Tense is a subtle little narrative choice that is easy to forget about when you start writing. Then you go back, reread your first draft, and discover that an inconsistent tense is tripping you up and giving you a lot of finicky editing to do.

Tense is another aspect of your writing voice that you should settle on before you start writing, at least so you can avoid an editing headache later. But tense isn’t just a grammar technicality – it also influences your narrative tone and the reader’s experience of your story.

My previous posts in this series on crafting your unique narrative voice covered the topics of perspective and tone. In this, the third post of the series, I’ll cover both the stylistic effects of tense and its technical rules so that you’re better equipped to both pick and maintain the tense that works best for your story.

The Style of Tense

Tense is the tool we use to establish when something has happened. If you want to describe the story’s action as though it’s happening right now, you’ll use present tense. If you want to describe the story’s action as thought it happened in the past, you’ll use past tense.

Here are some examples of sentences first in present tense and then in past tense:

• I run as fast as I can into the forest. // I ran as fast as I could into the forest.
• Alexi opens the book and takes in the warm musty smell of old pages. // Alexi opened the book and took in the warm musty smell of old pages.
• I refuse to believe it. This can’t possibly be happening. // I refused to believe it. This couldn’t possibly be happening.

To keep your narrative clear, you should use one tense consistently throughout your story. Of course, that grammatical consistency is a bit more complicated than just “only use past or present,” but we’ll get to that in a moment. Let’s first look at the stylistic effects of both past and present tense on the reader’s experience of your story.

Tense in English Literature

In simplest terms, present tense sounds close and immediate; past tense sounds far and removed. Now, the full picture is a bit more complicated than that. For centuries, the default in English storytelling has been past tense. That means, for English readers, past tense can feel like the most natural tense for storytelling. It also means that we’re quite experienced at translating past-tense narratives into immediate, current action in our mind’s eye.

That’s why past tense can still feel immediate. That’s also why present tense can feel not just immediate but incredibly close, maybe even a bit claustrophobic. This may be a more accurate (though less intuitive) way to describe how English readers experience tense: past tense feels immediate, and present tense feels even more immediate.

Another thing to consider is that, because past tense is the traditional tense in English storytelling, it also sounds a touch more formal. Present tense, on the other hand, can sound more conversational and casual.

Which Tense to Use

So, which tense should you use? It depends on your story and the specific tone and mood that you’re going for. You can use past tense as a tool to make events feel moderately immediate. You can also use past tense to contribute to an older or more formal‑sounding tone. That’s why past tense often suits high fantasy and historical dramas very well.

On the other hand, you can use present tense to make events feel incredibly immediate. You can also use present tense to contribute to a more conversational tone. That’s why present tense often works well in urban fantasy and young adult fiction.

Of course, tense works in concert with all the other narrative devices that you pull in. That’s why it’s still possible to write a present-tense narrative that sounds formal and a past-tense narrative that sounds casual. But these are the stylistic aspects of tense you can play with and build upon as you craft your story’s specific and unique tone.

Managing Flashbacks in Past Tense Narratives

Now, as I mentioned previously, tense is a lot more complicated than simple past and present. As a fiction author, your biggest challenge with tense will likely be managing flashbacks, especially in past tense narratives.

Take a look at this paragraph as an example:

As Samantha washed the dishes, her mind wandered to the day that Derek proposed. He even got down on one knee. He always wanted to do things the proper way, which is why they never would have worked together in the long run. It was a downcast rainy day. Then Jennifer, drenched in water, burst through the front door and startled Samantha out of her revere.

Don’t worry, it’s not just you. That passage is intentionally confusing. What’s happening grammatically is that the passage uses simple past tense to describe both current action and past events. That unchanging tense makes it unclear when the flashback starts and stops. Does the “downcast rainy day” describe today—the day Samantha is washing dishes—or the day that Derek proposed? That’s the kind of question you don’t want to leave your reader asking.

This is where having a conscious understanding of the grammar at play can really help. The way grammar is currently taught in elementary and high school – where the focus is on mindlessly memorizing seemingly arbitrary rules about what you “can” and “cannot” say – makes grammar seem so pedantic and rigid and irritating. At the end of the day, our understanding of grammar and syntax is still limited to a bunch of different theories. And the “rules” are not meant to be pedantic limitations – they are meant to be tools that help us communicate clearly and effectively.

So the question we’re really asking here is not, how do I get the grammar of flashbacks right? The question is, how do I write clear flashbacks that don’t confuse the reader? That’s where the grammar of tense (and aspect) can help.

The Grammar of Flashbacks

To signal to the reader that you actually are talking about a past event in past tense narratives, you need to use something called completed aspect. You create completed aspect by putting the word had in front of the main verb. That had communicates to the reader that an event is completed rather than ongoing. “She woke up early” becomes “She had woken up early.”

(By the way, traditional grammar theories refer to completed aspect as “past perfect,” but that term is less intuitive, so I’ll stick with completed aspect.)

Here are a couple more examples of simple past tense converted into past tense completed aspect:

Simple Past Tense	Past Tense Completed Aspect
She wrote a story.	She had written a story.
I ran as fast as I could into the forest.	I had run as fast as I could into the forest.
Alexi opened the book and took in the warm musty smell of old pages.	Alexi had opened the book and taken in the warm musty smell of old pages.

Completed Aspect in Action

To show you what completed aspect looks like in action, here’s an example from the first chapter of Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon. I’ve bolded all the instances of completed aspect so they’re extra easy to spot.

This one was far more careful than the others. When Heath gave way to one of his coughing fits, the intruder cracked open the door to the Great Bedchamber. With the other hand, he unsheathed a blade. The same make of blade the others had used.

[. . .]

She had long known that someone in the household was letting cutthroats into the palace. Now that someone had given them a key to reach the Queen of Inys while she slept.

Ead meant to find out who.

As you can see, this passage transitions smoothly and clearly between past events and present events by using completed aspect for events that happen in the past.

Completed aspect works wonderfully when the description of the past event is relatively short. But adding a had to every verb gets really clunky in long flashbacks that span multiple paragraphs. That’s where a second flashback solution comes in.

Creating Flashbacks with Scene Breaks

In the case of a long flashback, it’s better to use transition sentences and a scene break to indicate when the flashback starts and ends. That way, you can use simple past tense in the flashback while keeping the distinction between past events and current events clear.

Here’s an example of what that looks like:

As Samantha washed the dishes, her mind wandered to the day that Derek had proposed.

###

Samantha rushed out of the cab and through the restaurant door. She was late for one of her dates with Derek again. When she finally sat down at the table, Derek looked genuinely relieved to see her. A nervous smile played at his lips, and he kept absent-mindedly patting his pocket. She’d never seen him this frazzled before. Was something wrong? [Scene continues and finishes.]

###

Samantha stared absent-mindedly out the rainy window, her eyes only seeing how Derek had looked kneeling down on one knee. Then Jennifer, drenched in water, burst through the front door and startled Samantha out of her revere.

I only needed change two things to make this flashback clearer. First, I made sure there were clear transition sentences into and out of the flashback. These transition sentences will use completed aspect if they talk about the past events directly. Second, I added scene breaks between the transition sentences and the flashback itself. Both the transition sentences and the scene breaks make the flashback entirely clear, allowing you to go back to using simple past tense in the flashback itself.

You should now have all the tools you need to pick the tense that serves your story best and use that tense consistently and clearly. If you have any lingering questions, feel free to ask in the comments below!

Other Posts You May Like:

Tips for Building Your Story’s Tone & Mood

How to Pick Your Perspective Characters

Mastering the Art of Showing and Telling in Fiction

Grammar Myths and Secrets