Tense Errors: Switching Between Past and Present

All right. Now that we’ve gone over the two types of tense that most stories are written in (past or present) we can get to the fun part—how people screw it up!

The most common type of tense error is simple: the narrative switches from past to present tense or from present to past tense when it shouldn’t. This is usually a quick, momentary mistake.

 We've all learned that switching back and forth between past and present when we don't intend to is a dangerous thing.

Here's an example passage:

     Spring had finally arrived in Chicago. I stood at my window, enjoying the warmth of the afternoon sun on my face and admiring the blossoms on the trees. The last of the snow has finally melted into puddles that are perfect for children to splash in. I smiled, glad that the long winter was finally over.

     Winter ending meant that my brother would soon return home. I was a little nervous. My brother was an unpredictable, even volatile man. There were times that he loses his temper unexpectedly but then calms down almost immediately. He inherited the trait from our father.

There’s a few errors of tense in that passage. Fixing them is simply a matter of identifying where the tense is incorrect and switching it back. If you have trouble picking the errors out, remember that tense is always contained in the verbs.  Nouns, adjectives, adverbs—every part of the language remains the same from past tense to present tense except for the verbs.

So, let’s highlight the verbs in that passage. We'll skip the gerunds and participles (the "ing" verbs), the unconjugated verbs ("to _____"), and other verb forms that won't generally change from past to present usage.

     Spring had arrived in Chicago. I stood at my window, enjoying the warmth of the afternoon sun on my face and admiring the blossoms on the trees. The last of the snow has melted into puddles that are perfect for children to splash in. I smiled, glad that the long winter was finally over.

     Winter ending meant that my brother would soon return home. I was a little nervous. My brother was an unpredictable, even volatile man. There were times that he loses his temper unexpectedly but then calms down almost immediately. He inherited the trait from our father.

Simple enough, right? Now let’s separate them by their tense—past tense in green and present tense in orange.

     Spring had arrived in Chicago. I stood at my window, enjoying the warmth of the afternoon sun on my face and admiring the blossoms on the trees. The last of the snow has melted into puddles that are perfect for children to splash in. I smiled, glad that the long winter was finally over.

     Winter ending meant that my brother would soon return home. I was a little nervous. My brother was an unpredictable, even volatile man. There were times that he loses his temper unexpectedly but then calms down almost immediately. He inherited the trait from our father.

The passage is written in past tense, so we simply need to take the present tense verbs and switch them to past tense.

     Spring had arrived in Chicago. I stood at my window, enjoying the warmth of the afternoon sun on my face and admiring the blossoms on the trees. The last of the snow had melted into puddles that were perfect for children to splash in. I smiled, glad that the long winter was finally over.

     Winter ending meant that my brother would soon return home. I was a little nervous. My brother was an unpredictable, even volatile man. There were times that he lost his temper unexpectedly but then calmed down almost immediately. He inherited the trait from our father.

And that’s that. If this seemed easy to you, that’s good—this should come pretty naturally to most people. If this didn't seem easy to you, that's okay—it's because tenses aren't actually as simple as just "past" and "present." In the future, we’ll discuss how errors can crop up in tenses most people don’t even know exist!