Young Writers Society

YAY! Tenses!! My best friend!!

Not.

Okay, anyone who has read my stuff on here knows that I do have an issue with tenses in my stories. Thing is, we don't get along very well with each other. Changing minds and all that.

Anyway, enough of my random jibber-jabber and onto the intellectual stuff.

Can you change tenses throughout a book? I understand that changing tenses 'in the moment' isn't a good idea, but what about swapping from tense to tense from chapter to chapter? Does that work?

Any insightful comments or tense hate swapping stories would be muchly appreciated!!

My opinion? That's okay, but only if it means something. Don't just decide, "Hey, this chapter I'm going to switch tenses!" Readers will notice and spend the rest of the book wondering why on earth you keep going from past to present. I'm writing a story right now where half of it is one scene in the present, and I use present tense for that. The other half is comprised of three or four different flashbacks, which I write in past tense. I use it to differentiate the separate parts of the book, because it's important for readers to realize that the story is split down the middle: this in the past, this happening now.

If you have something like that you want to clearly establish, tense switches can be beneficial. Or if you just want something different for a flashback. Just make sure you have a good reason!

I think Evi pretty much hit this on the head, but I just want to stress that yes, it's okay to change tenses in a book if you have a good reason (ie: flashbacks, different narrative settings etc.), but, if you do mess with tenses, it is vital that your use of the tenses remains consistent. If one of your flashbacks is in past tense, the other flashbacks should probably be in past tense as well, unless you have a very good reason to structure it otherwise. If you occasionally depart from the story to talk about the narrator writing down what is happening and you write that in present tense, it should probably stay in present tense. Consistency is the key to pulling changing tenses off. Hope this helps! Best of luck!

I have a problem with tenses too, and I think it's fine if you switch off from chapter to chapter. Just make sure you let the reader know what's going on or give them a headsup at the beginning of a chapter.