Writing Tense Help?

Question

Whenever I write fiction I have a lot of difficulty with tense. My verbs hardly ever sound right with what I'm trying to convey. For instance one of my first pieces was some kind of present progressive and it was a pain to read. Authors like Rowling and Leroux seem to have it down (I only use them as examples because I am reading their work). Can somebody please give me advice and list all tenses that exist in English and explain them? Thanks.

Answer 1

The responses above me are excellent advice. I will add to theirs one piece of advice that you may find useful in all aspects of writing, beyond just your tenses:

WRITE AS YOU SPEAK.

If you're having trouble getting a sentence to sound natural, just say it outloud (or in your head) exactly as you want to say it, and then write it down word-for-word.

The natural voice is always best. It will always be in the right tense (you don't ever stubmle over your tenses when you're chatting with your friends, do you?), and it will always be easy to read (bad writing is almost always the result of someone trying to hard to use words that don't come naturally to them).

The written word is usually less casual than the spoken word, but if you write it out in natural speech first, you can always polish it later.

I often write stream of consciousness, very fast, without editing myself at all, so that it's as natural as possible. Then I go back and edit, edit, edit. But the final product is still natural.

Your question suggests you're a native English speaker and proves that you have an natural mastery of the written word, so if you follow this method, your writing should be very good, and you'll never doubt your tenses again.

Good luck and happy writing to you!
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Answer 2

Listing all the tenses and explaining them would take a while. Check an English grammar book if you really want to get into that much detail.

Most fiction is written in the simple past tense:

Joe threw the ball, and the dog chased it.

Every now and then, something else gets thrown in:

Joe had buried the ball the day before, but the dog dug it up.

The "had buried" construction signals to the reader that the action was already completed before this part of the story.

You might also see something like:

Joe was throwing the ball when the telephone rang.

This past progressive, "was throwing," shows that the action is progressing when something else happens. It can also be used to show a continuing action (rather than an interrupted one as above).

Some people, mostly artsy, literary types, will write in simple present tense. This is harder and I dislike it unless there's a good reason to do it.

Joe throws the ball, and the dog chases it.

Hope that helps some. Stick with simple past for the most part, and you'll do fine. Keep reading a lot, too. Reading will help you figure out some of the different rhythms and tenses that are useful for your writing.

Answer 3

Traditionally, all verbs in popular fiction are in past tense, with two exceptions: some contemporary authors write in the present tense (this may eventually become the norm), and quoted dialog may be in any tense.

Answer 4

What you need are "The Elements of Style" by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White; and "Harbrace College Handbook." These have gone through many editions, and you may be able to pick up cheap older editions on amazon.com.

Continue to read "good" authors of all kinds. Let yourself be influenced by them, but don't try to imitate them.