Young Writers Society

When writing a story and you have the sentences written as past tense. Does the entire story have to be written as past tense? Is the writer allowed to change to the present after a sentence?

It has to be one or the other, within the one story. That is to say, if you start out wrining in past tense, then you shouldn't suddenly change to present tense in the next sentence, and vice versa. So either write completely in past or completely in present, just be consistent.
Hope this helps

Sarah is right, when writing a novel. It is best to keep the same tense all the way out so that the reader doesn't get confused between what is happening at the moment.

However, there are other times when shifting tenses is necessary. For example, if the time frame of the action changes from past to present or vice versa, than the tense should indicate this:

For example:

•Although it was only a four-hour ride from my home in Pennsylvania to my boyfriend’s home in Virginia, I was terrified. I think my feelings may have been influenced by stereotypes of the Old South.

The reason for this tense change is that I am thinking now—in the present time. Notice how putting that sentence in the past tense changes the time frame and meaning of the action.

Hey Moalex!

Personally, I take great pleasure in breaking tenses. It's so much fun. However, you do have to know the ins and outs of every rule and why it exists before you can break it, and this is particularly true in regards to tenses. If you get them wrong then it completely skews the meanings.

So, where can you break the tenses? This is dealing purely with the past and present tense (without all the icky inbetween stuff.)

Telling two stories at once

It's an interesting technique, but what you're basically doing is telling two stories at once, each one on a different timeline. One of them happened twelve years ago and the other is happening right now. You can do this with flashbacks, paralelles, or just to be odd. The Sherlock Holmes novels are a great example of the latter, and it works really well.

The Present Narrator and the past tense story

This is what Subi explained, where you're currently thinking about something that happened a while ago. The narrator exists in present tense and everything they do, whether it's thinking, feeling, moving, is all in present. The story they're talking about is in past.

Thought process

You can slip into present when writing what your character is thinking at the time that the action is taking place. After all, when they were going for a run they didn't think 'I wanted to be fast,' they think 'I want to be fast.' When you do this you have to make it obvious that it's an internal thought, like putting it in italics.

Other than those
Stick to a single tense. It's not so much about getting it grammatically right as making it coherent and easy to understand.

Hope this helps!

Thanks for all the help guys.

One massive warning for writing two simultaneous stories, switching between past and present: not everybody actually realizes you are doing this. I have been tripped up by many a story where they used that technique and I couldn't pick up on it.