Consistent verb tense
Recognise and correct inappropriate shifts in verb tense within and across sentences and paragraphs, maintaining consistency unless a shift is required by meaning
What a learner can do afterwards
- Identify and correct unnecessary tense shifts in a given paragraph
- Edit own writing to ensure consistent tense use throughout a narrative
- Explain when a tense shift is appropriate such as when describing a flashback
The lesson
When you tell a story, pick one tense and stay with it. If you start in the past, keep using past tense words like walked, opened, and was. If you start in the present, stick with words like walks, opens, and is. Switching without a reason confuses the reader about when things are happening.
Read this paragraph: 'Sam grabbed his skateboard and rides down the hill. He laughed the whole way.' The verb rides breaks the pattern, because the rest of the story is in past tense. Fixed, it reads: 'Sam grabbed his skateboard and rode down the hill. He laughed the whole way.'
Sometimes a shift is right on purpose. If your story is in past tense and you need to show something that happened even earlier, like a flashback, use had plus the verb, such as had lost or had forgotten. That is a meaning shift, not a mistake.
Stay in one tense all the way through, unless the meaning truly calls for a shift, like a flashback.
Watch it
Where it sits
Learn first
This opens up
Nothing builds on it yet.
Where this leads
Jobs that lean on this skill. Follow one to see everything it is built on.
8 questions wait behind this lesson, each with its answer explained. Every answer feeds the sky: stars light as they are learned, and dim when it is time to come back.