What tense should I use to tell my story?
by Vehemently

A marvelous idea for a story isn't working. You try and try and fiddle with the phrasing, and you can't make it come together. Or worse, there's something wrong with that flashback you've created, but you can't quite tell what. Maybe it's got something to do with tense! No, not your nerves, with the time-orientation you're using for your prose.

First, the basics. We have past, present and future as your basic tenses, all of them viable for writing a story in. Within each tense, you have some wiggle room for variation in time thusly:

past of past: past-perfect - I had run, I had been running.

present of past: past - I ran, I was running.

future of past: conditional - I would run, I would be running.

Example: I was running across a field. I had been running, and then I had stopped for breath, but now I was running again. I did not know what I would do when I got to the barn.

(For those of you keeping score, that last "when I got to the barn" is in the subjunctive mood, present tense, not the indicative past. If you really want to know why, look it up and write another of this series on proper use of the subjunctive in English.)

past of present: past or present-perfect - I ran, I was running, I have run, Ihave been running.

present: plain old present - I run, I am running.

future of present: future - I will run, I will be running.

Example: I am running across a field. I was running, and then I stopped for breath, but now I am running again. I don't know what I will do when I get to the barn.

past of future: future-perfect - I will have run, I will have been running.

future: plain old future - I will run, I will be running.

future of future: No clear appropriate tense. Mostly I just use the plain old future in a subjunctive clause or specify the time differential somehow.

Example: I will be running across a field. I will have been running, and then I will have stopped for breath, but now I will be running again. I don't know what I will do when I get to the barn.

Is that confusing or what?

So... what do you want to write in? The vast majority of fiction these days is in past tense, maybe mimicking the style of reporting techniques. That's a perfectly legitimate way to write, clear, in a form people understand.

Writing in the present can be done, but it's hard: there are two ways to do it, and I find only one (the hard one) satisfying. The easy way is to write as if it's a static assessment, a "Here's what I think" scene. It works for monologues, sometimes for vignettes, but it doesn't have the flexibility for a changing situation during the action. The hard way is what people call the 'infinite present' - "I do this and then I do that" in an endless forward reel through time but without the distance of looking back at the action. When it's done right I really enjoy it, since for me it gives a great immediacy to the character speaking. (Though others have pointed out a possible distancing effect in the same technique, take your pick.) It is a technique which just about requires some sort of intimate connection with a single character - limited omniscient, first person, etc, about which other essays have been written.

A good example of this might be "Presumed Innocent" by Scott Turow.

Writing in the future is very rare, not least because it's speculative by nature and an awkward, non-talky way to write. Past tense has the benefit of feeling like classic storytelling; present tense feels like an immediate, run-off-at-the-mouth experience, but future is a tense used sparingly in speech and is by nature tentative, unconfirmed, and devoid of subtlety of tense-switching (see above). Personally I have only read one story in future tense, and it depended on contrast between the semi-static present situation and the future ramifications of that situation. This short story is:

"We Came All The Way From Cuba So You Could Dress Like This?" by Achy Obejas

So can you switch tenses in the middle of a story? I say yes. There is the changing of tense at the changing of narrator, which is a nice way to set apart a particular character as all-knowing, or somehow else; an example of this might be "Ghosts" by torch in which Krycek speaks in the infinite present (1st person) in alternation with Mulder in the past, 3rd person.

Another type of tense-switching is employed in oral storytelling techniques, but is a tough thing to make work on paper/electrons - it's the 'historical present.' You hear it every day in speech: a friend tells you about a fight he had: "And I say, 'what's your problem?' And he throws a punch..." Those events aren't happening as you hear the story, but your friend is trying to convey the immediacy of something you've already mutually established to be in the past. Many myths make use of this, as well as Icelandic sagas.

"When the day came, then goes Thor out in order to see..."

(Prose Edda, my translation)

I don't generally advise this sort of thing except when you're being mythical or when enclosed in quotes as dialogue. It's one of those things you hear that just isn't the same with the leisure of reading it.

The last type of tense-switching is that of the omniscient narrator pointing out something which is true independent of the story — like a building which still stands despite whatever FBI agents can do to it, or a local legend, or a scientific principle. I would advise against using this except rarely, as it can make one sound pompous and distant if overused. But man, it can be a kicker if done right.

Thomas Harris was exceptional at it, in his novel "The Silence of the Lambs" - he describes Hannibal Lecter in the past tense, as Clarice might be seeing him, then jumps into the present to note that Lecter has six fingers on one hand. Just that one creepy detail, and then he's back into the past.

You can read Vehemently’s work here.