Don’t Shift  Tense

Keep verbs in the same tense, damn it!

If you write a paragraph in the simple past tense, then put  all verbs in that paragraph  in the simple past tense. If you write in the present tense, then all verbs in that paragraph must be in the present tense.

Examine the following paragraph. We have put the verbs into italics:

After she was revived by Hellboy’s kiss, Liz Sherman told him that while she was in hell she heard his voice. “What did you say?” she asked him . “Hey, you, on the other side,” Hellboy replied, “let her go. Because for her I will cross over, and then you’ll be sorry!”

In the above paragraph, all verbs are in the simple past tense. If you replace the second verb told with the present tense tells, the paragraph doesn’t make as much sense. Tense inconsistency distracts the reader. Verbs in the version below are in the present and past tense:

Using the chains, Rashida swings down from Barney’s loft bed. Her fingertips are chapped and sensitive on hands otherwise clammy and numb. When she loosens her bikini bottom to give her lower intestines room to digest, she spied her swollen tummy, laughed and cried out, “Oh my God!” so loudly that Barney raises his head from the pillow and mumbled: “What the?” her swollen tummy,

Past Perfect

Sometimes, a paragraph that is in the simple past tense refers to something that happened further in the past and that is already finished. In this case, use the past perfect tense with the helping verb had, but don’t forget that the paragraph is still in the simple past tense.

My son Andrew went to the laundry room. He lifted the lid and watch the clothes spin. But somebody had washed the clothes already. And whoever had washed the clothes had folded the shirts. Andrew, who was four-years-old at the time, shrugged and threw the clean clothes back into the machine.

This paragraph begins in the past tense, then shifts to the past perfect tense to indicate that someone washed the clothes before the boy arrived. The washed clothes are finished business. Therefore, the writer uses the verbs had washed and had folded.

Exercise: Fix the following sentences by putting verbs in the same tense:

1. On my very first date, I took a corpulent, unhygienic girl to a movie, drape my arm around her backrest (without actually touching any part of her body), and left it there for the next 90 minutes, until the blood stops flowing and my shoulder throbbed with steady, knife-like needles of pain.

2. After my girlfriend told me she is pregnant and wants to have the baby, I  come this close to jumping out a window,  until  I remembered that we had never have sex.