do you write essays in present or past tense

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.

Work with Joe Bunting?

WSJ Bestselling author, founder of The Write Practice, and book coach with 14+ years experience. Joe Bunting specializes in working with Action, Adventure, Fantasy, Historical Fiction, How To, Literary Fiction, Memoir, Mystery, Nonfiction, Science Fiction, and Self Help books. Sound like a good fit for you?

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 […]

Submit a Comment Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Submit Comment

Join over 450,000 readers who are saying YES to practice. You’ll also get a free copy of our eBook 14 Prompts :

Popular Resources

Book Writing Tips & Guides Creativity & Inspiration Tips Writing Prompts Grammar & Vocab Resources Best Book Writing Software ProWritingAid Review Writing Teacher Resources Publisher Rocket Review Scrivener Review Gifts for Writers

Books By Our Writers

You've got it! Just us where to send your guide.

Enter your email to get our free 10-step guide to becoming a writer.

You've got it! Just us where to send your book.

Enter your first name and email to get our free book, 14 Prompts.

Want to Get Published?

Enter your email to get our free interactive checklist to writing and publishing a book.

• Link to facebook
• Link to linkedin
• Link to twitter
• Link to youtube
• Writing Tips

Tense Use in Essays: Past vs. Present

2-minute read

• 16th April 2016

It’s mostly time travellers who worry about the more convoluted aspects of grammatical tense , but the issue of tense use in academic writing is, nonetheless, controversial.

To be specific, there is much disagreement about tense use in essays : specifically, is past or present tense best? Today, we look into this tricky problem.

Present Tense

The present tense is used when discussing current events or states. It will often be the dominant tense used in academic writing due to the number of situations to which it applies:

• Stating general principles or theories (e.g. ‘The third law of thermodynamics states …’)
• Describing a fact (e.g. ‘Catalysts increase the rate of a reaction…’)
• Expressing an opinion or making a claim (e.g. ‘I believe further research is required…’)
• Analysing the results of an experiment (e.g. ‘The results show that…’)

In all these cases, the present tense shows that something applies at the current time or emphasises its relevance to the present.

The present tense can also do this in a literature review, since it frames research in terms of its current significance. This shows that you’re engaged with ongoing debate in your field of study, not simply describing out-of-date research.

The past tense is used when describing events that have already happened. In academic writing, this could be writing up a completed experiment.

Find this useful?

Subscribe to our newsletter and get writing tips from our editors straight to your inbox.

For example, the past tense can be used in methodology and results sections. Likewise, the past tense is useful when writing a case study, since this is almost always about something that has already occurred.

While you can use the past tense in a literature review, saying that someone ‘believed’ something may imply that they changed their mind. As such, the past tense can be used for discussing ‘dead’ ideas (i.e. things that no-one holds true any more) or something that someone has since disavowed.

Future Tense

The future tense is useful for discussing things that are yet to happen, such as when we commit to doing something (e.g. ‘I will continue to research this issue’).

Generally, you won’t need to do this too often in academic writing. However, the future tense can be useful in the following situations:

• Making predictions about the future
• Offering recommendations based on your results
• Suggesting new avenues of research

In all these cases, the future tense will help you express yourself more clearly.

Share this article:

Post A New Comment

Get help from a language expert. Try our proofreading services for free.

3-minute read

What Is a Content Editor?

Are you interested in learning more about the role of a content editor and the...

4-minute read

The Benefits of Using an Online Proofreading Service

Proofreading is important to ensure your writing is clear and concise for your readers. Whether...

6 Online AI Presentation Maker Tools

Creating presentations can be time-consuming and frustrating. Trying to construct a visually appealing and informative...

What Is Market Research?

No matter your industry, conducting market research helps you keep up to date with shifting...

8 Press Release Distribution Services for Your Business

In a world where you need to stand out, press releases are key to being...

How to Get a Patent

In the United States, the US Patent and Trademarks Office issues patents. In the United...

Make sure your writing is the best it can be with our expert English proofreading and editing.

Go to Index

Subscribe to The Chicago Manual of Style Online

Sign up for a free trial

Happy 2024!

Shop the CMOS Merch Store

CMOS for PerfectIt Proofreading Software

Usage and Grammar

Q. When writing about an author’s work, do you write in the past or present tense? Example: The author argues (argued) that it was the correct choice. Please help. Thanks.

A. Different kinds of writing have different conventions. In academic writing, it’s not wrong to use the past tense when quoting written works, but it’s conventional to use the “historical present,” even when the author is dead (Heraclitus says, “No one steps into the same river twice”). In a newspaper interview, however, the present implies that someone is in the habit of saying something, rather than that he or she said it one time, and it is more likely to be found with paraphrasing than with a direct quotation (Mr. Obama says that the health care system needs fixing). “Said” in the same context implies that a person said something on a particular occasion (in his speech last night Mr. Obama said that the health care system needs fixing). And “said” used with quotation marks indicates that the person spoke the actual words on a particular occasion (Mr. Obama said, “We spend one and a half times more per person on health care than any other country, but we aren’t any healthier for it”).

The CMOS Shop Talk Blog

CMOS  editors share writing tips, editing ideas, interviews, quizzes, and more!

NEW! Developmental Editing, Second Edition, by Scott Norton

Available for Preorder! The CSE Manual: Scientific Style and Format, Ninth Edition

The Chicago Guide to Fact-Checking, Second Edition, by Brooke Borel

The Chicago Guide to Copyediting Fiction, by Amy J. Schneider

Retro Chic(ago)

Visit the CMOS Bookstore

Charitable Giving Helps Advance Our Mission

Books for students, writers, and editors.

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

Make a Gift

Have a language expert improve your writing

Run a free plagiarism check in 10 minutes, automatically generate references for free.

• Knowledge Base
• Verb Tenses in Academic Writing | Rules, Differences & Examples

Verb Tenses in Academic Writing | Rules, Differences & Examples

Published on 20 October 2022 by Shane Bryson . Revised on 11 September 2023.

Tense communicates an event’s location in time. The different tenses are identified by their associated verb forms. There are three main verb tenses: past ,  present , and  future .

In English, each of these tenses can take four main aspects:  simple ,  perfect ,  continuous  (also known as  progressive ), and  perfect continuous . The perfect aspect is formed using the verb  to have , while the continuous aspect is formed using the verb  to be .

In academic writing , the most commonly used tenses are the  present simple , the  past simple , and the  present perfect .

Instantly correct all language mistakes in your text

Be assured that you'll submit flawless writing. Upload your document to correct all your mistakes.

Table of contents

Tenses and their functions, when to use the present simple, when to use the past simple, when to use the present perfect, when to use other tenses.

The table below gives an overview of some of the basic functions of tenses and aspects. Tenses locate an event in time, while aspects communicate durations and relationships between events that happen at different times.

It can be difficult to pick the right verb tenses and use them consistently. If you struggle with verb tenses in your thesis or dissertation , you could consider using a thesis proofreading service .

The only proofreading tool specialized in correcting academic writing

The academic proofreading tool has been trained on 1000s of academic texts and by native English editors. Making it the most accurate and reliable proofreading tool for students.

Correct my document today

The present simple is the most commonly used tense in academic writing, so if in doubt, this should be your default choice of tense. There are two main situations where you always need to use the present tense.

Describing facts, generalisations, and explanations

Facts that are always true do not need to be located in a specific time, so they are stated in the present simple. You might state these types of facts when giving background information in your introduction .

• The Eiffel tower  is in Paris.
• Light  travels faster than sound.

Similarly, theories and generalisations based on facts are expressed in the present simple.

• Average income differs by race and gender.
• Older people express less concern about the environment than younger people.

Explanations of terms, theories, and ideas should also be written in the present simple.

• Photosynthesis  refers to  the process by which plants  convert sunlight into chemical energy.
• According to Piketty (2013), inequality grows over time in capitalist economies.

Describing the content of a text

Things that happen within the space of a text should be treated similarly to facts and generalisations.

This applies to fictional narratives in books, films, plays, etc. Use the present simple to describe the events or actions that are your main focus; other tenses can be used to mark different times within the text itself.

• In the first novel, Harry learns he is a wizard and travels  to Hogwarts for the first time, finally escaping the constraints of the family that raised him.

The events in the first part of the sentence are the writer’s main focus, so they are described in the present tense. The second part uses the past tense to add extra information about something that happened prior to those events within the book.

When discussing and analyzing nonfiction, similarly, use the present simple to describe what the author does within the pages of the text ( argues , explains , demonstrates , etc).

• In The History of Sexuality , Foucault asserts that sexual identity is a modern invention.
• Paglia (1993) critiques Foucault’s theory.

This rule also applies when you are describing what you do in your own text. When summarising the research in your abstract , describing your objectives, or giving an overview of the  dissertation structure in your introduction, the present simple is the best choice of tense.

• This research  aims to synthesise the two theories.
• Chapter 3 explains  the methodology and discusses ethical issues.
• The paper  concludes with recommendations for further research.

The past simple should be used to describe completed actions and events, including steps in the research process and historical background information.

Reporting research steps

Whether you are referring to your own research or someone else’s, use the past simple to report specific steps in the research process that have been completed.

• Olden (2017) recruited 17 participants for the study.
• We transcribed and coded the interviews before analyzing the results.

The past simple is also the most appropriate choice for reporting the results of your research.

• All of the focus group participants agreed  that the new version  was an improvement.
• We  found a positive correlation between the variables, but it  was not as strong as we  hypothesised .

Describing historical events

Background information about events that took place in the past should also be described in the past simple tense.

• James Joyce  pioneered the modernist use of stream of consciousness.
• Donald Trump’s election in 2016  contradicted the predictions of commentators.

The present perfect is used mainly to describe past research that took place over an unspecified time period. You can also use it to create a connection between the findings of past research and your own work.

Summarising previous work

When summarising a whole body of research or describing the history of an ongoing debate, use the present perfect.

• Many researchers  have investigated the effects of poverty on health.
• Studies  have shown a link between cancer and red meat consumption.
• Identity politics has been a topic of heated debate since the 1960s.
• The problem of free will  has vexed philosophers for centuries.

Similarly, when mentioning research that took place over an unspecified time period in the past (as opposed to a specific step or outcome of that research), use the present perfect instead of the past tense.

• Green et al.  have conducted extensive research on the ecological effects of wolf reintroduction.

Emphasising the present relevance of previous work

When describing the outcomes of past research with verbs like fi nd ,  discover or demonstrate , you can use either the past simple or the present perfect.

The present perfect is a good choice to emphasise the continuing relevance of a piece of research and its consequences for your own work. It implies that the current research will build on, follow from, or respond to what previous researchers have done.

• Smith (2015) has found that younger drivers are involved in more traffic accidents than older drivers, but more research is required to make effective policy recommendations.
• As Monbiot (2013)  has shown , ecological change is closely linked to social and political processes.

Note, however, that the facts and generalisations that emerge from past research are reported in the present simple.

While the above are the most commonly used tenses in academic writing, there are many cases where you’ll use other tenses to make distinctions between times.

Future simple

The future simple is used for making predictions or stating intentions. You can use it in a research proposal  to describe what you intend to do.

It is also sometimes used for making predictions and stating hypotheses . Take care, though, to avoid making statements about the future that imply a high level of certainty. It’s often a better choice to use other verbs like  expect ,  predict,  and  assume to make more cautious statements.

• There  will be a strong positive correlation.
• We  expect  to find a strong positive correlation.
• H1  predicts a strong positive correlation.

Similarly, when discussing the future implications of your research, rather than making statements with will,  try to use other verbs or modal verbs that imply possibility ( can ,  could ,  may ,  might ).

• These findings  will influence  future approaches to the topic.
• These findings  could influence future approaches to the topic.

Present, past, and future continuous

The continuous aspect is not commonly used in academic writing. It tends to convey an informal tone, and in most cases, the present simple or present perfect is a better choice.

• Some scholars are suggesting that mainstream economic paradigms are no longer adequate.
• Some scholars suggest   that mainstream economic paradigms are no longer adequate.
• Some scholars have suggested   that mainstream economic paradigms are no longer adequate.

However, in certain types of academic writing, such as literary and historical studies, the continuous aspect might be used in narrative descriptions or accounts of past events. It is often useful for positioning events in relation to one another.

• While Harry is traveling to Hogwarts for the first time, he meets many of the characters who will become central to the narrative.
• The country was still recovering from the recession when Donald Trump was elected.

Past perfect

Similarly, the past perfect is not commonly used, except in disciplines that require making fine distinctions between different points in the past or different points in a narrative’s plot.

Sources for this article

We strongly encourage students to use sources in their work. You can cite our article (APA Style) or take a deep dive into the articles below.

Bryson, S. (2023, September 11). Verb Tenses in Academic Writing | Rules, Differences & Examples. Scribbr. Retrieved 9 April 2024, from https://www.scribbr.co.uk/english-language/verb-tenses/

Aarts, B. (2011).  Oxford modern English grammar . Oxford University Press.

Butterfield, J. (Ed.). (2015).  Fowler’s dictionary of modern English usage  (4th ed.). Oxford University Press.

Garner, B. A. (2016).  Garner’s modern English usage (4th ed.). Oxford University Press.

Is this article helpful?

Shane Bryson

Shane finished his master's degree in English literature in 2013 and has been working as a writing tutor and editor since 2009. He began proofreading and editing essays with Scribbr in early summer, 2014.

Other students also liked

Subject-verb agreement | examples, rules & use, english mistakes commonly made in a dissertation | examples.

• Support LUC
• Directories
• KRONOS Timecard
• Employee Self-Service
• Password Self-service
• Academic Affairs
• Advancement
• Admission: Adult B.A.
• Admission: Grad/Prof
• Admission: International
• Admission: Undergrad
• Alumni Email
• Alumni Relations
• Arrupe College
• Bursar's Office
• Campus Ministry
• Career Centers
• Center for Student Assistance and Advocacy
• Colleges and Schools
• Commencement
• Conference Services
• Continuing Education
• Course Evaluations IDEA
• Cuneo Mansion & Gardens
• Dining Services
• Diversity and Inclusion
• Emeriti Faculty Caucus
• Enterprise Learning Hub
• Executive and Professional Education
• Faculty Activity System
• Financial Aid
• Human Resources
• IBHE Institutional Complaint System
• Information Technology Services
• Institute of Environmental Sustainability
• Learning Portfolio
• Loyola Health App
• Loyola University Chicago Retiree Association (LUCRA)
• Madonna della Strada Chapel
• Media Relations
• Navigate Staff
• Office of First Year Experience
• Office of Institutional Effectiveness
• President's Office
• Rambler Buzz
• Registration and Records
• Residence Life
• Retreat & Ecology Campus
• Rome Center
• Security/Police
• Staff Council
• Student Achievement
• Student Consumer Information
• Student Development
• Study Abroad
• Summer Sessions
• University Policies

Writing Center

Loyola university chicago, using present tense, the literary historical present tense.

Some teachers in the humanities will tell you to use present tense when quoting, which can be confusing; weren’t these sources written in the past? Shouldn’t you use past tense? To make sense of this, try using the “Book Approach” when discussing literary or historical texts or discussing the context of authors’ lives.

Take this quote from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” as an example:

“We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.”

Consider that, as you read, the author is still “alive” in the sense that they are communicating with you. The following sentence demonstrates a technique called the “literary present” or the “historical present”:

Describing the need for whites and blacks to unite for social transformation, King explains, “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.”

Even if you are summarizing, you can still use the “literary present” or “historical present” because you are responding to your received understanding of the author’s words:

In this work, King describes the need for whites and blacks to unite for social transformation, seeing such a duty as imperative, even if the consequences of racism do not immediately affect everyone.

Now, if you are discussing fact about the author’s life, you are describing actions in the past or the past-present. Your words, without quotes, refer to a statement of fact:

“While incarcerated in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963 for peacefully protesting racial inequality, civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. employed many kinds of rhetoric to convince local white ministers to support his peaceful mission to achieve rights for African-Americans.”

  The APA Exception

Remember that APA format does not use the “historical present,” even when quoting, instead using the past or present-past tense to summarize an author’s words or introduce a quote. It’s a good idea to check with your instructor, especially in a science class, before writing an essay to see what tense you should use when quoting a source.

• Undergraduate
• Graduate/ Professional
• Adult Education

• Link to facebook
• Link to linkedin
• Link to twitter
• Link to youtube
• Writing Tips

Tense Use in Academic Writing: Past, Present and Future

4-minute read

• 2nd December 2016

While the dreary constraints of physical reality mean that we’re stuck in the present for all practical purposes, in speech or writing we can skip from past to present to future at will.

To do this, you’ll need to master the past, present and future tense. These grammatical tenses are useful in all kinds of writing, but here we’ll focus on their use in academic work .

What is Grammatical Tense?

Before anything else, we need to quickly clarify what we mean by “grammatical tense.”

The main thing you need to know is that the form of the verb in a sentence changes depending on when the action described occurs.

As such, by modifying a sentence to adjust the tense, we can change its meaning:

Present Tense: Alfred burns the cakes.

Past Tense: Alfred burned the cakes.

Future Tense: Alfred will burn the cakes.

In the first example, the present tense verb “burns” suggests that it’s happening now. The past tense verb “burned”, however, shows that it has already happened. And by adding the helping verb “will,” we can instead suggest that the action is going to happen in the future.

The examples above are the simple forms of each of these tenses. There are many variations on these, however, so it’s worth checking how each form differs in practice.

The Past Tense in Academic Writing

In an academic paper, you could use the past tense to show that an idea is not widely accepted any more. In the following, for instance, the past tense “claimed” and “has since been disputed” both signal that the study no longer applies:

Cook and Moore (1964) originally claimed that profane language is amusing, although this has since been disputed by many experts.

Find this useful?

Subscribe to our newsletter and get writing tips from our editors straight to your inbox.

The past tense is also commonly used in academic writing when describing the methods used in an experiment that has already been conducted:

The sample was tested using several techniques.

Some colleges have specific instructions for how a methodology chapter should be written, though, so make sure to check for rules about tense use in your style guide.

The Present Tense in Academic Writing

The present tense is dominant in most forms of academic work, since it applies when writing about current events or states of being. This includes describing:

• Existing facts and theories (e.g., “Profane language is common among young people…”)
• The findings of a study (e.g., “The results demonstrate that…”)
• The opinions or claims of other thinkers (e.g., “Cook and Moore argue that…”)

The present tense is usually correct even when describing a study that happened in the past, as long as the conclusions are still relevant in the present.

The Future Tense in Academic Writing

The future tense is less common in academic writing, but it still has a couple of important roles. One is in research proposals , since you’ll need to describe your research aims, predictions about results, and the methods you intend to use:

This study will examine the role of profane language in comedy. We predict that profane language will be considered hilarious by the majority of respondents.

The future tense is also useful when recommending fresh avenues of research or suggesting how the results of a study could be applied:

Our study suggests that further research should be conducted into the increasing use of profane language in everyday life.

The crucial thing is that the future tense is used when describing something that hasn’t yet happened or that is expected to occur in the future.

Share this article:

Post A New Comment

Got content that needs a quick turnaround? Let us polish your work. Explore our editorial business services.

3-minute read

What Is a Content Editor?

Are you interested in learning more about the role of a content editor and the...

The Benefits of Using an Online Proofreading Service

Proofreading is important to ensure your writing is clear and concise for your readers. Whether...

2-minute read

6 Online AI Presentation Maker Tools

Creating presentations can be time-consuming and frustrating. Trying to construct a visually appealing and informative...

What Is Market Research?

No matter your industry, conducting market research helps you keep up to date with shifting...

8 Press Release Distribution Services for Your Business

In a world where you need to stand out, press releases are key to being...

How to Get a Patent

In the United States, the US Patent and Trademarks Office issues patents. In the United...

Make sure your writing is the best it can be with our expert English proofreading and editing.

Frequently asked questions

What tense should i write my college essay in.

In a college essay , you can be creative with your language . When writing about the past, you can use the present tense to make the reader feel as if they were there in the moment with you. But make sure to maintain consistency and when in doubt, default to the correct verb tense according to the time you’re writing about.

Frequently asked questions: College admissions essays

When writing your Common App essay , choose a prompt that sparks your interest and that you can connect to a unique personal story.

No matter which prompt you choose, admissions officers are more interested in your ability to demonstrate personal development , insight, or motivation for a certain area of study.

The Common App essay is your primary writing sample within the Common Application, a college application portal accepted by more than 900 schools. All your prospective schools that accept the Common App will read this essay to understand your character, background, and value as a potential student.

Since this essay is read by many colleges, avoid mentioning any college names or programs; instead, save tailored answers for the supplementary school-specific essays within the Common App.

Most importantly, your essay should be about you , not another person or thing. An insightful college admissions essay requires deep self-reflection, authenticity, and a balance between confidence and vulnerability.

Your essay shouldn’t be a résumé of your experiences but instead should tell a story that demonstrates your most important values and qualities.

When revising your college essay , first check for big-picture issues regarding your message and content. Then, check for flow, tone, style , and clarity. Finally, focus on eliminating grammar and punctuation errors .

If your college essay goes over the word count limit , cut any sentences with tangents or irrelevant details. Delete unnecessary words that clutter your essay.

If you’re struggling to reach the word count for your college essay, add vivid personal stories or share your feelings and insight to give your essay more depth and authenticity.

If you’ve got to write your college essay fast , don’t panic. First, set yourself deadlines: you should spend about 10% of your remaining time on brainstorming, 10% on outlining, 40% writing, 30% revising, and 10% taking breaks in between stages.

Second, brainstorm stories and values based on your essay prompt.

Third, outline your essay based on the montage or narrative essay structure .

Fourth, write specific, personal, and unique stories that would be hard for other students to replicate.

Fifth, revise your essay and make sure it’s clearly written.

Last, if possible, get feedback from an essay coach . Scribbr essay editors can help you revise your essay in 12 hours or less.

Avoid swearing in a college essay , since admissions officers’ opinions of profanity will vary. In some cases, it might be okay to use a vulgar word, such as in dialogue or quotes that make an important point in your essay. However, it’s safest to try to make the same point without swearing.

If you have bad grades on your transcript, you may want to use your college admissions essay to explain the challenging circumstances that led to them. Make sure to avoid dwelling on the negative aspects and highlight how you overcame the situation or learned an important lesson.

However, some college applications offer an additional information section where you can explain your bad grades, allowing you to choose another meaningful topic for your college essay.

Here’s a brief list of college essay topics that may be considered cliché:

• Extracurriculars, especially sports
• Role models
• Dealing with a personal tragedy or death in the family
• Struggling with new life situations (immigrant stories, moving homes, parents’ divorce)
• Becoming a better person after community service, traveling, or summer camp
• Overcoming a difficult class
• Using a common object as an extended metaphor

It’s easier to write a standout essay with a unique topic. However, it’s possible to make a common topic compelling with interesting story arcs, uncommon connections, and an advanced writing style.

Yes. The college application essay is less formal than other academic writing —though of course it’s not mandatory to use contractions in your essay.

The college admissions essay gives admissions officers a different perspective on you beyond your academic achievements, test scores, and extracurriculars. It’s your chance to stand out from other applicants with similar academic profiles by telling a unique, personal, and specific story.

Use a standard font such as Times New Roman or Arial to avoid distracting the reader from your college essay’s content.

A college application essay is less formal than most academic writing . Instead of citing sources formally with in-text citations and a reference list, you can cite them informally in your text.

For example, “In her research paper on genetics, Quinn Roberts explores …”

There is no set number of paragraphs in a college admissions essay . College admissions essays can diverge from the traditional five-paragraph essay structure that you learned in English class. Just make sure to stay under the specified word count .

Most topics are acceptable for college essays if you can use them to demonstrate personal growth or a lesson learned. However, there are a few difficult topics for college essays that should be avoided. Avoid topics that are:

• Overly personal (e.g. graphic details of illness or injury, romantic or sexual relationships)
• Not personal enough (e.g. broad solutions to world problems, inspiring people or things)
• Too negative (e.g. an in-depth look at your flaws, put-downs of others, criticizing the need for a college essay)
• Too boring (e.g. a resume of your academic achievements and extracurriculars)
• Inappropriate for a college essay (e.g. illegal activities, offensive humor, false accounts of yourself, bragging about privilege)

To write an effective diversity essay , include vulnerable, authentic stories about your unique identity, background, or perspective. Provide insight into how your lived experience has influenced your outlook, activities, and goals. If relevant, you should also mention how your background has led you to apply for this university and why you’re a good fit.

Many universities believe a student body composed of different perspectives, beliefs, identities, and backgrounds will enhance the campus learning and community experience.

Admissions officers are interested in hearing about how your unique background, identity, beliefs, culture, or characteristics will enrich the campus community, which is why they assign a diversity essay .

In addition to your main college essay , some schools and scholarships may ask for a supplementary essay focused on an aspect of your identity or background. This is sometimes called a diversity essay .

You can use humor in a college essay , but carefully consider its purpose and use it wisely. An effective use of humor involves unexpected, keen observations of the everyday, or speaks to a deeper theme. Humor shouldn’t be the main focus of the essay, but rather a tool to improve your storytelling.

Get a second opinion from a teacher, counselor, or essay coach on whether your essay’s humor is appropriate.

Though admissions officers are interested in hearing your story, they’re also interested in how you tell it. An exceptionally written essay will differentiate you from other applicants, meaning that admissions officers will spend more time reading it.

You can use literary devices to catch your reader’s attention and enrich your storytelling; however, focus on using just a few devices well, rather than trying to use as many as possible.

To decide on a good college essay topic , spend time thoughtfully answering brainstorming questions. If you still have trouble identifying topics, try the following two strategies:

• Identify your qualities → Brainstorm stories that demonstrate these qualities
• Identify memorable stories → Connect your qualities to these stories

You can also ask family, friends, or mentors to help you brainstorm topics, give feedback on your potential essay topics, or recall key stories that showcase your qualities.

Yes—admissions officers don’t expect everyone to have a totally unique college essay topic . But you must differentiate your essay from others by having a surprising story arc, an interesting insight, and/or an advanced writing style .

There are no foolproof college essay topics —whatever your topic, the key is to write about it effectively. However, a good topic

• Is meaningful, specific, and personal to you
• Focuses on you and your experiences
• Reveals something beyond your test scores, grades, and extracurriculars
• Is creative and original

Unlike a five-paragraph essay, your admissions essay should not end by summarizing the points you’ve already made. It’s better to be creative and aim for a strong final impression.

You should also avoid stating the obvious (for example, saying that you hope to be accepted).

There are a few strategies you can use for a memorable ending to your college essay :

• Return to the beginning with a “full circle” structure
• Reveal the main point or insight in your story
• Look to the future
• End on an action

The best technique will depend on your topic choice, essay outline, and writing style. You can write several endings using different techniques to see which works best.

College deadlines vary depending on the schools you’re applying to and your application plan:

• For early action applications and the first round of early decision applications, the deadline is on November 1 or 15. Decisions are released by mid-December.
• For the second round of early decision applications, the deadline is January 1 or 15. Decisions are released in January or February.
• Regular decision deadlines usually fall between late November and mid-March, and decisions are released in March or April.
• Rolling admission deadlines run from July to April, and decisions are released around four to eight weeks after submission.

Depending on your prospective schools’ requirements, you may need to submit scores for the SAT or ACT as part of your college application .

Some schools now no longer require students to submit test scores; however, you should still take the SAT or ACT and aim to get a high score to strengthen your application package.

Aim to take the SAT or ACT in the spring of your junior year to give yourself enough time to retake it in the fall of your senior year if necessary.

Apply early for federal student aid and application fee waivers. You can also look for scholarships from schools, corporations, and charitable foundations.

To maximize your options, you should aim to apply to about eight schools:

• Two reach schools that might be difficult to get into
• Four match schools that you have a good chance of getting into
• Two safety schools that you feel confident you’ll get into

The college admissions essay accounts for roughly 25% of the weight of your application .

At highly selective schools, there are four qualified candidates for every spot. While your academic achievements are important, your college admissions essay can help you stand out from other applicants with similar profiles.

In general, for your college application you will need to submit all of the following:

• Your personal information
• List of extracurriculars and awards
• College application essays
• Transcripts
• Standardized test scores
• Recommendation letters.

Different colleges may have specific requirements, so make sure you check exactly what’s expected in the application guidance.

You should start thinking about your college applications the summer before your junior year to give you sufficient time for college visits, taking standardized tests, applying for financial aid , writing essays, and collecting application material.

Yes, but make sure your essay directly addresses the prompt, respects the word count , and demonstrates the organization’s values.

If you plan ahead, you can save time by writing one scholarship essay for multiple prompts with similar questions. In a scholarship tracker spreadsheet, you can group or color-code overlapping essay prompts; then, write a single essay for multiple scholarships. Sometimes, you can even reuse or adapt your main college essay .

You can start applying for scholarships as early as your junior year. Continue applying throughout your senior year.

Invest time in applying for various scholarships , especially local ones with small dollar amounts, which are likely easier to win and more reflective of your background and interests. It will be easier for you to write an authentic and compelling essay if the scholarship topic is meaningful to you.

You can find scholarships through your school counselor, community network, or an internet search.

A scholarship essay requires you to demonstrate your values and qualities while answering the prompt’s specific question.

After researching the scholarship organization, identify a personal experience that embodies its values and exemplifies how you will be a successful student.

A standout college essay has several key ingredients:

• A unique, personally meaningful topic
• A memorable introduction with vivid imagery or an intriguing hook
• Specific stories and language that show instead of telling
• Vulnerability that’s authentic but not aimed at soliciting sympathy
• Clear writing in an appropriate style and tone
• A conclusion that offers deep insight or a creative ending

While timelines will differ depending on the student, plan on spending at least 1–3 weeks brainstorming and writing the first draft of your college admissions essay , and at least 2–4 weeks revising across multiple drafts. Don’t forget to save enough time for breaks between each writing and editing stage.

You should already begin thinking about your essay the summer before your senior year so that you have plenty of time to try out different topics and get feedback on what works.

Your college essay accounts for about 25% of your application’s weight. It may be the deciding factor in whether you’re accepted, especially for competitive schools where most applicants have exceptional grades, test scores, and extracurricular track records.

In most cases, quoting other people isn’t a good way to start your college essay . Admissions officers want to hear your thoughts about yourself, and quotes often don’t achieve that. Unless a quote truly adds something important to your essay that it otherwise wouldn’t have, you probably shouldn’t include it.

Cliché openers in a college essay introduction are usually general and applicable to many students and situations. Most successful introductions are specific: they only work for the unique essay that follows.

The key to a strong college essay introduction is not to give too much away. Try to start with a surprising statement or image that raises questions and compels the reader to find out more.

The introduction of your college essay is the first thing admissions officers will read and therefore your most important opportunity to stand out. An excellent introduction will keep admissions officers reading, allowing you to tell them what you want them to know.

You can speed up this process by shortening and smoothing your writing with a paraphrasing tool . After that, you can use the summarizer to shorten it even more.

If you’re struggling to reach the word count for your college essay, add vivid personal stories or share your feelings and insight to give your essay more depth and authenticity.

Most college application portals specify a word count range for your essay, and you should stay within 10% of the upper limit to write a developed and thoughtful essay.

You should aim to stay under the specified word count limit to show you can follow directions and write concisely. However, don’t write too little, as it may seem like you are unwilling or unable to write a detailed and insightful narrative about yourself.

If no word count is specified, we advise keeping your essay between 400 and 600 words.

In your application essay , admissions officers are looking for particular features : they want to see context on your background, positive traits that you could bring to campus, and examples of you demonstrating those qualities.

Colleges want to be able to differentiate students who seem similar on paper. In the college application essay , they’re looking for a way to understand each applicant’s unique personality and experiences.

You don’t need a title for your college admissions essay , but you can include one if you think it adds something important.

Your college essay’s format should be as simple as possible:

• Use a standard, readable font
• Use 1.5 or double spacing
• If attaching a file, save it as a PDF
• Stick to the word count
• Avoid unusual formatting and unnecessary decorative touches

There are no set rules for how to structure a college application essay , but these are two common structures that work:

• A montage structure, a series of vignettes with a common theme.
• A narrative structure, a single story that shows your personal growth or how you overcame a challenge.

Avoid the five-paragraph essay structure that you learned in high school.

Campus visits are always helpful, but if you can’t make it in person, the college website will have plenty of information for you to explore. You should look through the course catalog and even reach out to current faculty with any questions about the school.

Colleges set a “Why this college?” essay because they want to see that you’ve done your research. You must prove that you know what makes the school unique and can connect that to your own personal goals and academic interests.

Depending on your writing, you may go through several rounds of revision . Make sure to put aside your essay for a little while after each editing stage to return with a fresh perspective.

Teachers and guidance counselors can help you check your language, tone, and content . Ask for their help at least one to two months before the submission deadline, as many other students will also want their help.

Friends and family are a good resource to check for authenticity. It’s best to seek help from family members with a strong writing or English educational background, or from older siblings and cousins who have been through the college admissions process.

If possible, get help from an essay coach or editor ; they’ll have specialized knowledge of college admissions essays and be able to give objective expert feedback.

When revising your college essay , first check for big-picture issues regarding message, flow, tone, style , and clarity. Then, focus on eliminating grammar and punctuation errors.

Include specific, personal details and use your authentic voice to shed a new perspective on a common human experience.

Through specific stories, you can weave your achievements and qualities into your essay so that it doesn’t seem like you’re bragging from a resume.

When writing about yourself , including difficult experiences or failures can be a great way to show vulnerability and authenticity, but be careful not to overshare, and focus on showing how you matured from the experience.

First, spend time reflecting on your core values and character . You can start with these questions:

• What are three words your friends or family would use to describe you, and why would they choose them?
• Whom do you admire most and why?
• What are you most proud of? Ashamed of?

However, you should do a comprehensive brainstorming session to fully understand your values. Also consider how your values and goals match your prospective university’s program and culture. Then, brainstorm stories that illustrate the fit between the two.

In a college application essay , you can occasionally bend grammatical rules if doing so adds value to the storytelling process and the essay maintains clarity.

However, use standard language rules if your stylistic choices would otherwise distract the reader from your overall narrative or could be easily interpreted as unintentional errors.

Write concisely and use the active voice to maintain a quick pace throughout your essay and make sure it’s the right length . Avoid adding definitions unless they provide necessary explanation.

Use first-person “I” statements to speak from your perspective . Use appropriate word choices that show off your vocabulary but don’t sound like you used a thesaurus. Avoid using idioms or cliché expressions by rewriting them in a creative, original way.

If you’re an international student applying to a US college and you’re comfortable using American idioms or cultural references , you can. But instead of potentially using them incorrectly, don’t be afraid to write in detail about yourself within your own culture.

Provide context for any words, customs, or places that an American admissions officer might be unfamiliar with.

College application essays are less formal than other kinds of academic writing . Use a conversational yet respectful tone , as if speaking with a teacher or mentor. Be vulnerable about your feelings, thoughts, and experiences to connect with the reader.

Aim to write in your authentic voice , with a style that sounds natural and genuine. You can be creative with your word choice, but don’t use elaborate vocabulary to impress admissions officers.

Admissions officers use college admissions essays to evaluate your character, writing skills , and ability to self-reflect . The essay is your chance to show what you will add to the academic community.

The college essay may be the deciding factor in your application , especially for competitive schools where most applicants have exceptional grades, test scores, and extracurriculars.

Some colleges also require supplemental essays about specific topics, such as why you chose that specific college . Scholarship essays are often required to obtain financial aid .

Ask our team

Want to contact us directly? No problem.  We  are always here for you.

• Email [email protected]
• Start live chat
• Call +1 (510) 822-8066
• WhatsApp +31 20 261 6040

Our team helps students graduate by offering:

• A world-class citation generator
• Plagiarism Checker software powered by Turnitin
• Innovative Citation Checker software
• Professional proofreading services
• Over 300 helpful articles about academic writing, citing sources, plagiarism, and more

Scribbr specializes in editing study-related documents . We proofread:

• PhD dissertations
• Research proposals
• Personal statements
• Admission essays
• Motivation letters
• Reflection papers
• Journal articles
• Capstone projects

Scribbr’s Plagiarism Checker is powered by elements of Turnitin’s Similarity Checker , namely the plagiarism detection software and the Internet Archive and Premium Scholarly Publications content databases .

The add-on AI detector is powered by Scribbr’s proprietary software.

The Scribbr Citation Generator is developed using the open-source Citation Style Language (CSL) project and Frank Bennett’s citeproc-js . It’s the same technology used by dozens of other popular citation tools, including Mendeley and Zotero.

You can find all the citation styles and locales used in the Scribbr Citation Generator in our publicly accessible repository on Github .

Purdue Online Writing Lab Purdue OWL® College of Liberal Arts

Introduction to Verb Tenses

Welcome to the Purdue OWL

This page is brought to you by the OWL at Purdue University. When printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice.

Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use.

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

Only two tenses are conveyed through the verb alone: present (“sing") and past (“sang"). Most English tenses, as many as thirty of them, are marked by other words called auxiliaries. Understanding the six basic tenses allows writers to re-create much of the reality of time in their writing.

Simple Present: They walk.

Present Perfect: They have walk ed .

Simple Past: They walk ed .

Past Perfect: They had walk ed .

Future: They will walk.

Future Perfect: They will have walk ed .

Usually, the perfect tenses are the hardest to remember. Here’s a useful tip: all of the perfect tenses are formed by adding an auxiliary or auxiliaries to the past participle, the third principal part.

1 st principal part (simple present): ring, walk

2 nd principal part (simple past): rang, walked

3 rd principal part (past participle): rung, walked

In the above examples, will or will have are the auxiliaries. The following are the most common auxiliaries: be, being, been, can, do, may, must, might, could, should, ought, shall, will, would, has, have, had.

Present Perfect

The present perfect consists of a past participle (the third principal part) with "has" or "have." It designates action which began in the past but which continues into the present or the effect of which still continues.

1. Simple Past : “Betty taught for ten years.” This means that Betty taught in the past; she is no longer teaching.

2. Present Perfect : “Betty has taught for ten years.” This means that Betty taught for ten years, and she still teaches today.

1. Simple Past : “John did his homework so he can go to the movies.” In this example, John has already completed his homework.

2. Present Perfect : “If John has done his homework, he can go to the movies.” In this case, John has not yet completed his homework, but he will most likely do so soon.

Present Perfect Infinitives

Infinitives also have perfect tense forms. These occur when the infinitive is combined with the word “have.” Sometimes, problems arise when infinitives are used with verbs of the future, such as “hope,” “plan,” “expect,” “intend,” or “want.”

I wanted to go to the movies.

Janet meant to see the doctor.

In both of these cases, the action happened in the past. Thus, these would both be simple past verb forms.

Present perfect infinitives, such as the examples below, set up a sequence of events. Usually the action that is represented by the present perfect tense was completed before the action of the main verb.

1. I am happy to have participated in this campaign! The current state of happiness is in the present: “I am happy.” Yet, this happiness comes from having participated in this campaign that most likely happened in the near past. Therefore, the person is saying that he or she is currently happy due to an event that happened in the near past.

2. John had hoped to have won the trophy. The past perfect verbal phrase, “had hoped,” indicates that John hoped in the past, and no longer does. “To have won the trophy” indicates a moment in the near past when the trophy was still able to be won. Thus, John, at the time of possibly winning the trophy, had hoped to do so, but never did.

Thus the action of the main verb points back in time; the action of the perfect infinitive has been completed.

Past Perfect

The past perfect tense designates action in the past just as simple past does, but the past perfect’s action has been completed before another action.

1. Simple Past : “John raised vegetables.” Here, John raised vegetables at an indeterminate time in the past.

2. Past Perfect : “John sold the vegetables that he had raised .” In this sentence, John raised the vegetables before he sold them.

1. Simple Past : “Renee washed the car when George arrived.” In this sentence, Renee waited to wash the car until after George arrived.

2. Past Perfect : “Renee had washed the car when George arrived.” Here, Renee had already finished washing the car by the time George arrived.

In sentences expressing condition and result, the past perfect tense is used in the part that states the condition.

1. If I had done my exercises, I would have passed the test.

2. I think Sven would have been elected if he hadn't sounded so pompous.

Further, in both cases, the word if starts the conditional part of the sentence. Usually, results are marked by an implied then . For example:

If I had done my exercises, then I would have passed the test.

If Sven hadn’t sounded so pompous, then he would have been elected.

Again, the word then is not required, but it is implied.

Future Perfect

The future perfect tense is used for an action that will be completed at a specific time in the future.

1. Simple Future : “On Saturday, I will finish my housework.” In this sentence, the person will finish his or her housework sometime on Saturday.

2. Future Perfect : “By noon on Saturday, I will have finished my housework.” By noon on Saturday, this person will have the housework already done even though right now it is in the future.

1. Simple Future : “You will work fifty hours.” In this example, you will work fifty hours in the future. The implication here is that you will not work more than fifty hours.

2. Future Perfect : “You will have worked fifty hours by the end of this pay period.” By the end of this pay period, you would have already worked fifty hours. However, as of right now, this situation is in the future. The implication here is that you could work more hours.

1. Judy saved thirty dollars. (past—the saving is completed)

2. Judy will save thirty dollars. (future—the saving has not happened yet)

3. Judy has saved thirty dollars. (present perfect—the saving has happened recently)

4. Judy had saved thirty dollars by the end of last month. (past perfect—the saving occurred in the recent past)

5. Judy will have saved thirty dollars by the end of this month. (future perfect—the saving will occur in the near future, by the end of this month)

Writing Studio

How (and why) do i write in literary present tense.

In an effort to make our handouts more accessible, we have begun converting our PDF handouts to web pages. Download this page as a PDF:  How (and why) do I write in literary present tense? Return to Writing Studio Handouts

Literary works, paintings, films, and other artistic creations are assumed to exist in an eternal present. Therefore, when you write about writers or artists as they express themselves in their work, use the present tense.

Past or Present Tense? A Basic Guideline

You should use the past tense when discussing historical events, and you should use the literary present when discussing fictional events.

Context matters , though, so take a look through the more granular guidelines below and keep in mind that expectations and conventions around the tense we use to write about textual sources we are engaging or analyzing may differ between disciplines (for instance, in a history class you might be told to write about texts using past tense that you would be expected to discuss in the ‘literary present’ in an English class.).

Taking a Closer Look: Context-Based Guidelines

1. when commenting on what a writer says, use the present tense..

• Example: “Dunn begins his work with a view into the lives and motivations of the very first settlers.”
• Example: “Through this anecdote, Richter illustrates common misconceptions about native religion and shows why missionary attempts were less than successful.”

2. When describing an author’s work, however, use the past tense.

• Example: “In 1966, Driss Chraïbi published La Civilisation, ma Mère! “

3. When you are writing about a certain historical event (even the creation of a literary or artistic work), use the past tense.

• Example: “Henry Fielding wrote in the eighteenth century.”
• Example: “Picasso produced a series of sculptures.”

4. When discussing events in a literary work (novel, story, play, or poem) always use the present tense, unless there is a shift in the time frame within the world of the text.

• Example: “Evelyn then rips into the carefully wrapped package and finds the greatest gift she has ever received. Her eyes fill with tears as she gazes at the jewel, but Philip does not know that these tears are the results of more than surprised joy. Evelyn is suffering from guilt as she compares this present to the shoddy gift that she bought* for her beau.”

*“ Bought ” is in past tense because the buying of the present occurred before the described set of events.

• Example: “In Michelangelo’s painting, Christ judges the world.”
• Example: “Johnson’s characters journey to Cairo.”
• Example: “Plato argues without much conviction.”
• Example: “Paul writes about the hardships he has endured.”

5. Sometimes a sentence must employ both present and past tense.

• Example: “The first part of the poem, which she completed in 1804, describes the effects of isolation from society.”
• Example: “Aeschylus’ drama is concerned with what happens to Orestes after he has killed his mother.”

Final Tips and Reminders

Remember: it is important to stay consistent..

Moving between verb tenses can be confusing for your reader. Examine your changes of tense very carefully and make sure there is a logical reason for them.

Style Tip: Keeping Sentence-Level Tense Shifts Manageable

If you need to shift tense more than three times in a single sentence, consider breaking up the sentence into a couple of shorter sentences to maintain reading ease.

Last revised: 8/10/2007 | Adapted for web delivery: 07/2021

In order to access certain content on this page, you may need to download Adobe Acrobat Reader or an equivalent PDF viewer software.

• Admissions Essays
• Books and Manuscripts
• Business Proofreading and Editing
• Dissertations
• Editing Tools
• Personal Statements
• Professional Writing
• Proofreading and Editing
• Thesis Proposals
• Uncategorized
• Working From Home
• Writing Fiction
• Writing Guides

What Tense Should I Use in Writing?

Get 400 words proofread and edited for free

When writing, people are often confused about what tense they should use. Should I write this MLA history paper in past tense? Should I write my short story in present or past tense? How about a resume: should I write my job entries in present or past? And these people are right to be confused because what tense you should use varies widely depending on your writing style and your purpose.

Academic (Four Main Styles)

APA/Harvard: Per APA (and its non-American variant, Harvard), you should primarily use past tense, especially in literature reviews where you’re talking about authors’ past studies. It should be:

“Johnson (2008) argued . . .”

“Johnson (2008) argues . . . .”

Get a free sample proofread and edit for your document. Two professional proofreaders will proofread and edit your document.

The same is true for your Results and Method sections, but APA makes an exception for Discussion sections (where you examine your conclusions and the implications of the study), which can be in present tense if it better conveys your meaning.

MLA: This style is a bit more straightforward. Per MLA, you should be almost always using present tense:

“In To Kill a Mockingbird , Atticus Finch argues . . .”

If you need to differentiate time, you should use present perfect tense:

“For many years, Scout has been worrying about . . . .”

If you must, you can use some past tense, but keep it to a minimum.

Chicago: This style is a bit more lenient. Per Chicago, you can use either present or past (Though it’s best to use present when discussing literature and past when writing about history.), but make sure you stay consistent. If you switch, make sure you need to, such as:

The Romans used various military strategies, some of which are still in use today.

AP: AP, which is used by news media, is also more flexible. There is no set tense; instead, you should be endeavoring to use present/past/future as necessary to make sure the events you are describing are as clear as possible. AP also recommends using time words (today, tomorrow, March 17, etc.) to anchor your piece and further reduce ambiguity.

When talking about your job experience in resumes, the rule is simple: Use present tense for current positions:

Lead team in HVAC solutions

And use past tense for past positions:

Led team in HVAC solutions

Business Plan

Professors and potential investors have different views on what tense a business plan should be written in, but definitely you should be using either future or present tense. Some people argue that you should always write a business plan in future tense because you’re talking about your future plans.

But there’s another school of thought that recommends using present tense instead because this will allow your plan to stay current as you develop it and you develop your business. In other words, as you develop your business, you develop your plan, and it stays current with what you’re doing.

Above all, fictional writing needs to be consistent in its tense. Just as above, don’t switch unless you must. (BTW, fictional writing is done in Chicago Style.)

Everything Else

For everything else, such as business letters, admission essays, and e-mails, and especially in more informal contexts, just use your best judgment and write in whatever tense feels right to you. Go with your instincts and remember that, unless you’re writing in a formal academic context, you have more leeway to do whatever you like.

Just remember, for all styles and purposes, always be consistent. Try to pick one tense and stick with it throughout your piece. If you have to switch tenses, make it very obvious why you are doing so, and at least try to start new paragraphs for new tenses.

That’s it, I hope you have/had/will have good luck in your writing!

Get a Free Sample

We will get your free sample back in three to six hours!

We proofread documents 24/7 Support 888-833-8385

Customer Service

Get in touch.

ProofreadingPal LLC 105 Iowa Ave., Ste. 214 Iowa City, IA 52240

Call Us 888-833-8385

Live Customer Support Hours Sun.–Thur. 8 a.m. to midnight CT Fri. and Sat. 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. CT

Submit Documents 24/7

© 2010 - 2020 ProofreadingPal LLC - All Rights Reserved.

The Vocative Comma Is Important, People!  ·  September 25, 2022

8 Tips to Make Your Writing Sound More Formal  ·  August 29, 2022

Worlde Tips and Tricks  ·  March 10, 2022

Worlde Tips and Tricks  ·  February 25, 2022

Top 4 Misspelled Words  ·  November 5, 2021

How to Capitalize Medicine  ·  October 1, 2021

How to Capitalize Medicine  ·  August 18, 2021

4 Fixes for Comment Boxes in MS Word  ·  January 17, 2021

How to Avoid Wordiness  ·  July 15, 2020

Write an Effective Blog Post  ·  June 9, 2020

Proofreading Services Rates  ·  April 19, 2020

How to Make Your Writing More Inclusive  ·  March 5, 2020

How to Make Your Writing More Inclusive  ·  February 27, 2020

Guide to Olde English  ·  December 27, 2019

Guide to Olde English  ·  December 26, 2019

Common Apostrophe Errors  ·  December 19, 2019

Guide to Olde English  ·  December 18, 2019

Capitalization in APA, Chicago, MLA, and AP  ·  August 27, 2019

Avoiding Common Capitalization Errors  ·  July 31, 2019

Writing tenses: 5 tips for past, present, future

Understanding how to use writing tenses is challenging. How do you mix past, present and future tense without making the reader giddy? What is the difference between ‘simple’ and ‘perfect’ tense? Read this simple guide for answers to these questions and more:

• Post author By Jordan
• 28 Comments on Writing tenses: 5 tips for past, present, future

What are the main writing tenses?

In English, we have so-called ‘simple’ and ‘perfect’ tenses in the past, present and future. The simple tense merely conveys action in the time narrated. For example:

Past (simple) tense: Sarah ran to the store. Present (simple) tense: Sarah runs to the store. Future (simple) tense: Sarah will run to the store

Perfect tense uses the different forms of the auxiliary verb ‘has’ plus the main verb to show actions that have taken place already (or will/may still take place). Here’s the above example sentence in each tense, in perfect form:

Past perfect: Sarah had run to the store. Present perfect: Sarah has run to the store. Future perfect: Sarah will have run to the store.

In the past perfect, Sarah’s run is an earlier event in a narrative past:

Sarah had run to the store many times uneventfully so she wasn’t at all prepared for what she saw that morning.

You could use the future perfect tense to show that Sarah’s plans will not impact on another event even further in the future. For example:

Sarah will have run to the store by the time you get here so we won’t be late.

(You could also say ‘Sarah will be back from the store by the time you get here so we won’t be late.’ This is a simpler option using the future tense with the infinitive ‘to be’.) Here are some tips for using the tenses in a novel:

1. Decide which writing tenses would work best for your story

The majority of novels are written using simple past tense and the third person:

She ran her usual route to the store, but as she rounded the corner she came upon a disturbing sight.

When you start drafting a novel or a scene, think about the merits of each tense. The present tense, for example, has the virtue of:

• Immediacy: The action unfolds in the same narrative moment as the reader experiences it (there is no temporal distance: Each action happens now)
• Simplicity: It’s undeniably easier to write ‘She runs her usual route to the store’ then to juggle all sorts of remote times using auxiliary verbs

Sometimes authors are especially creative in combining tense and POV. In Italo Calvino’s postmodern classic , If on a winter’s night a traveler ( 1979), the entire story is told in the present tense, in the second person. This has the effect of a ‘choose-your-own-adventure’ novel. To rewrite Sarah’s story in the same tense and POV:

You run your usual route to the store, but as you round the corner you come upon a disturbing sight.

This tense choice is smart for Calvino’s novel since it increases the puzzling nature of the story. In If on a winter’s night a traveler , you, the reader, are a character who buys Calvino’s novel If on a winter’s night a traveler , only to discover that there are pages missing. When you attempt to return it, you get sent on a wild goose chase after the book you want.

Tense itself can enliven an element of your story’s narration. In a thriller novel, for example, you can write tense scenes in first person, present tense for a sense of danger unfolding now . Tweet This

A muffled shot. He sits up in bed, tensed and listening. Can’t hear much other than the wind scraping branches along the gutter.

2. Avoid losing clarity when mixing tenses

Because stories show us chains and sequences of events, often we need to jump back and forth between earlier and present scenes and times. This is especially true in novels where characters’ memories form a crucial part of the narrative.

It’s confusing when an author changes tense in the middle of a scene. The fragmented break in continuity makes it hard to place actions in relation to each other. For example:

Sarah runs her usual route to the store. As she turned the corner, she came upon a disturbing scene.

This is wrong because the verbs do not consistently use the same tense , even though it is clear (from context) that Sarah’s run is a continuous action in a single scene.

Ursula K. Le Guin offers excellent advice on mixing past and present in her writing manual, Steering the Craft :

It is highly probable that if you go back and forth between past and present tense, if you switch the tense of your narrative frequently and without some kind of signal (a line break, a dingbat,a new chapter) your reader will get all mixed up as to what happened before what and what’s happening after which and when we are, or were, at the moment. Ursula K. Le Guin, Steering the Craft

In short, make sure there are clear breaks between sections set in different tenses and that actions in the same timeline don’t create confusion by using different tenses for the same scene’s continuous events.

These 10 exercises for practicing tenses provide a fun way to focus on mastering the basics.

Get a professional edit for perfect tense

Get a no-obligation quote for a manuscript evaluation, developmental editing, copy-editing or proofreading.

3: Mix the tenses for colour and variety

Le Guin raises a good point about writing tenses. Le Guin describes the downside of telling a story almost exclusively in present tense:

It all rather sounds alike…it’s bland, predictable, risk-free. All too often, it’s McProse. The wealth and complexity of our verb forms is part of the color of the language. Using only one tense is like having a whole set of oil paints and using only pink. Le Guin, Steering the Craft

Instead mix different tenses where appropriate, but signal changes between time settings:

For example:

That morning, she had run her usual route to the store. As she turned the corner, she had come upon a disturbing scene. Apart from the glass and metal sprayed across the road like some outgoing tide’s deposit, there were what looked like two stretchers, mostly eclipsed from view by a swarm of emergency workers. Now, safely home, she decided to lie down, all the while trying to get that scene out of her mind.

Mixing the tenses can help to show the cause and effect of interlocking events. The use of the past perfect to describe the scene of an accident in the example above is effective because the past perfect shows what is already complete. It gives it an irrevocable quality, the quality of a haunting, living-on-in-memory event. Finished, but not finished in the character’s mind’s eye.

4. Practice showing shadowy past or present actions using verb forms

In addition to simple and perfect tenses, there are different ‘moods’ that show verbs as hypothetical or possible actions. In addition to the indicative mood (‘she runs to the store’) there is also the subjunctive mood (‘If she runs to the store’) and the potential mood (‘she may run to the store’).

The different moods are useful because they can show possibilities and scenarios that might have happened, or might still happen, under different circumstances. Here are examples for correct uses for each of the tenses (in active voice):

Subjunctive mood:

Present tense: If she runs to the store… Past tense: If she ran to the store… Future tense: If she should run to the store… Present perfect tense: If she has run to the store… Past perfect tense: If she had run to the store… Future perfect tense: If she should have run to the store….

Think of this mood as setting up a possibility. For example: ‘If she runs to the store, she better be quick because we’re leaving in 5.’

The potential mood helps us show shadowy, more hypothetical, uncertain scenarios:

Present tense: She may run to the store. Present perfect tense: She may have run to the store. Past perfect: She might have run to the store.

In each of these examples, the action is a possibility and the mood (using the various forms of ‘may’) shows this.

These verb moods in conjunction with tense are useful. They help us describe situations in which a narrator or character does not have full knowledge of events, or is wondering how events might pan out. They help to build suspense in the build-up to finishing a book .

5. Practice rewriting paragraphs in different tenses

It’s often easiest to get the hang of tense by doing. Pick a paragraph by an author and rewrite in each of the tenses. Here, for example, is a paragraph from David Sedaris’ essay, ‘Buddy, Can you Spare a Tie?’:

The only expensive thing I actually wear is a navy blue cashmere sweater. It cost four hundred dollars and looks like it was wrestled from the mouth of a tiger. “What a shame,” the dry cleaner said the first time I brought it in. The sweater had been folded into a loaf-sized bundle, and she stroked it, the way you might a freshly dead rabbit. David Sedaris, ‘Buddy, Can you Spare a Tie?’ , When You Are Engulfed in Flames

Rewritten in past simple tense:

The only expensive thing I actually wore was a navy blue cashmere sweater. It cost four hundred dollars and looked like it was wrestled from the mouth of a tiger. “What a shame,” the dry cleaner said the first time I brought it in. The sweater was folded into a loaf-sized bundle, and she stroked it, the way you might a freshly dead rabbit.’

Here is the same passage in past perfect:

The only expensive thing I had actually worn was a navy blue cashmere sweater. It had cost four hundred dollars and had looked like it had been wrestled from the mouth of a tiger. “What a shame,” the dry cleaner had said, the first time I brought it in. The sweater had been folded into a loaf-sized bundle, and she had stroked it, the way you might a freshly dead rabbit.

The effect is of a character describing the defining experiences before another event (before buying an even more expensive item of clothing, for example). For example, you could write ‘Before I bought that lavish suit…’ before the paragraph.

To perfect writing tenses, make your own exercises and practice rewriting extracts from your story in each tense to see the changing effect this has on your narrative.

Do you need feedback on your use of tense in a story? Get novel help from our writing community or your own, experienced writing coach.

Related Posts:

• How the future will impact your fantasy story characters
• Future technology books: Q&A with author Kate Baucherel
• Writing styles: 10 tips to master ways of writing
• Tags how to write tense , tense and narration , writing tenses

Jordan is a writer, editor, community manager and product developer. He received his BA Honours in English Literature and his undergraduate in English Literature and Music from the University of Cape Town.

28 replies on “Writing tenses: 5 tips for past, present, future”

A fine explanation of tenses. A subject often ignored, having been overlooked except by students of language. In short, changes in tense are great aids to tension.

Thanks, Bob! It’s true that it’s not discussed as commonly as certain other topics such as characterization.

Reading such articles clear all the confusion. Thanks!

I have question though, I am writing in past tense, all the events are happening in past tense. But, say, my protagonist is in a situation where she has to decide something and she is anticipating something, in short, it’s future for her, how do we go about that.

She was still sitting on the same bench, as she didn’t want to leave the light. She was sure that ………………………………………………………………….

What I want to write here is, she knew that she will not find any cab at this hour. a. She was sure that she will not find any cab at this hour. b. She was sure that she was not going to any cab at this hour. c. She was sure that she couldn’t get a cab at this hour.

In my current scene, I am trying to show the thought process of the protagonist and I have encountered 2 or 3 places where I have come across this situation. Am I doing something wrong? Should I not come across such situation at all if I am writing in past tense?

I understand reading helps, but at this moment, my mind is blank and I am not able to recollect anything that I (must) have read.

Please suggest.

Hi Jayendra,

Thanks for your question and the feedback. Number a. would be incorrect because ‘will’ is in the simple future tense (it would be correct in ‘She is sure she will not find any cab at this hour’). B would be correct with a few small tweaks: ‘She was sure she wasn’t going to find any cab at such a late hour’ (or ‘…any cab so late at night.’) Incidentally, ‘this’ implies present, continuous time so it is a little jarring in past tense (hence the alternatives above). c. Similarly, this option would be better as ‘She was sure she wouldn’t find a cab at such a late hour.’ ‘Would not’ is the right past tense form here, in present tense it would be ‘will not’. It implies future action in relation to the present time of the narration.

I hope that helps!

Hey Bridget, thanks for your reply. It feels silly now. If I was able to come up with “could”, why couldn’t I think of “would”! 🙂

Thank you for this article. Tense has been driving me insane as it feels like there are hundreds of exceptions when it comes to usage of “simple present verbs” in past tense narratives. It makes me want to disregard the entire subject and rely on an editor to catch any mistakes that I don’t naturally leave out.

For example. When you said, “Past perfect: Sarah had run to the store.” “Run” is a present (simple) tense verb, which would make you think that it can’t be used at all in a past tense narrative, but it clearly can if you phrase it correctly. This holds true with literally dozens of other verbs, adverbs, and other “tense” related words. I’m finding my work being hampered by this as I literally stumble over myself thinking I buggered up a word in my narrative, only to later find out it was a perfectly acceptable usage. I’m really at the breaking point over this, and I’m close to just disregarding it all together and relying on pure instinct and proofreading, then review by an editor at a later date. Then of course, there’s the whole deal with acceptable tense shifting…

Am I incorrect for thinking this way? Will this kind of mindset bar me from any chance of ever getting published or even being given an offer by an agent? Is there room in this world for easily confusable writers? I don’t know, and I can’t imagine how confusing this must be for foreign speakers, either. As I’ve been speaking english all my life and writing as a hobby for nearly a decade.

Anyway, sorry for the rant. I actually do have an actual question. How do you use simple present tense usages of “being” when writing in second person past tense? Because the phrase, “You are…(whatever character’s name) comes up quite a bit. However, there’s no way to get around the fact that you have to use “are,” in the past tense continuous, and I can’t find any info on if that is correct or not.

I have a question. Would it be incorrect if my story is in first person point of view and narrated in the past tense, but the internal monologue of my narrator is in the present tense?

Ex. “Don’t you ever go anywhere else, Red?” My name isn’t Red. I can’t remember where that nickname came from. “I go to school.” I said. I could feel him rolling his eyes at me. I think he’s done that before. “Come with me today.” I looked at him then, a little puzzled. It was a bad idea and yet I said: “Okay.”

It sounds right in my head but I feel like the tenses are too all over the place to be correct. The narrator has memory problems so I want what he’s thinking to be read but I’m just not sure if this is correct. I’m more comfortable with past tense writing but should I switch to present tense?

I have the same question!

Hi Hannah, this comment slipped by, my sincere apologies for that.

Regarding your question, the tense switching does jolt the reader out of the story. If you’re more comfortable with past tense, I’d suggest putting the internal monologue in past, too. For example:

“I go to school,” I said. I could feel him rolling his eyes at me. He’d done that before.’ Similarly, for ‘I can’t remember where that nickname came form’, you could simplify it to make past tense less clunky as: ‘Where did that nickname come from?’

I hope your story is much further along now!

I’m a translator struggling with getting the past perfect correct in the story I’m working on. I find your article very helpful. Thank you 🙂

I have one question:

That morning, she had run her usual route to the store. As she turned the corner, she had come upon a disturbing scene. Apart from the glass and metal sprayed across the road like some outgoing tide’s deposit, there were what looked like two stretchers, mostly eclipsed from view by a swarm of emergency workers.

The above example sentences describe an event that had happened in the past from the narrator’s perspective, and that’s why the past perfect is used. Okay, no problem. But why isn’t everything in the past perfect? Why is it okay to leave some parts in simple past?

“As she turned the corner” instead of “As she had turned the corner” “there were what looked like two stretchers” instead of “there had been what looked two stretchers”

This is the exact issue I’m having in my story. When I put every single verb in the past perfect, the sentences sound very heavy, especially when the section describing the past event is long. But I’m not sure which parts are okay to leave in simple past.

Thank you for the feedback and for your question. You struck the exact reason there – stylistically, to put every single verb in past perfect does read clunkier and isn’t necessary. As long as there is a past-perfect verb establishing the time-frame of events, the rest of the events that are still contextually happening in the earlier time period don’t necessarily need past perfect. For example:

‘It happened last week. I had stopped by the vet shop to get my dog’s flea tablet [past perfect – prior action is established]. I was standing at the counter waiting to pay when I saw the new vet through the back entrance.’ If you wrote ‘I had been standing at the counter waiting to pay when I had seen the new vet…’ each instance of past perfect situates the action in a time period before the ‘main action’. Whereas the scene the narrator is describing is the main event unfolding after a prior action (stopping at the vet shop) situated before this encounter by past perfect tense.

There’s a useful article explaining past perfect further here: http://www.englishlessonsbrighton.co.uk/use-past-perfect-build-narratives/

Thank you so much for your quick response, Jordan! Your explanation and the link you shared are very helpful 😀

It’s a pleasure 🙂 Glad I could help! Good luck with your story.

Hi Jordan. I have a question regarding exceptions. Are there any? I’m busy writing a short and it currently starts out as “I live on the top floor of a two storey apartment complex.” I then proceed to recollect in past tense. The entire story takes place over the course of 1 night and ends with the protagonist still living there. I think – as I’m typing this out – I should probably change it to past tense right? The rest of story is written in past tense. I should treat the entire event as a recollection rather than get caught up in the fact that the protagonist is still currently living there. It just felt like I was setting it up as a “Once upon a time I lived on the top floor…” which is not really my intention. It’s part of series so “I” will still be living there. It just seemed like a nice opener using present tense. Any ideas on how I can achieve the same effect?

Thank you for sharing this interesting question. I can’t see any reason why you couldn’t begin and end on present. As long as the cuts between present and past are clear/signaled to your reader it should be fine. For example:

‘I live on the top floor of a two-storey apartment complex. You’ll know why I’ve shared this detail soon, as it connects to what I’m about to tell you about a strange event that happened two weeks ago.

I was….’

If you bookend a section in present tense this way, with a clear transition between the tenses using narration, it should be fine. The main thing with tenses is not to hop between tenses within the same narrative time-frame (for example ‘I am running down a dark street. I heard footsteps behind me.’ Here, there’s nothing to signal the passage between present and past and it’s confusing.

I hope this helps!

Hey! I’m a self-taught proofreader, not a writer myself (haven’t a creative bone in my body, sadly), and I’m having a great deal of difficulty learning present tense. Up until now, all the stories I’ve proofread have been in past tense, so I’m trying to teach myself how to correct tense errors.

However, many of the websites I’ve come across aren’t tutorials, they’re essays about why not to use present tense in fiction! Well, that’s up to the author to decide! The issue I’m having is mostly with knowing when to allow usage of past tense to go and when to correct it.

For instance, in this sentence: “Thrown by the jump in numbers, most viewers click back in the video just to double-check that Danny had indeed jumped from #3 to #6, before shrugging and continuing to watch.” I’m thinking that “had” needs to be “has”, but I’m not 100% sure. I like to be mostly sure before suggesting a change. Thanks. 🙂

Hi Tracy! Here the past perfect tense (‘had’) is acceptable because it describes an action completed before the present narrative time-frame (e.g. ‘I’m walking to the store now which had been closed this morning’ would be correct if the narrator were walking in the afternoon). If you wrote ‘I’m walking to the store now which has been closed this morning’ this would imply that it is still morning in the time of narration, due to ‘has’ here being in the present perfect tense (describing a past action or condition (‘being closed’) stretching into the present time).

‘Has’ in your example would read a little strangely as it could imply that Danny ‘has’ (in the present, continuing moment) jumped from #3 to #6.

I would say, since the video has already been recorded, that ‘had’ makes sense because Danny’s error (jumping from #3 to #6) ‘had’ been made at the time of recording, and had been viewed prior to the viewer’s realization. So both moments are squarely in the past rather than stretching into the present.

Does that make sense? 🙂 Tense will get you!

It absolutely does, thank you! I’m going to have to go back and reread certain things now, but I definitely understand this. So things that happened prior to the time frame in the story can be past tense, even in a present tense story! Thank you again, so very much, I’m trying so hard to learn this, but I just find it difficult. xD Your explanation certainly simplified it for me, though! ^_^

This post also sums up the differences very well: https://www.dailywritingtips.com/has-vs-had/

So, in short, can I use different tenses in my work of a story writing? In direct speech inverted commas are needed.Isn’t it?

MIXING PAST AND PRESENT TENSES

The following paragraph has a mixture of past and present tense. I believe it to be grammatically wrong but, to my mind, it doesn’t jar when I read it back and it gives the reader a sense of immediacy. My question is: Is it an absolute no-no or is there a degree of artist license here?

Archie flicked on the chainsaw’s master switch and pumped the primer a few times. Resting the saw on the ground he gave the cord a good hard yank. It clacked through its gears but didn’t catch. The second pull bit and snapped back stinging his fingers as it recoiled. “Son of a….” he yelped. The third pull sprung the chainsaw into life with a metallic shrill sending out a cloud of blue smoke that wafted across the laundry. Archie let it idle in a high pitched grumble and then tested it with a few pumps of the throttle that sent the chain shinning around the blade. “Seems okay” he yelled over the noise before killing the master switch. “I guess the real test will be half way through a tree.

Thank you for sharing that, there’s a great descriptive density to it and a clear sense of scene.

I’m curious as to why you think it mixes tenses? To my eyes, it’s all in past tense. You do have a participle phrase or two (e.g. ‘Resting the saw on the ground’) that provide a present/unfolding action, but these are used correctly within past tense for the overall narration (you do use it correctly to show one action that is ongoing during another – the finite verb ‘he gave…’ after that participle phrase still keeps the tense within past as expected).

It would be mixed if you had finite verbs in different tenses for events occurring in the same time-frame, e.g. ‘He rests the saw on the ground and gave the cord a good hard yank.’ This would be jarring because there would appear to be two different time-frames for actions unfolding within the same scene, thanks to present verb ‘rests’ and past verb ‘gave’. I hope this helps!

Great article, many thanks!

Brief question – when writing in the past tense, can you still use present tense for general statements? For example:

I woke up as usual at 5:47 station time when air supply unit number five, that occupied the majority of the level below our quarters, sprang into action, producing a constant humming that would last for the next eight hours. It is never completely quiet on a space station, there are always sounds, vibrations and audible movements, and you learn to live with it. It never bothered me, it was the only life I knew.

Hi Stephan, it’s a pleasure. I’m glad you found it helpful.

Thank you for sharing your question. That does scan fine. In the first instance, there is a participle phrase which creates the sense of a presently unfolding action within the past time-frame (‘producing a constant humming…’). This is correct usage.

Then the flip to present informs the reader of a general, ongoing state of affairs which is where we would use present tense. It depends on the site in time from which the narrator is speaking. If they are no longer living in the quarters when narrating this, then perhaps ‘It was never completely quiet on the space station…’ would make more sense (past tense for recounting conditions no longer being experienced). But if they are still based at the station, then present tense narration for a general state of affairs in their environment fits, as presumably it still isn’t ever completely quiet when they’re narrating this.

I hope this helps! Thanks for the great question.

Thank you for this article. I found it helpful. Both of my main characters at one point recall their dreams. Since they are recalling them, I would write them in past tense correct?

Hi Chelsea, it’s a pleasure! Not necessarily. I find authors often use present tense for this (especially if the main narration is in past tense). It would look something like:

But then I remembered the dream I had…

I’m standing in a wide, open field. I hear someone calling from the other side …

Present tense does create a sense of the unfolding moment that suits the sense of reenacting an interesting event, so personally I would lean towards that. I hope this helps. Just remember whichever tense you’re using to have a narrative link that clarifies that the narration is now crossing over into the dream description (in my example above, it’s the words ‘But then I remembered the dream I had).

Thank you for reading our blog!

Wow, This was fantastic

Hi Danny, thank you for reading our blog and for your feedback!

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Pin It on Pinterest

Past vs Present Tense: Which is Best for Your Story?

by Russel | Aug 23, 2021 | Fiction planning

How to choose your narrative tense

When writing a story you need to decide on the grammatical tense you are going to use – i.e. whether it will be told in past tense, present tense or future tense.

The tense is indicated by the form of the verbs. For example, here’s a passage in the present tense:

I run through the dark forest. What if she catches up with me?

If we change that to past tense, it goes like this:

I ran through the dark forest. What if she caught up with me?

Practically, the future tense doesn’t really work for fiction as it’s difficult to keep talking about events as if they’re still going to happen. So we can eliminate this tense as an option and just stick with past or present tense.

That leaves the question – how do you decide on past vs present?

1. Tense is independent of story setting

The first point to note is that the grammatical tense of the story has nothing to do with the time period in which the story is set. If your story is set in the future, it can be told in the grammatical past tense. And you can use present tense even if your story is set back in the 17 th Century.

2. Conventions

Past tense is seen as more traditional because, but that doesn’t mean it’s old fashioned. It’s just the way that stories have always been told.

Present tense is the new kid on the block. It’s apparently more immediate and thrusts the reader more into the action. It gives the impression that the action is happening right now.

However, that doesn’t necessarily mean you should use present tense if you are writing something very dramatic. We all grew up reading stories set in past tense and when we listened to stories told by parents or grandparents they were usually told in past tense. So past tense has become a signal to us that we are entering story mode. If you’re having doubts about which tense to use – stick with past tense. It will serve you well in most instances.

Something else you can consider is what the current popular writers in your genre are using. For instance, in Young Adult fiction, there is a trend in favour of the present tense, perhaps because of the success of books like The Hunger Games , which are told in present tense.

For most genres it’s unlikely a publisher will reject your story just because it’s told in a tense that is not currently the rage. But do your own research here and check whether your favoured genre has any particular expectations of tense.

4. Instinct and feeling

The other way to decide on tense is just to go with gut instinct. Use the tense that your story wants to be told in. Your story will tell you what tense it wants to be told in and whether it wants first-person or third-person narration. The main thing is just to start with what feels right and then give yourself the freedom to change it later if you feel another tense and point of view seems more appropriate.

Tense in dialogue

An important point to remember is that speakers always speak from their present moment. This means that the verbs that give the tense of the sentence are the ones outside the quotation marks. You don’t need to do anything to the verbs in the words spoken because these are always spoken from the character’s present moment

Take a look at the following dialogue and see if you can identify what tense it’s written in:

“What did you do for Christmas last year?” I ask . She gives a glum expression and says , “Nothing much. Just sat around and exchanged polite insults.”

It’s the verbs outside the quotation marks that indicate the tense, so the present-tense verbs ‘ask’, ‘says, and ‘gives’ indicate that this is present-tense narration.

Notice that even though the narration is present tense, the characters are using past-tense verbs because they are telling about something that happened in their past.

When it comes to deciding on the tense of narration, my advice is not to let this become a cause for hesitation or over-thinking. It’s quite normal for writers to experiment with past and present as they begin writing a piece and then see which one serves them best. You can always go back and change the tense of what you’ve already written if you decide that another tense feels more comfortable and more suited to your story.

For the full story on choosing tense, with more examples and exercises, see my book and course Write Masterful Fiction (details below).

Learn Fiction Writing

Book and video course.

Write Masterful Fiction: The Complete Course on Planning and Writing Stories That Publishers Love by Russel Brownlee is your all-in-one essentials course for planning and writing fiction that grabs the attention of agents, publishers and readers. Get the book or take the Udemy course and learn the core techniques of fiction while building your own story step by step. Plus – find out how to avoid the 6 common errors that will cause your manuscript to be rejected within the first few pages.

Get the Kindle or paperback on Amazon or take the video course on Udemy .

Get Personal Writing Support

Book assessments and author coaching.

See if your manuscript is ready for editing or publishing – order an editorial assessment with detailed feedback report and problem-solving insights.

Or choose live author coaching support with feedback on your text and regular online inspiration sessions.

Recent Posts

• How to Punctuate Dialogue Correctly
• How to Edit & Proofread in Microsoft Word
• How to Become a Copy Editor in the UK (without Experience or a Degree)
• Writer’s Block: Overcoming the Perfectionism of Beautiful Writing
• How to Start Writing When You Don’t Know Where to Start
• Fiction planning
• Fiction technique
• Nonfiction planning
• Uncategorized

Free E-book

Is your manuscript ready for editing.

Find out by grabbing this 25-page report on the 7 key checks to perform before hiring an editor.

You have Successfully Subscribed!

Your privacy is important and you will not be spammed. Unsubscribe at any time.

Kindlepreneur

Book Marketing for Self-Publishing Authors

Home / Book Writing / Past Tense vs Present Tense: Which One Do You Need for Your Novel?

Past Tense vs Present Tense: Which One Do You Need for Your Novel?

The two major tenses available for creative writing are past and present (future tense is not a viable option). In fact, a common mistake new writers make is switching between the two or choosing the wrong tense. Before you start writing your book (or short story), it's imperative to decide which tense you'll use for the story.

And this article on past tense vs present tense will help you decide. 

• Past tense defined (with examples).
• Present tense defined (with examples).
• Pros and cons of each.

Table of contents

• What Is Past Tense?
• What is Present Tense?
• Simple Past and Past Perfect Tense
• Simple Present Tense and Present Perfect Tense
• Books Written in Present Tense
• Pro: It's More Versatile
• Pro: It's Still the Norm
• Pro: We Already Talk Like This
• Con: It's Not Quite as Intimate
• Con: It Can Be Confusing to Write
• Pro: Good for First-Person Narratives
• Pro: Great for Action
• Con: Some Readers Hate It
• Con: You're Stuck in the Present
• Con: It Narrows Your Options
• Past Tense vs Present Tense: Conclusion

Writing in the past tense means talking about something that happened in the past. The easiest way to think about this is to consider how people tell each other stories . If you wanted to tell someone about your day at work, you would probably use the past tense. 

Take this, for example: “Around eleven-fifteen, Gary showed up with a box of donuts. There was a stampede as we all rushed to get one before they were all gone.”

Note the use of the past tense verbs showed and rushed . The action is happening in the past. This is not only common for telling each other stories verbally, but the past tense is also the most common tense in fiction writing . 

Writing in the present tense means describing something as if it's happening right now . If you were to walk around all day narrating your every action and thought, that would be a form of present tense. 

Here's an example: “The clock reads eleven-fifteen as Gary steps into the office with an open box of donuts. Before he can even get the words out, everyone stampedes toward him to get one before they're gone.”

While you wouldn't tell someone of something that happened in the past like it was happening right now, the present tense can work for literature. Note the use of the present tense verbs reads, steps , and stampedes . The action in this example is all immediate, as if you're watching it happen. 

A Brief Rundown of Verb Tenses

The definitions above provide a broad view of the past and present tenses. But if you're planning to write an entire book in one of these narrative tenses, it pays to dive a little deeper. 

To fully understand the use of past or present tense in your creative writing project, it helps to first understand the different types of verb tenses. While I don't want to turn this article into a grammar lesson, it's important to at least be passingly familiar with the major verb tenses at your disposal as a writer. 

The use of both simple past and past perfect is common in fiction. The past tense example I shared above is written in simple past. But if I wanted to modify it to describe a sequence of events that happened before the narrative’s now, I would need to use past perfect. 

Here's an example: “Around eleven-fifteen, Gary showed up with a box of donuts. He had eaten one of the sugary treats ; I could tell by the frosting on his mustache. There was a stampede as we all rushed to get one before they were all gone.”

Formatting Has Never Been Easier

Write and format professional books with ease.  Never before has creating formatted books been easier.

In order to describe the sequence of events (Gary eating a donut before showing up and causing the stampede), the second sentence starts off as past perfect. Otherwise, the paragraph wouldn't be so clear. Using only simple past, it would look something like this: “Around eleven-fifteen, Gary showed up with a box of donuts. He ate one of the sugary treats; I could tell by the frosting in his mustache . . .”

While this second version might get the point across, it could be confusing to some, making it seem at first as if Gary picked up and ate one of the donuts right then, as the office rushed toward him.

Using the words had eaten indicates that the action took place earlier, helping to keep things clear for the reader.

Bonus: Brush up on your use of past progressive and past perfect progressive to really cement your understanding of writing in the past tense. 

Similar to simple past and past perfect, simple present and present perfect are often used in present tense fiction writing. The paragraph above in the present tense is a good example of simple present (sometimes called present simple tense). But let's see it with a present perfect example. 

“The clock reads eleven-fifteen as Gary steps into the office with an open box of donuts. He has eaten one of the sugary treats ; I can tell by the frosting on his mustache. Before he can even get the words out, everyone stampedes toward him to get one before they're gone.”

If you wrote this while using simple present, the sentence would be: “He eats one of the sugary treats . . .” which implies that he's eating it now as he steps into the room. 

The words has and have are your friends when writing in the present perfect tense.

Bonus: Brush up on your use of present progressive and present perfect progressive to really cement your understanding of writing in the present tense. 

The majority of fiction novels are written in the past tense. As such, I don't think we need a list of examples. Open your e-reader or go to your bookshelf. Unless you seek out books written in the present tense, you'll likely find that 8 or 9 out of 10 fiction novels on your shelf are in the past tense. 

This style is so ubiquitous that many readers don't even notice that the story has “already happened.” Despite the use of past tense verbs, readers can still become immersed in the story, feeling as if it's happening right now. 

Books written in the present tense, on the other hand, are somewhat rare. But there are certainly plenty of authors who have done this type of writing well. Here are some examples from different eras of excellent present-tense novels. Note that not all of these books are written entirely in the present tense. Some of them alternate to the past tense for certain characters or storylines:

• The Girl on the Trai n by Paula Hawkins
• Rabbit, Run by John Updike
• Bird Box by Josh Malerman
• The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
• Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
• Bleak House by Charles Dickens
• Divergent by Veronica Roth

Choosing Past Tense: Pros and Cons

So now that we've gone over the refresher, it's time to decide which tense you should use for your story. Here are some pros and cons of the past tense to help you decide. 

The past tense is much easier to work with than the present. This is because you can use all twelve types of verb tenses in English when writing in the past tense. This also makes it easier to move through time and bounce between different character points of view than in the present tense. 

You can rest easy knowing that most readers won't even bat an eye at the use of the past tense. They're used to it because most of the books they've read are in the past tense. If you're a new author , you want to give readers as many reasons as possible to take a chance on you. So you can’t really go wrong sticking to this tense .  

When we tell each other stories, we do it in the past tense (most of us, anyway). This means it has been ingrained in our heads, which helps us to write smoothly and naturally when we sit down to pen our story. 

Compared to the present tense, the past tense is not quite as intimate or immediate. For some stories, the past tense may not be the right choice . If you're looking to write a story that takes place over a short period, for example, the present tense might be best.

As mentioned above, you have more options when it comes to writing in the past tense. However, more options can mean more confusion if you're not up on your grammar. In past tense, you may need to use future perfect, past progressive, or past perfect. This can be overwhelming, which may deter some people from developing the daily writing habit it takes to finish a novel. 

Present Tense Pros and Cons

The present tense often works well for short stories, but it can be trying for an entire novel. Still, let your story dictate whether this tense is right for your novel. 

The present tense is a good choice for first-person books. Not only does it create a sense of immediacy, but it also helps the reader empathize with the narrator. Of course, this factor can also be exploited to great effect if your narrator is unreliable, making for subverted expectations and a big twist.

Action in present-tense novels is intense. This is because it seems like it's happening in real-time. In fact, the whole book seems like ongoing action because of the immediacy you get by writing this way. This is often why people compare present-tense stories to watching a movie unfold. After all, screenplays are exclusively written in the present tense for this reason. And when you’re watching a movie, it does feel as if you’re seeing the events play out in real-time.  

You can bet that if you write a book in the present tense, there will be some readers who won't get past the first page. Since this is not the norm, writing in this tense can rub some readers the wrong way. This is not something you can do anything about, so it's important to consider. Look at your genre and see if there are many books written in the present tense. If not, you might want to go with the past tense. 

It's difficult to jump around in time in a present-tense book. And this means many writers will include every small, meaningless detail. After all, when you're constantly in the present moment, it's awkward to jump ahead an hour, a day, or a week. This is one reason why it takes some skill and experience to write a novel in the present tense. 

Just as being stuck in the present makes significant time jumps awkward, it also limits your options for building and maintaining tension throughout the book. In the past tense, it's easier for the narrator to visit other characters or even reference an event that has yet to happen at that point in the story. In the present tense, this is nearly impossible to do well, so creating tension has to be done in much narrower ways, which can lead to gimmicky plot lines or unbelievable conflicts. 

Hopefully, this explanation of the different tenses has helped you determine which one is right for your book. If you're still not sure, try writing a chapter or two in both tenses. After you're done, leave them for a few days or a week and then read them with fresh eyes. This can help you see which one will work for your story. 

You certainly don't have to be a master of English grammar to understand these two tenses, but it helps to be aware of the common pitfalls for both the past and present tenses.

Dave Chesson

When I’m not sipping tea with princesses or lightsaber dueling with little Jedi, I’m a book marketing nut. Having consulted multiple publishing companies and NYT best-selling authors, I created Kindlepreneur to help authors sell more books. I’ve even been called “The Kindlepreneur” by Amazon publicly, and I’m here to help you with your author journey.

Related Posts

How to write a whodunit, top 8 best scrivener alternatives for writers (+ the only one that matters), scrivener vs. ulysses: which writing tool should you buy, sell more books on amazon, amazon kindle rankings e-book.

Learn how to rank your Kindle book #1 on Amazon with our collection of time-tested tips and tricks.

Join the community

Join 111,585 other authors who receive weekly emails from us to help them make more money selling books.