most people, the best tense will be the past tense; very few writers find the present tense natural for writing fiction. The other option is the future tense, but that’s almost impossible for fiction.
The choice has to be yours and if you pick a tense that you’re comfortable with, your final work will shine.
Three different forms of past tense
The present tense is fairly easy to recognise and usually it’s quite straightforward to identify. There can still be occasions when the present tense gets jumbled however, particularly when it comes to dialogue. If the character is talking in the past tense, the verbs outside the dialogue should still be present tense.
Past tense is more complex however, so here’s a quick run-through of three different options:
Simple past
The simple past never uses an auxiliary verb, just the past tense on its own. For example, “the cat sat on the mat.”
Past perfect
The past perfect tense is used to refer to an event which occurred in the past, was completed and then a second event also occurred in the past. An example of this would be, “she had forgotten the shopping until her mum reminded her.”
Habitual past
Habitual past refers to something that has taken place in the past on multiple or repeated occasions. “Used to” is commonly included in these types of sentences. For example, “she used to play outside every day.”
The richness of the English language
Different tenses convey different information so getting it right is important. There are times when you can jump between different tenses, even within the same paragraph and this helps to add depth to your writing. However, other than dialogue, you’ll almost never be changing tenses in a single sentence so it’s essential to be able to recognise each tense and understand how to use them appropriately.