Tenses

Yes that’s right, tenses. Most people do know what they are and what they are for, but it is amazing how easy it is to slip from one to another without realising, or even juggle between two in the same paragraph. Trust me I used to do this and as an editor, I catch others doing it too.

The most common is between simple past and past perfect tense, or using the past participle –  the difference between ‘was’ or ‘had been’.

People struggle to know how and when to move from ‘was’ to ‘had been’, or sometimes juggle between the two, not realising that they might be making a mistake. It occurs most often when writing flashbacks or referring to an event that happened a long time ago.

Sometimes, through scene breaks and chapter breaks, you can move into Present tense to write flashbacks, but in this post I am going to focus on the use of past tense when writing them. 

The point of view of third person is written in simple past tense, so it can be difficult to define between what is happening now and what is happening then. 

Mandy walked into the shop.

Mandy had walked into the shop. 

The first sentence can be part of a present setting as we watch the character going into a shop, and it is written using the ‘-ed’ of simple past tense. But when we want to talk about her reflecting back on when she went into the shop we then have to use the past tense of have – ‘had’ – and the past participle of walk – ‘walked’ - making it the past perfect tense.

Also in first person point of view this can occur: 

I went into the shop.

I had gone into the shop. 

(Past tense forms of the verb ‘to go’ are irregular)

So let’s look at some text where the tense changes half way through a paragraph: 

John thought back to the things they got up to as kids. He remembered the corner shop they used to go to after school, and Dave trying to nick some sweets. John could still see the nervous expression on his face. Dave grabbed a couple of bars and stuffed them under his jumper. The shopkeeper saw him and shouted. Dave ran out of the shop. 

That was hard to write because I had to resist the urge to correct it. Can you spot the change over? 

John thought back to the things they got up to as kids. He remembered the corner shop they used to go to after school, and Dave trying to nick some sweets. John could still see the nervous expression on his face. Dave grabbed a couple of bars and stuffed them under his jumper. The shopkeeper saw him and shouted. Dave ran out of the shop. 

The red represents the present tense written in third person and is correct. The blue also represents the present tense, but it is incorrect. It should have changed to past perfect tense, i.e. adding ‘had’ – like this: 

John thought back to the things they got up to as kids. He remembered the corner shop they used to go to after school, and Dave trying to nick some sweets. John could still see the nervous look on his face. Dave had grabbed a couple of bars and stuffed them under his jumper. The shopkeeper had seen him and shouted. Dave had run out of the shop. 

It’s subtle, but it matters. 

An alternative would have been to break the paragraph when describing what Dave had done in the shop, making the move to present tense less jolting, and in doing that the scene could have been set in more detail, maybe describing the place or weather etc. But in this brief reminiscing scene it means slipping from one to the other and needs correcting.

It is difficult to notice doing this and can mean having to rewrite a whole section or finding a new way to lead into a scene to write it correctly. 


Have you experienced difficulty changing tenses? Let me know in the comments. 

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