Writing in Past Tense

It’s a new year, and to kick this blog off right for 2022, I will give a quick update about what is happening with my writing.

If you signed up for my newsletter, you will get the full update next week about my debut novel, The Secret Mage. It is set to release this summer, and I will send out a newsletter in the next few months with the exact release date. Right now, it is in the final editing stages. I will periodically use this blog to send quick updates and to share my ramblings.

Every month, I will share a writing or editing tip that I have learned from my experience. This month’s conversation is about tenses.

First, let’s talk about the different verb tenses. Present tense is used when you want to talk about anything that is happening right now. Past tense is used to communicate things that have already happened. Future tense is used to indicate events that will happen.

When writing a novel, choosing a tense is almost as important as choosing a setting for the story, or choosing the point of view you want to tell the story in. Many authors write in present tense, while others choose past. There is great debate about which tense is best, or at least best for a specific genre. For this post, I want to discuss the importance of staying on track.

It is easy to get lost in the story you’re writing. It’s also quite common for writers to lose track of which tense they are writing in the further they go in the story. If you’re writing a large novel with a huge word count, it is almost expected that there will be mistakes. That’s where a good editor will come in: to help you sort out the mistakes and help you make your manuscript the best it can be.

One of the most frequent mistakes I catch as an editor is confusing present perfect tense with past simple tense.

You may be wondering what these two tenses are. “I thought there were only three tenses?” you may say. To be honest, so did I!

Present perfect tense is something we use in speech all the time. It refers to an action that began in the past and continues to the present, or it happened at an indefinite time in the past. For example, “She has had a cold since last week”, or “We have been here before”. Notice the use of has/have.

Past simple tense is the common past tense we’ve learned about since elementary school. It describes events that happened in the past.

When writing in past tense, an issue I’ve seen is using has/have to replace the past tense form of a verb. An example of this is: He has been waiting for me. Note that “has been waiting” is used to replace the past tense of “wait”, which is simply “waited”. In this instance, the sentence should read: He waited for me.

I like to use this trick when writing or editing manuscripts written in past tense. Ask yourself this: is the action still happening, or did it already happen. Sometimes, in the case of present perfect tense, an action is continuing into the present, so that will warrant the use of has or have. However, if the action is already completed, then use past simple tense. Depending on the context, a simple past tense verb usually is better suited for the text.

Example of present perfect:

I have been walking all day.

How to correct it to past tense:

I walked all day.

If you are writing a novel set in past tense, ask yourself if the character is still doing the action. If the action was done in the past, use the past tense verb.

Staying on track with the tense of your story is a tricky task. If you remember to ask yourself what the character is doing, or what they have done, you will be on your way to a well-written novel.