Master your verb tense in fiction

Hey, y’all! Let’s talk about writing. 

Today is a good day to talk verb tense. In my editing life, I see a lot of manuscripts in which authors are struggling with a consistent verb tense, so let’s talk about how to avoid that. 

Verb tenses are tricky because we’ve grown so accustomed to all of them, if we’re native English speakers, because we’ve heard them all our lives and never paid attention to what effects are caused by changing them. 

You need to keep your verb tense as consistent as absolutely possible. Whatever tense you choose to write your story in, you must keep it in that tense unless it’s necessary to change it. 

Verb tense shifts are abrupt and jarring to readers, and if they aren’t done right, a reader can get confused as to when something is taking place. 

For example, if you write your story in the past tense, that means it’s already happened and you’re telling a story from the past. If you need to reference a story even further in the past, you can switch to past perfect or the “had been” tense. That shows your reader that, even though we’re in the past, we have moved to a scene further in the past. 

But, if you aren’t paying attention, and you weave in and out of those two tenses or other tenses, you’re going to make it hard for readers to know when something is happening, especially if you’re moving around in time a lot with your story. 

Readers use your techniques as cues. They see a verb tense shift, and they know to shift in their minds. But if you aren’t clear with your usage, you’re going to confuse them. 

So, if you’re going to write a story that takes place at multiple timeframes, you need to study your verb tenses and make sure you’re using them all correctly. If you don’t, you run a great risk of confusing, and then losing, your reader. 

Happy writing, y’all.