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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/29769
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/29769
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Stories do not have tenses. Individual verbs have tenses. Even an individual sentence can contain verbs in different tenses.

> Tom is saying that Jane promised that she will marry him in September.

Stories may be told in the narrative present, meaning that the narration is framed as if it were taking place at the events of the story unfolded, or in the narrative past, meaning that the narration is frame as if it happens after the events of the story. This has nothing to do with the tense of verbs using individual phrases in individual sentences in these stories.

In the narrative present, there will be numerous occasions to refer to events that happened in the past relative to the current moment of the narrative, or that will happen in the future. These are described using the appropriate verb tense.

In the narrative past, there will, similarly, be occasions to refer to events that happened in the past relative to the current moment of the narrative, or that will happen in the future. These are also described using the appropriate verb tense.

And in either the narrative past or the narrative present, there are statements that are describe permanent things, like the vastness of the ocean. Statements of permanent features are usually made using the present tense, since to use the past tense would imply that they have ceased to be true, and to use the future tense would be to imply that they are not yet true. The choice of tense in this case is determined entirely by the particular statement being made and is entirely independent of the rest of the sentence, paragraph, or story.

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