Past tense vs present tense
I’m writing a short story. I am using the past tense, but I have sections where I describe people and places that are supposed to still be in existence.
Should I continue to refer to them in the past tense e.g., “She had green eyes”, or should I switch to present tense e.g., “She has green eyes”?
I know that switching tense on readers is not very good form. What would be the effect of switching tenses like this?
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In English we normally relate stories entirely in the past tense. "She had green eyes." If she's still alive presumably she still has green eyes, but that isn't the point. You're talking about what someone did or saw or thought or felt at the time of the incidents in the story. Those are all in the past.
Consider, "The house was painted green." At the time you write the story, maybe it still is painted green. But if you write, "The house is painted green", what happens if the day after you publish someone repaints the house? Are you going to recall all the copies of the book and change the tense of the sentence?
Indeed, in any physical description, there are likely some things that have changed since the story was written and some that have not. Trying to keep all that straight would result in a constant change of tenses and irrelevant explanations. "She has green eyes. She was standing at the door wearing a heavy winter coat. Of course as I write this it's summer so even though she happens to be standing at the door again now, today she is wearing a short-sleeved shirt. But on that day she was wearing a heavy coat ..." Of course I'm being ridiculous, but that's the point. If you start saying, "Her eyes are still the same color", why not consider whether she is the same height, or is wearing the same color dress today as then, etc. We don't because it would interrupt the flow of the narrative for no discernible purpose.
In general, just tell what was happening or what things looked like at the time of the story. What is happening now is usually irrelevant, and "now" to you as a writer could still be the distant past to a reader.
The only exception to this is if you want to make a point of the difference or similarity between how things were then and how they are now. Like, "... and that house still stands there to this day", or "She often wore bright colors then, but since the death of her children she now wears only somber grays and blacks."
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She had green eyes is fine. Readers will undersand that her eye color is still the same since, in real life most people's eyes don't change color.
Maybe another example will help.
He drove a blue Ford Explorer.
However, now he drives a red Volkswagen Beetle.
Well, in that case you could say,
That was when he drove the blue Ford Explorer.
These days he's driving a red Volkswagen Beetle.
It's only necessary to make more specific notes when it is signficant and since eye color doesn't change unless it is significant to the story* then just keep the language as it is in the past tense. Otherwise the switching may confuse your reader.
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In narration, stay in one tense. "She had green eyes" is fine, because your entire story is in the past tense — the "present-past," if that makes sense. If she had green eyes as a child but has brown eyes in the present of your story, you might say "She used to have green eyes, but now she had brown." Still past tense, but used to have indicates it's a state of being in the past which is not currently true.
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