Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Post History

50%
+0 −0
Q&A 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 ...

3 answers  ·  posted 10y ago by System‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Question tenses
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T03:51:03Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/14303
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T03:51:03Z (almost 5 years ago)
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?

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2014-11-04T12:04:08Z (about 10 years ago)
Original score: 4