Read on Twitter
WRITING IN PAST TENSE - AN EDUCATIONAL FIC WRITING THREAD
so I mentioned a while ago that I wanted to start doing some educational fic writing threads that are education-based instead of rant-based. I got a cc asking about past tense so I figured I could start with that!
so I mentioned a while ago that I wanted to start doing some educational fic writing threads that are education-based instead of rant-based. I got a cc asking about past tense so I figured I could start with that!
SO when you choose a tense to write in you cannot i repeat CANNOT switch between them whenever you want you gotta pick one and stick to it, it's easier to write certain things in past and certain things in present so it's up to you the author to decide which suits your story best
HOWEVER there are exceptions, bc if you're writing in present tense and you wanna mention or narrate something that happened in the past, there's gotta be a way to do it without completely switching tenses, right?
good news, there is! all you have to due is use the auxiliary verb "HAD" for example if you wanna write "she went to the store" in your present tense fic, youd switch up the sentence and add had to it, to make it "she had gone to the store" or "she'd gone to the store"
one you add the "had," you can continue the sentence OR THE ENTIRE PARAGRAPH in past tense without worrying about an inappropriate tense switch. that one "had" effects everything that comes after it in the paragraph until you switch back to present tense.
If you wanna keep narrating a past event after that one paragraph, use "had" again in the first sentence of your next paragraph, and then continue writing in past tense until your paragraph is over or you make the switch back to present tense
only one 'had' is required but you can use more in the other sentences (but not each sentence) to emphasize that everything you're describing happened in the past
if you wanna write about your character planning on doing something in the future, you add "would" instead of had in a past tense fic or "will" in a present tense fic.
for example, "she'd do her utmost to get her revenge, she decided" for past tense fics and "she'll do her utmost to get her revenge, she decided"
for present tense fics you can also use "is going to" to talk about something your character WILL do in the future
please feel free to qrt this thread with comments or questions or something I left out, or shoot me a dm or cc! I hope to do another one of these soon! and to the anon who cc'd me asking about this, thank you! I hope this helps!
